{"id":805,"date":"2014-11-13T19:21:51","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T02:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=805"},"modified":"2014-11-13T19:21:51","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T02:21:51","slug":"kershaw-wins-cy-young-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=805","title":{"rendered":"Kershaw Wins Cy Young Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/456057424?et=1f8yaNFDQ-tzRiRziMBKzw&#038;sig=Fw16uB3GaJ6J37wx-sVfHWCJy17KFGYID83XNNr909E=\" width=\"330\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n2014 was the best year for pitchers in the DTBL&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>This one really was a no-brainer. \u00a0Kershaw had one of the best seasons in league history. \u00a0He easily led the league in ERA and WHIP and also led the way with 20 wins. \u00a0His 1.77 ERA was the fourth lowest mark ever in the DTBL, even beating his minuscule 1.83 ERA from last year. \u00a0His 0.857 WHIP was the third best ever. \u00a0Only two DTBL pitchers have put up lower ERA and WHIP numbers in a single season: \u00a0Greg 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. \u00a0More on Kershaw&#8217;s place in history with Maddux and Martinez in just a bit. \u00a0His 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.<\/p>\n<p>This was Kershaw&#8217;s best season to date. \u00a0And 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. \u00a0Since 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. \u00a0Still only 26 years old, he already has 89 career wins with a 2.35 ERA, 1.018 WHIP and 1,296 strikeouts. \u00a0He easily holds the DTBL career records in ERA and WHIP among starting pitchers. \u00a0The Mavericks pitching staff wasn&#8217;t nearly as dominant as it was a year ago, but Kershaw obviously wasn&#8217;t to blame. \u00a0He was their best pitcher, as he has been pretty much throughout the entirety of his career.<\/p>\n<p>The scary thing is, Kershaw seems to\u00a0keep getting better. \u00a0He has now finished in the top three of the Cy Young vote four years in a row. \u00a0But the last two years have been truly remarkable. \u00a0He joins Maddux and Martinez as clear cut leaders in terms of best back-to-back seasons for pitchers in the DTBL. \u00a0Maddux&#8217;s 1994 and 1995 seasons featured the two lowest ERAs ever. \u00a0Martinez wasn&#8217;t far off with his 1999 and 2000 campaigns. \u00a0And now Kershaw in 2013 and 2014. \u00a0It is too early to judge Kershaw&#8217;s ultimate place in history. \u00a0But it won&#8217;t be long before the conversation about pitching greats begins with those three&#8230;. and then moves on to everybody else.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned, Kershaw was a unanimous selection for the Cy Young award. \u00a0It wasn&#8217;t due to a lack of solid competition though. \u00a0The Demigods&#8217; Johnny Cueto rode a career year to\u00a0a distant second place finish with 56 points, receiving half of the second place votes. \u00a0Jackalope ace Felix Hernandez received the other half of those second place votes and finished just one point behind Cueto. \u00a0The difference wound up being that Hernandez did not appear on one of the ballots. \u00a0Yesterday&#8217;s Rookie of the Year winner, Demigods&#8217; Corey Kluber came in fourth place with 17 points. \u00a0It is interesting that Hernandez beat Kluber so easily after Kluber nabbed the AL Cy Young from King Felix. \u00a0But keep in mind that Kluber was in the minors for the Demigods for a few weeks in April. \u00a0There was a three way tie for fifth place, including the champion Naturals&#8217; ace David Price and a pair of Cougars hurlers: \u00a0Adam Wainwright and post-season hero Madison Bumgarner. \u00a0All three received ten points.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/CY14.txt\">Click here<\/a> to view the full Cy Young voting results.<\/p>\n<p>The big one will have to wait until next week. \u00a0I intend to announce the MVP winner on Monday evening. \u00a0Kershaw probably would have been a leading candidate for that one too, except we reserve that award for hitters in this league. \u00a0So who will it be? \u00a0Check back on Monday to find out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2014 was the best year for pitchers in the DTBL&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-mavericks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}