NFL Tickets
On November 14th, MLB will announce the winner of the Cy Young for both the American and National league. I wanted to make the case for New York Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey to win this award for the NL.
The NL has plenty of great pitchers to choose from for this award, including two closers. Five of the starters on the list have an ERA under 3.00 which is unbelievable. Matt Cain, who is also up for the award, threw a perfect game. Don’t forget about Gio Gonzalez who won 21 games and had an ERA of 2.89 – the competition is fierce.
Dickey should win because of what he did and how he pitches. He was on a team that wasn’t very good. Sorry, Mets fans.
Yet, Dickey still went out and dominated the competition that he faced. He had 20 wins, which is behind only Gonzalez. Remember that Gonzalez was pitching for the Washington Nationals who won the NL East.
Dickey pitched a NL-leading 232 2/3 innings. He had an ERA of 2.73, which is behind Clayton Kershaw who had a 2.53 ERA. Kershaw and Dickey had the lowest ERAs in the league, but Dickey also led the NL in strikeouts at 230.
Oh, and he also threw five complete games.
Let’s also not forget about the fact that he had to overcome adversity to be at this level. Dickey wasn’t ever supposed to pitch again. He decided to start throwing the knuckleball, a lost pitch in modern MLB.
Dickey has two different types of knuckleball pitches – one that is thrown around the low 70s and one that is thrown in the upper 70s. The faster one even topped out at 81 mph, which isn’t typical for a knuckleball pitcher: knuckleballs usually come in around 65 mph, topping out at the low 70’s.
Pitchers that throw knuckleballs shouldn’t even be in competition for a Cy Young award, yet Dickey is. One of the best knuckleball pitchers in recent years was Tim Wakefield, but he never put up numbers that stood out to people like Dickey has.
If Dickey doesn’t win, it wouldn’t be a travesty. Every pitcher that is on the list for Cy Young in the NL are well deserving of the award.
But in my humble opinion, Dickey deserves it a little bit more than the others. Besides, wouldn’t it be cool to have a knuckleball pitcher as a Cy Young winner?
Let me know what you think, be sure to follow me on Twitter @EvanCrum1319 and leave a comment
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