Kate Upton calls out Cy Young voters for Verlander’s loss

Goodall, one of several AP writers who vote for BBWAA awards, does not exclusively cover baseball; he reports on a variety of sports in the Tampa Bay area.

Only 17 pitchers in baseball history have won the Cy Young Award twice.

Verlander also received 14 first-place votes to just eight for Porcello. In 1992, Tom Glavine won the award over Trevor Hoffman with two fewer first place votes and in 2009, Tim Lincecum won the award over Adam Wainwright with 1 less first place vote.

“You get into those top three guys and it’s kind of like everyone’s deserving of the award, at that point”, Porcello said on a conference call. Others receiving votes were Johnny Cueto, Jose Fernandez, Noah Syndergaard and Tanner Roark.

Verlander faced the Rays one time this season – allowing two runs (one earned) over seven innings in a 3-2 Tigers win on July 2. He had an ERA of 2.96.

The 6-foot-5 hurler signed with Boston in 2015 and pitched to 9-15 record with a 4.92 ERA. Overall, he led the league with a.207 opponents’ batting average against. But Porcello’s whopping 18 second-place votes ended up being the difference maker. It was the narrowest margin to decide the AL victor since David Price beat Verlander by four points in 2012. Cleveland Indians pitcher Corey Kluber finished third. The Tigers righty received four fourths, three fifths, and two ballot exclusions to lose 137-132.

The model followed the statement up by asking which two writers did not actually have her man on their ballot. Chastain and Goodall did not make indefensible choices – Chastain went Porcello-Britton-Kluber-Sale-Masahiro Tanaka; Goodall went Porcello-Kluber-J.A. Happ-Britton-Aaron Sanchez.

In the end, the point system showed that Porcello was the best pitcher in the league by a slight margin.