DeGrom, Snell get nod for Cy Young honors
NEW YORK - Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets easily won the National League Cy Young Award on Wednesday, while Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays has edged out two past winners for the American League prize.
DeGrom won just 10 games, the fewest ever by a Cy Young-winning starter. He got 29 first-place votes and 207 points in voting announced by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
Washington's Max Scherzer got the other first-place vote and finished second while seeking a third straight Cy Young and fourth overall.
Snell narrowly beat Justin Verlander and Corey Kluber for his first AL Cy Young after leading the majors with 21 victories.
In his first season after chopping off his distinctive long hair, deGrom cut down hitters from start to finish despite little help from teammates. He had a 1.70 ERA, the lowest in the NL since Zack Greinke's 1.66 mark in 2015. Yet the 30-year-old right-hander went 10-9, eclipsing the low bar among starters set by Seattle's Felix Hernandez when he took the award with 13 victories in 2010.
DeGrom allowed three runs or fewer in 29 consecutive starts to close the season, breaking Leslie "King" Cole's 108-year-old record of 26 such outings. Yet the Mets were 11-18 in those games and 14-18 overall with deGrom on the mound.
"My thought process was, 'Hey, take the ball every fifth day and continue to try to put this team in position to win and control what you can control,'" deGrom said.
Hernandez's Cy Young victory signaled a major shift from voters, who once prioritized pitcher wins.
The push toward advanced analytics made deGrom's candidacy possible, and by September there was little debate he was worthy, even as the Mets regularly wasted his dominance.
Perhaps no pitcher has ever been such a hard-luck loser. New York averaged 3.5 runs in games started by deGrom, second only to Cole Hamels for worst support in the majors among qualified pitchers.
During one stretch late in the season, the Mets totaled 10 runs over seven of deGrom's outings, and four of those were driven in by the pitcher himself.
DeGrom nearly produced more wins above replacement than actual wins - a dubious sabermetric feat that has only been accomplished once, when the Philadelphia Athletics' Eddie Smith went 4-17 with 4.1 WAR in 1937.
