Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes win Cy Young Awards

Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal and Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes were named the AL and NL Cy Young Award winners, respectively, on Wednesday. This year’s announcement came with little suspense, as the duo were, with little question, the top arms in each league this past season.

Skubal was an easy choice in the AL, though his win wasn’t unanimous this year, with 26 of 30 first-place votes. Boston left-hander Garrett Crochet received the other four first-place votes (with Skubal being second on those ballots; curiously, two of the four came from NY-based writers).

Houston right-hander Hunter Brown, New York left-hander Max Fried, and Seattle right-hander Bryan Woo finished third, fourth, and fifth in voting.

Skubal is the first pitcher to win back-to-back AL Cy Young Awards since Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000. He is also just the second Tigers pitcher to win the award multiple times, joining Denny McLain.

The 28-year-old (he’ll turn 29 next week) was 13-6 with an AL-leading 2.21 ERA (187 ERA+) and 241 strikeouts (11.1 K/9, 32.2 K%) over 195.1 IP for the Tigers this season. As MLB.com’s Jason Beck notes, Skubal was one of just five pitchers in the AL to pitch a complete game this season (the first of his career). He beat each AL Central team and combined to throw 25.0 scoreless innings against the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Orioles. The Mariners were the only team to beat him twice.

The BBWAA requires voters to submit their year-end award ballots once the regular season concludes, before any postseason games are played. Skubal continued to dominate in his playoff outings — striking out 14 and allowing one run over 7.2 innings against Cleveland and then K’ing 22 and giving up three runs in 13.0 innings against Seattle.

Skenes was a unanimous winner in the NL, where all 30 ballots had the same players listed 1-2. Philadelphia left-hander Cristopher Sánchez was named second on every ballot.

Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Giants right-hander Logan Webb, and Brewers right-hander Freddy Peralta finished third, fourth, and fifth in voting.

This marks the second consecutive year Skenes has taken home a BBWAA award, having won the NL Rookie of the Year last season (while also finishing third in Cy Young voting).

Skenes was 10-10 (the first Cy Young winner without a winning record) with an NL-leading 1.97 ERA (217 ERA+) and 216 strikeouts (10.4 K/9, 29.5 K%) over 187.2 IP for the Pirates this season. He set a Pittsburgh team record for strikeouts by a right-handed pitcher, while his 5.1 strikeout-to-walk ratio was the best mark by any pitcher in team history.

Skenes, 23, is the youngest Cy Young winner since Dwight Gooden (20) and Bret Saberhagen (21), who both won the award in 1985.

Naturally, “Baseball’s senior stats guru” Sarah Langs shared several fun stats about the duo: