Corbin Burnes’ E.R.A. was 8.82 in 2019. Robbie Ray’s 2020 E.R.A. was 6.62 He was traded in what amounts to a salary dump. Both pitchers proved that hard work and great stuff can win the day, as they were named Cy Young Award recipients for their leagues.
Both pitchers underwent a transformation that was both shocking and understandable. This was due to the fact that their careers had been so low. They worked hard and the batters paid a heavy cost.
Burnes, 27, a follow his breakout 2020 season with a streak 58 strikeouts without walking. He joined Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and Freddy Peralta to form a Milwaukee Brewers lineup that effectively had three aces. Burnes remained the majors’ leader in E.R.A. (2.43) as well as strikeouts per nine innings (12.6). He received 12 out of 30 first-place vote votes, beating out Zack Wheeler from the Philadelphia Phillies, who also received twelve first-place votes, as well as Max Scherzer from the Nationals and Dodgers (who received six). Burnes triumphed over Wheeler by way of 14 second-place votes to Wheeler’s nine.
Ray, 30 years old, was promoted to left-handed ace with the Toronto Blue Jays. He is currently leading the American League’s E.R.A. (2.84) and innings pitched (193⅓). He was a power lefty who modeled himself after Randy Johnson, who had mentored Ray in Arizona. He led majors in strikeouts (248). He was able to receive 29 of his 30 first-place voting votes, beating out Gerrit Cole, a Yankees pitcher, who received the remaining vote and 29 second place votes, and Lance Lynn, a Chicago White Sox pitcher, who received 11 of the third-place voting votes.
The awards are presented annually by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
For the two award winners, finding stardom meant examining what was working and what wasn’t.
“The biggest thing that I’ve done this off-season is the mind-set,” Burnes said in May. “It could be 3-0, I really don’t care — for me it’s 0-0, it’s 0-1, it’s 0-2, I’m attacking. In pitcher’s counts, I’m going at hitters. There’s no, ‘Oh, I’m behind here 2-0, 3-0, this guy’s a good fastball hitter’ — no. As soon as you fall into that trap, you’re done.”
The seeds of Ray’s transformation were planted in 2017 when he received some advice from Johnson about believing in his ability.
“He sat down in my locker and it was basically like a big brother who gets you in a headlock, like: ‘You better figure this out, because you never know when your last pitch is going to be,’” Ray said in September. “And I took that to heart. I ended up rattling off a 26⅔-inning scoreless streak, went to a sub-three E.R.A. and kind of ran with it.”
Burnes, who was selected in the fourth-round of the 2016 draft, is a Milwaukee native star. His durability issues have been a problem, and he has often fallen out of games with high pitch counts. But, his 2019 disastrous season seems to be an exception. His worst E.R.A. His worst E.R.A. in any other season was 2.61 in 38 innings as a relief pitcher in 2018. He should be eligible for a substantial raise in his first season of salary arbitration. However, he is still under team supervision until 2025.
He took the loss in this year’s All-Star Game, allowing two runs in two innings, but Burnes more than made up for it by teaming with reliever Josh Hader for a no-hitter in September and pitching six shutout innings in a division series start against Atlanta.
Ray felt that a change in scenery was essential, as well as the advice from Johnson. He was known for his ability accumulate strikeouts. In 2017, he was an All Star. However, the Diamondbacks were frustrated by Ray’s inability to keep it in the strike zone. He had a 7.84 E.R.A. He made seven starts in Arizona in 2020 before a trade in which he was traded to Toronto with cash for pitcher Travis Bergen. Bergen was later traded to the Blue Jays with cash, which meant Ray was effectively freed.
However, this good fortune could prove costly in the future as Ray is a free agent. He is expected to get a huge increase on his $8 million salary in 2021.
Even though they didn’t win the vote, the other finalists had plenty of words to say for themselves.
Like Ray, Scherzer is a free agent and was a good player for Washington. However, he was absolutely electric after a midseason deal to Los Angeles. He had a 1.98 E.R.A. In 12 regular-season games. (The Dodgers won every one of his 12 regular-season starts. Wheeler, who had struggled to stay healthy in his time with the Mets, led the majors with 213⅓ innings pitched and led the National League with 247 strikeouts.
Lynn was an All-Star for a second time and had a career-best E.R.A. 2.69 Cole, who inadvertently became the face of the sport’s ball-doctoring crisis, struggled down the stretch — a slide some have attributed to a hamstring injury rather than the sticky substance ban — but still finished with a 3.23 E.R.A. he led the A.L. The A.L. was the leader in strikeouts-to-walk ratio. This was Cole’s fourth consecutive season finishing in the top five in his league’s Cy Young voting, but he has yet to win the award.
Tyler KepnerContributed reporting
Source: NY Times
