I'm gonna be honest, I had a Tiger and a Brave in the finals for the Cy Young at the beginning of the year, but it wasn't these two. I was thinking Spencer Strider was gonna win it for the Braves, and I was fully convinced that this would be the Casey Mize comeback season of the Gods. Seriously.
Which is to say that these two outweighing the odds and winning is a great outcome. Not predictable. Like if I'd have picked these in April, I'd have said like...Corbin Burnes and Tyler Glasnow. Much more exciting, honestly.
What also makes this a cool Cy Young outcome is that these two were both kind of uneasy rolls of the dice going into the year. Skubal was always gonna be a rotation option, but it was gonna be a matter of how healthy he'd be, or if he'd need more IL time [like Mize and Manning did]. And then he went on an incredible run and kept it going throughout the season, and into the postseason. I think in terms of sheer dominance, Skubal was pretty unrivaled this year, as even his competitors [Burnes, Crochet, Lugo] had more human moments throughout the year.
Meanwhile, Sale was an absolute flyer for the Braves, dealt by the Sox after several down years and some lost goodwill. The Braves gave up Vaughn Grissom just to see if Sale had anything left, and would play him from a low rotation rung for less damage. Then Strider got hurt, Fried got hurt, Elder struggled, and the savior, ultimately, was Chris frigging Sale. And with this opportunity, Sale did the one thing he never could do with Chicago or Boston...he outlasted the competition and was the best pitcher in the league.
Maybe it was just getting out of the AL, I dunno.
The one thing about the Sale win, at long last, was that it came at the expense of Zack Wheeler, another 'always a bridesmaid never a bride' Cy Young candidate. Once again, he was extremely good, and made it to 2nd in the voting, but...as always, there was just someone better. And to be honest, Chris Sale's peak years have been better than Zack Wheeler's. Sale, with this season, may have punched his ticket to the Hall of Fame, and I don't think Wheeler has the pre-28 numbers for that. So this was more fitting than anything, the one guy who beats Wheeler this time is the guy who got beaten, unceremoniously, too many times in the 2010s.
Look, my own personal home-team gripes aside, these were the two best pitchers in baseball this year, and they deserve the gold. What's weird is that, as inevitable as these two were, compared to the MVPs they're unexpected wins.
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