Dodgers: Dave Roberts Makes His Pick for NL Cy Young Winner
The National League Cy-Young Award conversation will run through Los Angeles in 2021. Walker Buehler, Julio Urías, and Max Scherzer are all more than deserving, and they all have a great chance to be this year’s winner. Having a trio of starters with worthy resumes has made it a fun race to watch as the season comes to a close.
If there were ever a downside to having three Cy-Young candidates on one team, it would be choosing a favorite among them. Even so, manager Dave Roberts has seen enough over the past few months to know that there is one clear-cut favorite.
“He has [done enough to be the frontrunner for the Cy-Young Award], yeah”, said Dave Roberts prior to Wednesday’s game. “I think that it’s a pretty simple answer for me and not to take anything away from Walker [Buehler], or [Corbin] Burnes, or [Brandon] Woodruff or whoever else is in the mix.”
Since joining the Dodgers, Max Scherzer has gone an incredible 7-0 while the team itself has won all 11 of his starts. He has shown signs of mortality in his most recent outings, however, having allowed 5 earned runs in each of his last two appearances.
Even with those struggles, he owns a stellar 1.98 ERA during his time with LA. No pitcher will ever be perfect, and the Dodgers have done a great job of picking up their ace after all the times he’s given them a lift. Scherzer has been a godsend with all of the injuries to the rotation, and he’ll be an important piece come October.
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If Scherzer does indeed go on to win the Cy-Young, that would mark the 4th time he’d be taking home the honors. This would make him just the fifth player in baseball history to win it four different times.
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Sadly, Kelly’s soon to be over tenure with the Dodgers will likely be more remembered for his reactions to the Trash-tros than for his overall pitching. Still, he probably won’t have to buy his own beer in LA for the rest of his life.
Oops, replied to the wrong post there! Sorry.
he is pitching great why wouldnt they want him back?
because Kelly costs too much for pitching 50 innings or less
Am I missing something here about the Cy Young award? Julio Urias has 19 wins soon to be 20(?) with an ERA around 3 and he is not even being considered a front runner. I can only imagine if our other 2 contenders had 19 wins they probably would have already been awarded the Cy Young.
games won is a minor stat, says more about the team than the pitcher. Innings pitched, ERA, and other advanced analytics like WAR place him 5th at best. Scherzer and Buehler are in the top 3. Max should win it.
20 wins 3 losses ERA under 3, I’ll take that over 15-4 anytime. Max is great , but this is about the 2021 season not about someone hall of fame career. That’s my humble opinion. Los Dodgers fan since the sixties.
URIAS IS MY PICK. HE IS GOING TO BE A 20 GAME WINNER. ENOUGH SAID.
yes he will lead NL in wins if he wins tonight. But his other stats are not as good so Max wins it most likely
I remember when Orel Hershiser went 19-3 one season and nobody even talked about him in Cy Young talks. Or last year during the pandemic, Freddie Freeman had all the media behind him for MVP honors yet his teammate Ozuna was flirting with a triple crown
With Respect to Dave Roberts, I would humbly disagree with Dave on who the CY Young winner should be. Burnes is great but not in the class of the Dodgers pitching. He goes out and pitches against the Dodgers tonight and is lit up for 3. That is the test. What league that you play in and where you are in the rotation against those teams should be the overarching factor.
Julio won twenty. I love Julio and he is a fantastic pitcher. He won the WS for us last year and he won games for us this year! However he did this as a 4 pitcher in the rotation for much of the season. He had lesser competition when he pitched, often pitched from leads, etc. He might have well been the CY young had he been the ace but we will never know. His stats are diluted because he pitched often from leads and he might have been more dominant in SO and other categories were he challenged more in the rotation. No doubt he was great.
Scherzer is easy to say should be the CY young. He has been there before (Dave’s pick). He did have a great ERA, SO, SO/BB etc. and he has been lights out since coming to LA. If he got the award no one would dispute it.
I would contend that Walker Buehler is the CY Young in the National League in 2021. He has a slightly Higher ERA as Burnes and Max, slightly less SO, and SO/BB as both as well. I think he tied Max in wins and beat Burnes. Yet the category to me that sets it apart for Walker is Quality Starts. He had 27 of his 31 starts where he went at least 6 and gave up less than 3 runs. None of the other contenders that you hear of Burnes, Scherzer or even Julio placed in the top 7 in the national league in this category and Walker was number 1. Not only was he number 1, but he was number 1 as the ace more often taking on the number 1 of most teams more often, and he was number one in the toughest division in Baseball the NL west. He went out and put the Dodgers in a position to win in the toughest division in baseball and ate more more innings against the other teams number one pitcher more often than anybody.
I love Max, Love Julio, and I very much respect Burnes and Wainwright. I earnestly believe Walker deserves the NL Cy Young though!