Do strikeouts matter more to Cy Young voters now?
Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum (who, incidentally, was our pick) have now won this year’s Cy Young Awards. Neither led his league in wins; each was either first or second in strikeouts. Does that mean that wins don’t matter to the voters of the BBWAA anymore?
Perhaps it at least signals a trend. Let’s look at the league rank in wins and in strikeouts for starting-pitcher Cy Young winners in the NL over the years:
From the period of 1967 to 1998, wins mattered most to NL Cy Young voters; to wit:
- The lowest league rank in wins for a Cy Young winner was 5th.
- The winner was either 1st or 2nd in wins 86% of the time.
- The winner had as high a rank in wins as strikeouts 79% of the time.
- The winner ranked 10th or worse in strikeouts six times, and one winner ranked 24th and another 35th.
But in 1999, voters began a trend of subordinating wins to strikeouts. A year after Tom Glavine led the NL in wins but was 24th in strikeouts, Randy Johnson ranked first in strikeouts but was only 8th in wins, the worst wins rank in the history of the NL award. From 1999 onward then:
- The league leader in strikeouts has won the Cy Young 80% of the time, and one of the top two finishers in strikeouts has won 90% of the time.
- The winner had as high a rank in wins as strikeouts only half the time, and three of those five times were first-place finishes in both categories.
- The winner has never had a higher rank in wins than strikeouts.
So it’s fairly clear that voters are prizing strikeouts these days. But, as it started in 1999, it’s hardly a new trend. Even so, it’s a trend that speaks well of the writers. In a season in which no fewer than five starting pitchers were defensible Cy Young candidates in the NL and a handful in the AL, the writers picked the most deserving ones. Just as encouraging has been their apparent rationale for doing so.