Corbin Burnes is no longer the reigning Cy Young champion. It was announced earlier in the month that Burnes was snubbed being named a finalist. Yesterday, the results were revealed. In a unanimous vote, Sandy Alcantara of the Miami Marlins won the 2022 Cy Young Award. Burnes ended up with 20 points, which equated to finishing in seventh place.
Sandy Alcantara wins the NL Cy Young in a unanimous vote. The full voting results: pic.twitter.com/SJxsL8h9eA
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) November 16, 2022
In total, Burnes received just one second place vote. He had two third place votes, one fourth place, and eight fifth place votes. The end result was that along with the finalists in Max Fried and Julio Urias, Aaron Nola, Zac Gallen, and Carlos Rodon all also finished with a higher point total than Burnes.
Did the voters get it right?
Yes. Sandy Alcantara was the heavy favorite to win this year and rightfully so. However, was Burnes finishing in seventh place appropriate? Let’s take a further look by comparing Burnes stats to Aaron Nola, Zac Gallen, and Carlos Rodon. Further evaluation of Burnes performance against Fried and Urias can be found here.
When compared to the others, Burnes made the most starts (33) but had the second most innings pitched and trailed Nola by just three. His 2.94 ERA was higher than Rodon’s 2.88 and Gallen’s 2.54. Burnes did strike out the most batters for he was the National League leader in that category.
In terms of quality starts, Burnes was the leader with 21. However Nola threw two complete games, Rodon one, and Burnes zero. Gallen was the hardest pitcher to hit with just a .186 batting average against whereas Burnes was second at .197. Impressively, Rodon also allowed just three home runs the entire season.
The reality is that all of these pitchers had phenomenal seasons. Point totals swung in favor of Nola, Gallen, and Rodon for they all received multiple second and fourth place votes, whereas Burnes had just one in each. Burnes is expected to be in the running for Cy Young in 2023, so hopefully next year he can improve upon seventh place!
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