MLB Power Rankings: The Top 5 Candidates for NL Cy Young in 2011
July 8, 2011 by Lewie Pollis
Filed under Fan News
The 2011 MLB season is more than halfway over, and while we still haven’t quite reached the All-Star Game, it’s definitely not too early to start looking ahead to the postseason hardware.
Last week, I took a look at the five best choices for AL Cy Young to date. Today, we turn our attention to the top pitchers in the National League.
The Cy Young is always one of the most contentious end-of-season awards because of the intense controversy surrounding pitching statistics.
Many voters are still stuck on the idea that pitchers’ wins and losses are accurate reflections of talent instead of measuring the strength of his team’s bullpen and the opponent’s lineup and that luck in ERA always evens out over the course of a full season. Meanwhile, there are plenty of sabermetrics fans who quote esoteric acronyms without fully understanding what they mean.
Here’s how my NL Cy Young ballot would look if the season ended today.