Over the past two seasons, the individual members of Chicago Cubs have won a ridiculous numbers of awards.
Most recently, Anthony Rizzo and Jason Heyward took home some Gold Glove hardware for their defensive work at first base and right field, respectively.
Following them, Kris Bryant is expected to win the NL MVP award and each of Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks have been nominated for the NL Cy Young.
It’s the 26-year-old Hendricks, however, who has already guaranteed that he’ll go home with more than just a World Series ring in 2016, as he was recently named the 2016 Player’s Choice Award winner for NL Outstanding Pitcher!
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Fellow 2016 NL Cy Young award finalist and teammate Jon Lester congratulated Hendricks on his win:
Big shout out to the Dean @kylehendricks28 on winning the Players Choice Award for NL Outstanding Pitcher. More hardware to come! #FlyTheW
— Jon Lester (@JLester34) November 10, 2016
After a dominant season as MLB’s ERA leader in 2016, Kyle Hendricks was selected by his peers in the MLB Players Association as the most outstanding pitcher in the National League. And while the votes share nothing in common with the BBWAA decision on the Cy Young, it’s hard to argue that this is anything but good news. The American League’s Most Outstanding Pitcher, for what it’s worth, is Rick Porcello – also a finalist for the AL Cy Young Award.
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In addition to making five strong starts in the Chicago Cubs most historic postseason run in history (including starting the game that clinched a World Series appearance and a World Series win), Hendricks dominated in his own unique way all year long.
You’ve seen the numbers before, so you know that Hendricks rode a unique combination of soft contact, impeccable command, and an improved strikeout rate to a league leading ERA. He is an superb, if not one-of-a-kind pitcher that deserves this award as well as anybody. With any luck, however, he has one more victory in the tank.
The 2016 NL and AL Cy Young winners will be announced on November 16.
Meanwhile, the Cubs’ two other finalists for MLBPA awards were not selected: Daniel Murphy took home Most Outstanding Player honors over Kris Bryant, and Curtis Granderson is the Marvin Miller Man of the Year over Anthony Rizzo.
Can’t win ’em all, I suppose.
Among the other award winners: Jose Altuve took home the top positional honors in the AL, and Jose Fernandez was honored posthumously as the Comeback Player of the Year.
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Brett Taylor contributed to this post.