Did Wheeler do enough to win Cy Young? Harper thinks so
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No team in baseball has won more Cy Young Awards than the Dodgers, with 12.
The Phillies, Braves, Mets and Red Sox are tied for second with seven apiece.
Either the Phillies or the Braves will almost certainly take sole possession of second place on the list following Wednesday night's National League Cy Young Award announcement at 6 p.m. ET on MLB Network. Chris Sale, Zack Wheeler and the Pirates¡¯ Paul Skenes are finalists for the award. Sale is the favorite because he led the NL in wins (18), ERA (2.38) and strikeouts (225), but Wheeler made a strong case for himself, especially in the final two weeks of the season.
Wheeler finished the season 16-7 with 200 innings pitched, a 2.57 ERA, 224 strikeouts and 6.1 WAR per Baseball Reference. He led NL pitchers in WHIP (0.96), opponents¡¯ batting average (.192), opponents¡¯ on-base percentage (.253), opponents¡¯ OPS (.581), opponents¡¯ wOBA (.256), quality starts (26) and starts of six-plus innings (26). Wheeler trailed Sale by only 0.1 bWAR for the NL lead among pitchers. Sale also led NL pitchers with 6.4 fWAR. Wheeler finished second with 5.4 fWAR.
But Wheeler faced 85 more batters (787 to 702) and threw 22 1/3 more innings than Sale, who was limited to 177 2/3 innings because of a late-season injury.
¡°He¡¯s a Cy Young, man,¡± Bryce Harper said of Wheeler in September. ¡°I don¡¯t think anybody in baseball is better than him at this point. I don¡¯t think anybody is in the National League, either. The people down in Atlanta probably think the same thing about the guy [Sale] throwing down there, but I thought [Wheeler] got robbed of it three years ago. I believe he earned it this year.¡±
Wheeler finished second to Corbin Burnes for the 2021 NL Cy Young Award, despite pitching 46 1/3 more innings than Burnes, who finished with 12 first-place votes and 151 points. Wheeler finished with 12 first-place votes and 141 points. According to the Baseball Writers¡¯ Association of America, it was the closest NL Cy Young vote since the ballot expanded from three pitchers to five in 2010.
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Maybe Wheeler¡¯s late-season surge ekes out a win over Sale. If not, he remains on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Yes, you read that correctly. MLB.com's Mike Petriello breaks down every reason why Wheeler is on a path to Cooperstown.
If so, he would join the Phillies¡¯ previous Cy Young winners:
1972: Steve Carlton
1977: Carlton
1980: Carlton
1982: Carlton
1983: John Denny
1987: Steve Bedrosian
2010: Roy Halladay