Buckeye State Sweeps the CY Young Awards

Ohio Sweeps the CY Young Awards: Former Teammates Trevor Bauer, and Shane Bieber shined for the Buckeye State in 2020.

By Michael Foulks, Sports O’Clock Writing Team Member

National League Finalist: Trevor Bauer (CIN), Yu Darvish (CHC), Jacob DeGrom(NYM)

Winner: Trevor Bauer

Trevor Bauer of the Cincinnati Reds (photo credits: Fat Burning Formula)

Trevor Bauer secured his first CY Young award following a stellar season performance. A 5-4 record with a 1.73 ERA, 100 SO, in 73.0 IP. Even though the playoffs do not count towards the award races, Bauer gave one of his best pitching performances of his career vs the Braves in the Wild Card round. From the beginning of the season to the end of it, Bauer consistently showed up, and was a major reason Cincinnati made it as far as they did.

American League Finalist: Shane Bieber (CLE), Kenta Maeda (MIN), Hyun Jin Ryu (TOR)

Winner: Shane Bieber

Shane Bieber of the Cleveland Indians (Photo credits: Forbes)

Not only did he win the pitching Triple Crown, but he received all 30 first place votes to bring the CY Young back to Cleveland. At one point during the season, we weren’t sure anyone was going to score on him. He was a strikeout machine, and made his opponents look like high school players (opposing AVG .167). This will go down as one of the greatest pitching seasons in recent years, even with the shortened season. There is no doubt in my mind that if this was a 162-game season, Bieber would have dominated the whole stretch.

(All photos are properly cited. No copyright infringement intended.)