Sandy Alcantara is the only NL Cy Young choice

The finalists for the NL Cy Young award have been announced. They include Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara, Atlanta Braves ace Max Fried and Los Angeles Dodgers SP Julio Urias. This better not be a repeat of the NL Gold Glove robbery from earlier, when The Fish had the best player, but he did not receive the award. I already made a case for Sandy before, but now that we know his exact competition, let’s see if he really deserves to win.

Sandy Alcantara is the only choice for the NL Cy Young award.

Sandy Alcantara has been phenomenal for us in 2022. Sandy produced 8.0 WAR, as he went 14-9 with a 2.28 ERA/2.99 FIP in 32 games and 228.2 innings pitched. It was an amazing performance and especially in this day and age, when starting pitchers don’t even pitch as many innings as before. 8.0 WAR is the highest WAR among pitchers in the 2022 season as well.

So what’s Sandy Alcantara’s competition again? Max Fried produced a 5.9 WAR in 30 games and 185.1 innings pitched. He went 14-7 with a 2.48 ERA/2.70 FIP. Fried clearly had a strong year and even bested Sandy in FIP. Sandy however bested Fried in ERA and WAR, the two most important categories to rate pitchers in Cy Young voting. Sandy clearly outperformed Fried and deserves the award more than him.

Julio Urías is Sandy’s next opponent… Julio produced 4.9 WAR with a 17-7 W-L record and a 2.16 ERA/3.71 FIP in 31 games and 175 innings pitched. It’s once again clear that Sandy was the better starting pitcher and that he deserves the award much more. Based on his FIP, Julio was trenendously lucky and certainly shouldn’t have been as good as he was. Julio has the wins and ERA, but he pitched less innings than both Sandy and Fried, and has a worse WAR than both.

Sandy Alcantara is the best starting pitcher in the National League. He proved his excellence this past season and deserves the NL Cy Young award in recognition. There’s no argument that he doesn’t deserve the award. If he doesn’t win it, it has to be bias and that’s a serious issue going forward.