AL Cy Young Watch: Is It Finally Gerrit Cole’s Year?

The Yankees pitcher breezed through June and July, but Luis Castillo’s fastball is making the race close.

With scarcely a month left in the season, it’s time to check in on the state of MLB awards races. We’ll start with the American League Cy Young.

1. Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees

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Season Stats: 2.95 ERA, 12–4, 1.04 WHIP, 9.7 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 146 ERA+, 174 IP (28 starts)

This is looking as if it’s finally Cole’s year for the Cy. (He’s been the runner-up twice—in 2019 and ’21—and also received votes in ’15, ’18, ’20 and ’22.) After breezing through June and July, he did falter at points in August, and his worst outing of the season came two weeks ago versus the Red Sox. But the level of performance he established in early summer was sizable enough to cover a rough patch: The award still looks like Cole’s to lose.

2. Luis Castillo, Seattle Mariners

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Season Stats: 3.01 ERA, 11–7, 1.00 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 136 ERA+, 164.1 IP (27 starts)

As Tom Verducci detailed two weeks ago, Castillo’s fastball is among the hardest to hit in baseball. And in his first full season in Seattle, he’s throwing it much, much more often than he used to. So far this year, the four-seamer has made up 44% of Castillo’s arsenal, compared to 31% from 2018 to ’22. But he hasn’t lost any of his effectiveness on the pitch even as he’s increased its usage. That’s led to a tremendous season—including the lowest WHIP in MLB. Cole has the advantage with run prevention. (Don’t discount his edge in workload, either: That still matters to plenty of voters.) But Castillo has made this quite close.

3. Sonny Gray, Minnesota Twins

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Season Stats: 2.92 ERA, 7–6, 1.17 WHIP, 8.9 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 150 ERA+, 157 IP (27 starts)

Gray had his best month of the season in August. That was enough to make this race a whole lot more exciting: Gray is now the league leader ERA. But he still trails Cole and Castillo in other key metrics, and while the gap between them is smaller than it’s been at any other point this year, Gray remains a step behind the other two. That said, if Gray keeps pitching as he’s been recently—including seven shutout innings this week against the Guardians—he could keep this one interesting all the way down the stretch.

4. Kevin Gausman, Toronto Blue Jays

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Season Stats: 3.30 ERA, 10–8, 1.18 WHIP, 11.7 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 129 ERA+, 155.1 IP (26 starts)

Gausman remains the league’s strikeout leader. But uneven performance over the last month hurt his chances here: He posted a 4.23 ERA across his five starts in August, and his strikeout rate has been slipping, too. It’s been quite a while since he’s put on the kind of master-class performance he made routine in the first half of the year: After recording seven starts with 10 or more K’s in the opening months of the season, Gausman hasn’t had one since June 27.

5. George Kirby, Seattle Mariners

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Season Stats: 3.28 ERA, 10–8, 1.03 WHIP, 8.2 K/9, 0.8 BB/9, 125 ERA+, 156.1 IP (25 starts)

That command! Kirby’s doing something truly special here: A walk rate this low has been seen just 24 times in modern baseball. (And three of those 24 were from Cy Young himself.) It has Kirby on track to finish the season with a rare double-digit strikeout-to-walk ratio. He doesn’t quite match the other candidates here in run prevention. But he’s doing something arguably more interesting.