Yesterday, the 2016 MLB Award finalists were announced around baseball, with three players chosen for each of the 2016 Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, and MVP award in both leagues. As an aside, in case you missed it, the Washington Nationals were the first team to have a finalist for all four awards in the past ten years. Not bad.
It’s the NL Cy Young finalists, however, that I’m interested in discussing. Or rather, the non-finalists.
NL BBWAA #CyYoung finalists:@kylehendricks28@JLester34@Max_Scherzer pic.twitter.com/OvPfSS5p9p
— MLB (@MLB) November 7, 2016
Although each and every one of the award winners above – Max Scherzer, Kyle Hendricks, and Jon Lester – are deserving of their top three finish, there were a number of interesting candidates that just missed the cut. Most notably, I’d argue, Noah Syndergaard (who led the league in FIP and WAR) was one of the most deserving candidates that must just missed out.
He (hilariously) agrees …
Not a Cy Young finalist…not a big deal…right Dwight? pic.twitter.com/5sdtA8TrzW
— Noah Syndergaard (@Noahsyndergaard) November 8, 2016
Although he will not be winning the 2016 NL Cy Young award, at least he won Twitter for a day. That is A+ work. As far as I’m concerned, accurately expressing yourself via .gif is the pinnacle of human emotional evolution. Right?