The American League has a ton of great pitchers starting off the year extremely well. So far 15 starting pitchers have a sub 3.00 ERA, including some no one would have guessed. Some of these hot starting pitchers were poised to stay in the Cy Young discussions from the beginning of the year, but other pre-season favorites are still trying to find their form.
I mentioned Justin Verlander in my top MVP candidates, because he has been that dominant of a pitcher over the last few seasons. A perennial lock to finish in the top three in the Cy Young voting, Verlander’s numbers to start off the season are as good as usual. A 1.95 ERA, 2-2 win-loss record, and 33 strikeouts against only nine walks sure sounds like business as usual for Verlander. His velocity has been a little down, which I wouldn’t panic about yet, but in a month if he is still showing his fastball isn’t what it has been, I would expect to see him start getting hit a little bit, and his ability to make hitters miss strikes suffer. If I had to guess right now, I will say he picks up the fastball a bit, but doesn’t hit 100 MPH much this year, and slips slightly more than normal in the Cy Young voting, but still finishes in the top five.
The big lefty, and current AL Cy Young winner David Price, may be the next 200 million dollar man in a few years, but right now he’s struggling at the beginning of this season. Aside from getting into it with umpires in the media, he has posted a 5.21 ERA with a 1.37 WHIP in his first six starts of 2013. He hasn’t given up a ton of runs in every start, as his inflated ERA is due to two of his six starts where he gave up five and eight runs respectively, but in every other game he has given up three or less. His 1-2 win-loss record is partially due to the Rays inability to help him out with a few runs in his first starts of the season, but it may be tough for him to rack up 20 wins while only getting one in April. Price is one of the top young pitchers in the game, and like Verlander, I expect him to regain his form in the summer months.
In a rare turn of events this offseason, the reigning Cy Young winner from the National League, R.A. Dickey, is now in the American League. The Blue Jays were hoping that at 38, the knuckleballer still had plenty of life left in that right arm. Dickey has failed to produce anywhere close to his 2012 breakout season, as he’s started off the year 2-4, with a 4.50 ERA. To make matters worse, he’s had some soreness through his first few starts of the season in his upper body, and he’s getting an MRI to figure out what the problem is. I worry that the Mets may have been on to something when some experts wondered what they were thinking trading away the top pitcher in the National League this winter. I think we are starting to see that Dickey’s 2012 season was an aberration rather than a resurgence of his career.
The only other obvious pre-season Cy Young candidate from the American League to me is Felix Hernandez. Coming off of a season when Hernandez pitched a perfect game, and an offseason when he signed a 175 million dollar contract extension, Hernandez was poised to make a run at his second Cy Young award, and so far he hasn’t disappointed. His only two “rough” outings were ones that he only gave up three and four runs. Aside from those starts, he hasn’t given up more than one run in any outing, which has led to his 1.90 ERA to start this season. His command has been incredible so far, as he has 44 strikeouts and only seven walks in his first six starts. Like Verlander, Hernandez has also noticed his velocity has gone down a bit, sometimes struggling to reach 90 MPH. The difference between Verlander and Hernandez is that Hernandez never really overpowered batters to begin with, and relied on a lot of movement on his pitches to make batters miss.
Out of the four obvious pre-season AL Cy Young candidates, I think Hernandez has the early lead to make it to the end of the season still in contention. I’ll make a bold prediction here and say the 2013 AL Cy Young winner doesn’t come from this group, but rather one of many young pitchers ready to break out, or an all-star veteran we haven’t thought about in a while.