The National League Cy Young conversation has been tight all season, and with the calendar winding down, the debate has sharpened around a pair of lefties and one Brewers ace who keeps stacking up numbers that are hard to ignore.
ESPN analyst Bradford Doolittle put his advanced metric, AXE, behind Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez, calling him the current front-runner over Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski. Doolittle wrote, "Front-runner: Cristopher Sanchez, Phillies (154.3 AXE).
Next nine: 2, Jacob Misiorowski, Brewers (150.9)," even though he added, "... I favor Misiorowski for the award, even if my own metric suggests it should be Sanchez."
That split says plenty about how close this race has become - and how much the numbers can point in different directions.
Sanchez has absolutely put together a Cy Young-caliber season. He’s 17-6 with a 2.93 ERA, 7.4 bWAR, 215 strikeouts and 193.2 innings across 31 starts. That’s the kind of line that puts a pitcher firmly in the award conversation.
But Misiorowski has made a stronger case on production. He’s sitting at 15-5 with a 1.89 ERA, 6.0 bWAR, 243 strikeouts and 166.1 innings in 28 starts. The innings gap is real, but the Brewers ace has been far more dominant when he’s taken the mound.
The NL field has been strong, with Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler and Jesus Luzardo and Atlanta’s Chris Sale also in the mix, but the race appears to have narrowed as the season’s final stretch approaches.
Doolittle’s metric may lean Sanchez, but even he said Misiorowski is the pitcher he would choose for the award. And based on the season Misiorowski has put together, that’s the view that carries the most weight here.
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