No one was terribly surprised when National League Cy Young results were announced and Zack Wheeler had been voted runner-up for the second time in his career.
What caught just as much attention, and more scrutiny, was his placement on one specific ballot — which ranked Wheeler fourth, behind winner Chris Sale, Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes and Reds star Hunter Greene.
It caught Wheeler’s eye, too.
In the comment section of an MLB Instagram post this week touting Wheeler’s impressive year, the Phillies ace left one not-so-subtle comment: “Great season, all around.”
It’s a reference to Associated Press reporter David Brandt’s explanation for that aforementioned ballot, which didn’t actually offer much reasoning for the fourth-place vote or comparison between the pitchers involved, which Cy Young voting necessitates.
In fairness, Greene did have an opponents batting average that was a full nine (nine!) points lower than Wheeler’s. And he did have a higher WAR, as long as you use Baseball Reference‘s version (a 0.2-point gap) and not FanGraphs‘ (which favored Wheeler by more than one-and-a-half wins). In Brandt’s defense, though, Wheeler had much more time to accumulate that difference: He was one out shy of throwing 50 more innings than Greene did.
For what it’s worth, that innings gap over Skenes was 67.
So, yeah. Considering that every other voter had Wheeler in the top two — and, obviously, above both Greene and Skenes — it was a bit of a comical pick. Wheeler seemed to think so, too.
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