Lynn, Minor finish 5th, 8th in CYA balloting

The Texas Rangers had a pair of starting pitchers who appeared on ballots for the American League Cy Young Award in 2019, with Lance Lynn finishing 5th in the balloting and Mike Minor 8th. Justin Verlander won the award in the A.L., and Jacob deGrom won in the N.L.

Lynn, signed to a 3 year deal this offseason that was questioned by many at the time but that now looks brilliant, put up a 3.67 ERA and 3.13 FIP in 208.1 IP this year. He was 3rd in the A.L. in bWAR and 2nd in the A.L. (and 3rd in the majors) in fWAR for pitchers. Lynn appeared on half of the ballots, receiving 3 fourth place votes and 12 fifth place votes, including one from Evan Grant.

Minor, who was an American League All Star in 2019, had a 3.59 ERA and 4.25 FIP in 208.1 IP. His 4.2 fWAR was 8th in the A.L. among pitchers, and his 7.8 bWAR was 2nd. He had a 3rd place vote, a 4th place vote and 2 5th place votes, one of which came from Jeff Wilson.

Every ballot had Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole as the top two, with Verlander getting 17 first place votes and Cole 13. Shane Bieber was 3rd, followed by Charlie Morton, Lynn, Eduardo Rodriguez, Lucas Giolito and Minor.

In the N.L., deGrom got 29 of 30 first place votes, with Hyun-Jin Ryu getting the other one. Ryu was second and Max Scherzer was third. Jack Flaherty was fourth and Stephen Strasburg was fifth, followed by Mike Soroka, Sonny Gray, Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Kirby Yates and Patrick Corbin.