No Cy Young award sends pitcher’s fiancee into Twitter rant

Along with the five first-place votes, Britton gained three second-place votes, two third-place votes, five fourth-place votes and nine fifth-place votes.

The system leans heavily toward favoring pitchers earning the most first-place votes.

Some people voted for Donald Trump last week. Both writers were from the Tampa Bay chapter of the BBWAA.

Verlander’s biggest problem might’ve been the value set of the Zach Britton voters. Those two writers have some explaining to do, but even if both had put Verlander on their ballot it would not have assured victory for the Detroit Tigers ace.

That alone didn’t create the five-point difference that separated Porcello from Verlander.

Chastain sent in his ballot before the season was over. Not everyone will agree with that assessment, but it’s a valid argument.

Generally speaking, I’ve always shared the widely held belief that starters are more deserving of the Cy Young than relievers. But there must be something the Major League Baseball writers saw that I didn’t – clearly there is – because it seems like Verlander would be the clear victor, even though the Tigers didn’t make the playoffs. What doesn’t seem to compute is why half the voters had Verlander third or worse on their ballots. After leading Major League Baseball with 22 wins and providing a spendid strikeout-to-walk ratio (189:32), he deserved recognition.

It bothered me that I couldn’t find a place for Sanchez, the Blue Jays’ J.A. Happ, who won 20 games and Masahiro Tanaka, who had a 3.07 ERA and helped kept the Yankees in the AL East race. “I take a lot of pride in what I do and I think the pressure I was putting on myself – and obviously there’s pressure playing in a city like that – it’s something that I nearly couldn’t get out of my own way”. She also has a bit of a vested interest as it’s rumored that Verlander would be due an extra $500,000 had he won the Cy Young. The vote was tight, with Verlander ousting Porcello in innings, strikeouts, strikeout rate, WHIP, and ERA; but Porcello’s qualifying efforts and adopted leadership over the course of the season, were enough to be elected the victor.

By comparison, the National League Cy Young Award seemed nearly boring.

Porcello received eight of the 30 first-place votes in balloting conducted by the Baseball Writers Association of America, finishing with 137 points.

Porcello was eventually asked about it and responded, via ESPN Red Sox writer Scott Lauber.