Last year Brewers ace Corbin Burnes won the 2021 NL Cy Young award. He became the third player in franchise history to win the award. This year, Burnes’ put together another phenomenal season. Apparently his efforts were not good enough for him to be named a finalist for this year’s Cy Young award. There were a lot of good performers at the starting pitcher position in 2022, but Burnes not being named a candidate is certainly surprising.
The three finalists for the 2022 NL Cy Young are Julio Urias, Max Fried, and Sandy Alcantara.
The finalists for the @officialBBWAA NL Cy Young Award! ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/BeelQ0c9Dv
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) November 7, 2022
Here is how Corbin Burnes stats compared to the 2022 Cy Young candidates.
Corbin Burnes: 202.0 IP, 2.94 ERA, 33 GS, 21 QS, 243 K, 0.97 WHIP, 10.83 K/9 .196 AVG.
Julio Urias: 175 IP, 2.16 ERA, 31 GS, 19 QS, 166 K, 0.96 WHIP, 8.54 K/9, .199 AVG.
Max Fried: 185.1 IP, 2.48 ERA, 32 GS, 21 QS, 170 K, 1.01 WHIP, 8.26 K/9, .225 AVG.
Sandy Alcantara: 228.2 IP, 2.28 ERA, 32 GS, 24 QS, 207 K, 0.98 WHIP, 8.15 K/9, .212 AVG
Out of this group of pitchers, Burnes is the leader in games started, strikeouts, and K/9. His ability to strike batters out was a big strength again this year. Aside from Carlos Rodon (237 K) and Aaron Nola (235 K), the next closest pitcher in terms of strikeouts was Alcantara at 207. That is quite a large margin.
In terms of ERA, Urias won the ERA title in the National League, Alcantara was second, and Fried finished third. Burnes finished 10th in the NL. When Burnes won the Cy Young award in 2021, he did also win the ERA title.
When you look at the ability to pitch deep into games, Alcantara led the majors in innings pitched. During 14 of his starts, he went eight innings and six times he tossed a complete game. We have not seen a pitcher dominate and work deep into games like he did in 2022 in quite some time.
Out of three finalists, it would have been nice to see Burnes get the nod over Fried. As good as Fried was, putting Burnes into the conversation because of how dominant he was in generating strikeouts would have made more sense.
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