NEWSLETTER
Last night, Major League Baseball and the Baseball Writers Association of North America, Earth, Solar System Alpha, Universe C-127 announced the three finalists for their marquee awards: MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the year.
If you’re interested, you can see the full lists of finalists here at BleacherNation.com.
And while I have many thoughts and comments on the finalists themselves, one thing stood out to me as especially unusual. But to spot it, we need to go back a few years.
Below, I’ve listed the three NL Cy Young Award Finalists from the last three MLB seasons (2015-2017):
2015: Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw
2016: Max Scherzer, Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks
2017: Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg
Notice anything strange about that? What if I wrote it by team:
2015: Cubs, Dodgers, Dodgers
2016: Nationals, Cubs, Cubs
2017: Dodgers, Nationals, Nationals
In each of the last three seasons, the NL Cy Young vote has had two finalists from the same team – with each division (West, Central, East) participating year-to-year.
But it gets even more interesting/unusual than that!
When I pointed this out on Twitter, user @PTP8689 pointed something else out, but let’s see if you can find it first. Here are the same finalists again, but this time, I’ve bolded the winners and included 2014:
2014: Clayton Kershaw, Johnny Cueto, Adam Wainwright
2015: Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw
2016: Max Scherzer, Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks
2017: Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg
Figure it out yet? Let’s try it again by team:
2014: Dodgers, Reds, Cardinals
2015: Cubs, Dodgers, Dodgers
2016: Nationals, Cubs, Cubs
2017: Dodgers, Nationals, Nationals
In 2014, a member of the Dodgers (Kershaw) won the NL Cy Young award. The next year, two Dodgers came up just short as finalists. In 2015, a member of the Cubs (Arrieta) won the NL Cy Young award. The next year, two Cubs came up just short as finalists. In 2016, a member of the Nationals won the NL Cy Young award (Max Scherzer). The next year (as in, right now), two Nationals are finalists.
Following this pattern, I’m predicting that Kershaw is going to win the award and complete the circuit! How absolutely wild and fun.
Also, I’m a genius.
