2014 was the best year for pitchers in the DTBL’s 22 season history. The total league ERA of 3.31 was the lowest mark ever, easily besting the 3.39 combined ERA of 2011. So there was no shortage of great pitching in the league. Yet one player easily stood out among the rest. Despite hitting the disabled list following his first outing of the year, Clayton Kershaw returned as good as new and simply dominated for the next five months. Following a 2013 season in which Kershaw narrowly won the Cy Young award over Max Scherzer, he left no doubt who the winner would be this year. Mavericks ace Clayton Kershaw is the unanimous selection for the 2014 DTBL Cy Young award.
This one really was a no-brainer. Kershaw had one of the best seasons in league history. He easily led the league in ERA and WHIP and also led the way with 20 wins. His 1.77 ERA was the fourth lowest mark ever in the DTBL, even beating his minuscule 1.83 ERA from last year. His 0.857 WHIP was the third best ever. Only two DTBL pitchers have put up lower ERA and WHIP numbers in a single season: Greg Maddux in 1995 and Pedro Martinez in 2000, which happen to be the first two players/years mentioned whenever people discuss the best pitcher seasons of the past quarter century. More on Kershaw’s place in history with Maddux and Martinez in just a bit. His early season injury prevented him from having a realistic shot at leading the league in all four starting pitcher categories, but his 239 strikeouts put him on the league leaderboard as well.
This was Kershaw’s best season to date. And that is saying something considering he has been nothing short of remarkable almost since the day he was drafted by the Mavericks in the sixth round in 2009. Since his second season, he has never had an ERA over 3.00 or a WHIP over 1.200, numbers that would be a career bests for most pitchers. Still only 26 years old, he already has 89 career wins with a 2.35 ERA, 1.018 WHIP and 1,296 strikeouts. He easily holds the DTBL career records in ERA and WHIP among starting pitchers. The Mavericks pitching staff wasn’t nearly as dominant as it was a year ago, but Kershaw obviously wasn’t to blame. He was their best pitcher, as he has been pretty much throughout the entirety of his career.
The scary thing is, Kershaw seems to keep getting better. He has now finished in the top three of the Cy Young vote four years in a row. But the last two years have been truly remarkable. He joins Maddux and Martinez as clear cut leaders in terms of best back-to-back seasons for pitchers in the DTBL. Maddux’s 1994 and 1995 seasons featured the two lowest ERAs ever. Martinez wasn’t far off with his 1999 and 2000 campaigns. And now Kershaw in 2013 and 2014. It is too early to judge Kershaw’s ultimate place in history. But it won’t be long before the conversation about pitching greats begins with those three…. and then moves on to everybody else.
As mentioned, Kershaw was a unanimous selection for the Cy Young award. It wasn’t due to a lack of solid competition though. The Demigods’ Johnny Cueto rode a career year to a distant second place finish with 56 points, receiving half of the second place votes. Jackalope ace Felix Hernandez received the other half of those second place votes and finished just one point behind Cueto. The difference wound up being that Hernandez did not appear on one of the ballots. Yesterday’s Rookie of the Year winner, Demigods’ Corey Kluber came in fourth place with 17 points. It is interesting that Hernandez beat Kluber so easily after Kluber nabbed the AL Cy Young from King Felix. But keep in mind that Kluber was in the minors for the Demigods for a few weeks in April. There was a three way tie for fifth place, including the champion Naturals’ ace David Price and a pair of Cougars hurlers: Adam Wainwright and post-season hero Madison Bumgarner. All three received ten points.
Click here to view the full Cy Young voting results.
The big one will have to wait until next week. I intend to announce the MVP winner on Monday evening. Kershaw probably would have been a leading candidate for that one too, except we reserve that award for hitters in this league. So who will it be? Check back on Monday to find out!