My 2020 MLB Award Picks
By Chris O’Connor
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This article continues my series where I look at the players who deserve the various year-end awards. Today I’ll look at the American League Cy Young Award.
AL Cy Young
Shane Bieber
Dallas Keuchel
Chris Bassit
No explanation is really needed with Shane Bieber here, as it would be shocking if he is not a unanimous pick.
The rest of the ballot was tough. I went with Dallas Keuchel because he pitched to a 1.99 ERA and though his advanced stats paint a much less rosy picture, he prevented runs at an excellent rate in 2020. After all, what more is a pitcher supposed to do?
Similarly, I went with Chris Bassit in the three spot because of his solid ERA of 2.29 and that his ERA+ (accounting for ballpark effects) of 181 trailed only Bieber and Keuchel. There are so many stats to judge a pitcher’s value that are more predictive and accurate than just ERA and ERA+ but the shortened season compressed many of them, leading me to judge pitchers primarily on their run prevention.
Honorable mentions were Kenta Maeda and Hyun-Jin-Ryu.
