In the least surprising news of the season, the Baseball Writers’ Association of American named Detroit Tigers ace left-hander Tarik Skubal as one of three finalists for the American League Cy Young award for 2024 on Monday. He is widely considered a lock to take the award over fellow finalists Seth Lugo, starter for the Kansas City Royals, and Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase.
Skubal finished his first full season since 2021 with 31 starts and 192 innings thrown. He posted a 2.39 ERA and a 2.49 FIP, both the best marks in the American League. Skubal punched out 228 hitters, allowing just 35 walks all season long. And while the Tigers surprise run to the ALDS ended with the Cleveland Guardians’ Lane Thomas crunching a grand slam off Skubal in Game 5, he’d already added two dominant starts in the Wild Card round and in Game 2 of the ALDS to his outstanding body of work in 2024.
This is a slam dunk case.
Lugo had a fine season for the Kansas City Royals, but really wasn’t in Skubal’s league. The veteran right-hander did throw 206 2⁄3 innings, but finished with a 3.00 ERA and a 3.25 FIP on the year. He struck out 181 batters.
Clase was no doubt the most deadly closer in the game this season, and a big part of the Guardians success despite a rotation shot full of holes much of the year. He posted a quite ridiculous 0.61 ERA over 74 1⁄3 innings, racking up 47 saves on the year. That’s a pretty remarkable season for a reliever, but it’s worth nothing that he only struck out 66 hitters on the year. Skubal’s 30.3 percent strikeout rate as a starter dwarfed Clase’s 24.4 percent mark. This really isn’t a contest, and apart from his ERA, Clase’s season wasn’t really that remarkable.
Cleveland is one of the best defensive teams in the game, and while he certainly did his part by issuing just 10 walks and allowing only two home runs, he basically forced hitters to put the ball in play a lot, and took advantage of that team defense. This was a really good season for a reliever, but not that close to an all-time great caliber season that could feasibly make a reliever a viable Cy Young candidate. We’ll note that Guillermo “Willie” Hernandez threw 140 1⁄3 innings in 1984 with a 1.92 ERA and pretty similar peripherals to Clase’s 2024 campaign, for example.
Also undercutting Clase’s outsider case is the fact that he only once in those 74 appearances got more than three outs. Under limited and specific conditions, Clase was the most lockdown closer in the game, blowing only three saves, but the lack of strikeouts and the lack of versatility really makes this a weak case. Personally I think Royals left-hander Cole Ragans had a lot better case to be an AL Cy Young finalist this year.
In the end, this should be a walkover for Skubal. If not, then justice has not been done.
In the National League, Chris Sale arguably had an even better season than Skubal, and at age 35 no less. Those of us who watched Sale break into the league with the Chicago White Sox back in 2010-2011 would never have predicted that he would hold up this well. Instead, after UCL reconstruction in March of 2020, and two largely lost seasons in 2021-2022, Sale had re-emerged as one of the top pitchers in the game.
Sale bested Skubal in ERA by one point, with a 2.38 mark, and also posted a better FIP. With over 54 fWAR to his tally, Sale’s rejuvenation now has him on the brink of a pretty strong Hall of Fame argument if he can put together a few more good seasons. Sale was top six in Cy Young voting every year from 2012-2018 without ever winning one. This will be a very well deserved, and long in coming, victory for him. The Phillies Zack Wheeler, and Pirates ace rookie Paul Skenes, are the other two finalists. Of those two, I’d say Skenes has a little better case, but his time will come eventually. Possibly as soon as next year. This is Chris Sale’s award in 2024, and it would be a travesty if he somehow lost out again.
The full list of BBWAA award finalists is available here.
AJ Hinch is a Manager of the Year finalist
The other Tigers news on Monday, other than Josue Briceño and Thayron Liranzo’s ongoing assault on Arizona Fall League pitching, was manager AJ Hinch being named as one of three finalists for AL Manager of the Year.
This is a pretty interesting, and entirely AL Central centered, debate. Guardians first year manager Stephen Vogt, who took over from Terry Francona and led his team to the AL Central crown, and Matt Quatraro, who led the Kansas City Royals to the postseason as well, are the three finalists.
Frankly, I’d be pretty surprised if Hinch won the award. Not only is there still some bad blood in some parts due to the Astros’ sign stealing scandal, but the Tigers also improved the least over their 2023 record.
The Royals won just 56 games in 2023. The Guardians won 76. The Tigers won 78. So the Royals improved by 30 wins, the Guardians by 16 wins. The Tigers were only eight wins improved.
Now, in Quatraro’s case, one can point to a much more successful investment in the team from ownership and the front office as playing a major role. They traded Aroldis Chapman for Cole Ragans in July of 2023, and saw Ragans become a breakout star in 2024. Likewise the addition of Lugo and Michael Wacha, both proved very shrewd additions. Quatraro also had the game’s best player in Bobby Witt Jr. at the shortstop position. Still, it was a massive turnaround in Quatraro’s second year, and he and his staff deserve a ton of credit. It’s just that his front office handed him a pre-made starting rotation along with the best two-way player in the game in 2024 in Witt. Quatraro got plenty of out of them, and perhaps the Royals massive turnaround from 2023 tips some voters his way, but he clearly got far more help than Vogt or Hinch did.
As for Vogt, he certainly had some big weapons at his disposal as well, but Shane Bieber’s absence left the Guardians with a pretty makeshift rotation for much of the season. He was also taking over for popular long-time manager Terry Francona, and with minimal coaching experience. For a rookie manager to take over a 76 win team, get little to no help from the front office, and overcome some serious hits to the starting rotation was pretty impressive. And because his team beat the Tigers and made the deepest postseason run, I tend to think the voters are going to lean his way.
Hinch obviously produced magic out of thin air in the second half of the season, and he and pitching coach Chris Fetter’s creative genius in shepherding a team with Tarik Skubal and really no other established starting pitchers to one of the great August-September runs in league history should get him seriously consideration as well. Getting a young team to buy into their strategies and produce one come from behind victory after another down the stretch was a remarkable feat of coaching. Personally, I feel like more of the Tigers’ success is attributable to a litany of small decisions made by Hinch than in the case of Quatraro. However, Vogt had some similar challenges, and likewise manages a team largely composed of role players beyond Jose Ramirez and Clase.
If we want to look at which manager outperformed their expected mark based on runs scored and allowed, the Guardians got two more wins than expected, the Tigers one. Meanwhile, the Royals were five games worse than their runs scored/allowed differential, falling pretty far short of the other two clubs.
Again, Hinch’s history probably works against him here in the voters’ eyes. We saw an absolute masterclass in management from the Tigers’ skipper in his fourth year. However, I don’t personally watch the Royals or Guardians much when they aren’t playing the Tigers, so perhaps fans of either team can make a similar case for their guy.
Quatraro worked some wonders, but got way more help from management between 2023-2024 than Hinch or Vogt.
Meanwhile, Vogt’s success as a rookie manager in taking over from a popular veteran manager and rebuilding their winning culture through a fair amount of adversity, while getting deeper into the postseason than the Tigers or Royals, will probably get him the nod here.
Who do you think deserves the Manager of the Year award?