2015 featured three of the greatest seasons by pitchers in league history. Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw each would have won the Cy Young award with their ’15 numbers almost any other year. But only one could win the award this year. In the end, it was the Jackalope breakout star who captured the award to go along with his Rookie of the Year honor, which was announced last night. Jake Arrieta is the 2015 DTBL Cy Young award winner.
There isn’t much left to say that I didn’t already cover last night, so let’s recap some of the highlights. Arrieta led the league in wins with 22, which was three more than any other pitcher. His minuscule 1.77 ERA and 0.865 WHIP were both second in the league behind Greinke. He led the league in pitching PAR (16.32), which currently stands as the highest mark ever recorded (2010-present). As shocking as all of those numbers are, he was not a likely winner of this award as recently as mid-season. But his second half was simply as good as it gets. The highlight of that incredible stretch was the no-hitter he threw against the Dodgers in late August. He won the Pitcher of the Month award in August and nearly did it in September as well. He earned three Pitcher of the Week honors too.
I would be remiss if I didn’t give some special mention to the other pair of pitchers who would have won this award almost any other season. Moonshiners righty Zack Greinke and Mavericks lefty Clayton Kershaw had as strong of seasons on the mound as any pair of MLB teammates you’ll ever see. The Dodgers duo were huge assets to their DTBL teams as well, but in the end it was the guy on the championship squad who got the award. Greinke’s 1.66 ERA and 0.844 WHIP both rank third on the all-time DTBL single season lists. Greg Maddux is the only pitcher who has ever posted a better ERA in a season (1994 and 1995). Meanwhile, Kershaw blew away the field in strikeouts with 301. He is the first pitcher to reach the 300 mark since Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling both did it 13 years ago. The two time defending Cy Young winner, Kershaw was unable to make it three in a row, but has now finished in the top three of the vote an incredible five years in a row. Greinke won the award back in 2009, but this is the first time he even received votes since. Obviously, this is the first Cy Young for the DTBL rookie Arrieta.
As expected, this was a very tight vote. The three aforementioned pitchers received all of the first, second and third place votes. Arrieta garnered five first place votes on his way to 81 points. Greinke was just a little shy of that, finishing with 75 points and three first place tallies. Finally, Kershaw got a pair of first place votes as well and accumulated 64 points. Needless to say, there was quite a gap after those three. The Kings’ Max Scherzer looked like a leading candidate for this award in the first half of the season, but an uneven second half dropped him to fourth place with 13 points. Finally, Moonshiners lefty Dallas Keuchel, who came in second to Arrieta in the Rookie of the Year vote, finished fifth for Cy Young. Gerrit Cole, Madison Bumgarner and David Price had pretty amazing seasons in their own rights, but didn’t come close to making a major play at this award.
Click here to view the full voting results.
So the Year of the Jackalope continues with two major awards added to the trophy case. Will they sweep all three? The MVP race figures to be extremely tight too, so you’ll have to wait and see. I probably won’t have time to announce that winner until either Sunday or Monday night, so check back next week.