Gerrit Cole of the Astros, who led all players in 2019 Box-Toppers points and had the fourth-highest single-season point total in Box-Toppers’ 25-year tracking history, fell short of winning baseball’s top pitching prize Wednesday.
Box-Toppers Cy Young award ballot
Here are Box-Toppers' ballot selections for the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA) 2019 Cy Young awards. The ballot required voters to pick the top five pitchers in each league.Players are shown with their team and their Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2019.
| AL Cy Young | |||
| Player | Team | BTP | |
| 1 | Gerrit Cole | Astros | 32.2 |
| 2 | Justin Verlander | Astros | 27.5 |
| 3 | Charlie Morton | Rays | 18.8 |
| 4 | Shane Bieber | Indians | 18.1 |
| 5 | Mike Clevinger | Indians | 17.4 |
| NL Cy Young | |||
| Player | Team | BTP | |
| 1 | Stephen Strasburg | Nationals | 20.7 |
| 2 | Jacob deGrom | Mets | 19.1 |
| 3 | Josh Hader | Brewers | 17.7 |
| 4 | Hyun-Jin Ryu | Dodgers | 17.4 |
| 5 | *Jack Flaherty | Cardinals | 16.5 |
Teammate Justin Verlander, who ranked second overall in Box-Toppers points, edged Cole to win the 2019 American League Cy Young Award. Cole finished second in voting.
In the National League, Jacob deGrom of the Mets won the Cy Young Award for the second straight year. He finished second among NL pitchers in Box-Toppers points behind leader Stephen Strasburg of the Nationals, who finished fifth in voting (see the charts below for voting finishes and Box-Toppers rankings).
The awards are voted on by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Votes are cast at the end of the regular season, before the start of the postseason, and were announced Wednesday.
Cole led all players with 32.2 Box-Toppers points in 2019, finishing ahead of teammate Verlander with 27.5. Verlander led Box-Toppers player rankings much of the season—he was in first place for 116 days. Cole had a late-season surge and led for 36 total days, including the final 22 days of the season.
Top 10 players
Here are the top 10 players in Box-Toppers points (BTP) for the 2019 season. Final rankings.| Player | Pos | Team | BTP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cole, Gerrit 3232 | pi sp | hou al | 32.2 |
| 2 | Verlander, Justin 2112 | pi sp | hou al | 27.5 |
| 3 | Strasburg, Stephen 2736 | pi sp | dc nl | 20.7 |
| 4 | deGrom, Jacob 3343 | pi sp | nym nl | 19.1 |
| 5 | Morton, Charlie 2503 | pi sp | tb al | 18.8 |
| 6 | Bieber, Shane 4005 | pi sp | cle al | 18.1 |
| 7 | Greinke, Zack 1871 | pi sp | hou al | 17.9 |
| 8 | Hader, Josh 3881 | pi cp | mil nl | 17.7 |
| 9 | Clevinger, Mike 3707 | pi sp | cle al | 17.4 |
| 10 | Ryu, Hyun-Jin 3139 | pi sp | lad nl | 17.4 |
About Box-Toppers’ team abbreviations
Cole and Verlander had a huge lead over the pack. Verlander finished 6.8 Box-Toppers points ahead of third-place player, Strasburg (20.7). But Cole also amassed a substantial lead over Verlander of 4.7 points. While Verlander’s 27.5 was the 12th-highest single-season point total since Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995, Cole’s 32.2 was the fourth-highest and the most points in a season since 2002 (when Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson had 33.7). Cole is one of only four players to reach 30 Box-Toppers points in a season since 1995 (it has been done seven times, including three times by Johnson, twice by Pedro Martinez and once by Clayton Kershaw).
Box-Toppers viewed Cole’s season as so massive and historic, that we also voted Cole as AL Most Valuable Player—but he is not among the finalists for the honor to be announced Thursday.
Verlander received 17 of 30 first-place votes by baseball writers for AL Cy Young and Cole received the other 13. All voters had Verlander and Cole either as first or second place. A swing of votes by two writers would have created a tie. Notably, the two writers from Houston, who theoretically would have seen both pitchers most often, both voted Verlander in first place.
This is Verlander’s second Cy Young Award. He also won the AL Cy Young Award in 2011 with the Tigers, the year in which he also won AL Most Valuable Player. Verlander had 24.4 Box-Toppers points in 2011, third among all players and first among AL pitchers. While Verlander finished in second place in Box-Toppers season player rankings, 2019 was his best season. His previous high season was 2012 with the Tigers when he had 24.8 Box-Toppers points, leading all players.
•
deGrom wins his second straight NL Cy Young Award Wednesday, picking up 29 of the 30 first-place votes. He had 19.1 Box-Toppers points in 2019, finishing fourth overall and second among NL pitchers, just 1.6 points behind leader Strasburg (20.7).
deGrom won the NL Cy Young in 2018, a year in which he finished third among NL pitchers in Box-Toppers points with 16.8. However, he finished 8.3 points behind that year’s NL pitching leader, Max Scherzer of the Nationals (25.1).
Box-Toppers’ NL pitching leader Strasburg finished fifth in NL Cy Young voting (baseball writer’s at first had him ranked fourth until they posted corrected voting results).
Scherzer, who Box-Toppers deemed 2018’s far-and-away best NL pitcher, finished third in 2019 NL Cy Young voting. However, this year, Scherzer ranked behind teammate Strasburg in Box-Toppers rankings with 15.4 points, ninth among NL pitchers. In fact, Scherzer was the Nationals’ third-ranked pitcher, behind Strasburg (20.7) and Patrick Corbin (16.4), who finished 11th in Cy Young voting with one fifth-place vote.
deGrom won Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors 13 times in 2019, including earning overall Player of the Day honors four times, NL Player of the Day honors three times and earning a Player of the Game honor without earning a win twice.
Strasburg won Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors 15 times in 2019, including earning overall Player of the Day honors five times and NL Player of the Day honors once (which he earned for batting). He won Player of the Game honors without earning a win twice.
AL Cy Young Award winner Verlander won Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors 18 times in 2019, including earning Player of the Day honors six times and AL Player of the Day honors five times. Each time he earned Player of the Game honors, he also earned the win in the game.
AL Cy Young runner-up Cole won Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors 21 times in 2019, including earning Player of the Day honors seven times, AL Player of the Day honors six times and winning Player of the Game honors without earning a win four times.
•
Astros pitcher Zack Greinke had the most Box-Toppers points among pitchers who earned no Cy Young votes. Greinke had 17.9 Box-Toppers points in 2019, seventh among all players and fifth among AL pitchers. However, Greinke spent the first two-thirds of the season in the NL with the Diamondbacks (earning 13.2 of his 17.9 points with them). Despite finishing the season in fifth among AL pitchers in Box-Toppers points, Box-Toppers left Greinke off the AL Cy Young ballot since his season was split between the two leagues, elevating sixth-place AL pitcher Mike Clevinger of the Indians (17.4) to our fifth-place vote.
Other Box-Toppers-leading pitchers who did not received Cy Young votes:
Josh Hader of the Brewers—Hader had one of the best seasons by a closing pitcher in the past 20 seasons. His 17.7 Box-Toppers points ranked eighth among all players, third among NL pitchers and was the third-highest single-season point total for a closing pitcher since 1998. In the first half of the season, Hader had 14.7 points and seemed poised to shatter the all-time single-season points record for a closer (19.7) set in 2004 by Eric Gagne of the Dodgers. But Hader’s pace slowed in the second half and he only earned 3.0 more points. Still, he led all NL pitchers in Box-Toppers points from May 5 until Strasburg passed him Aug. 25.
Mike Clevinger of the Indians—Clevinger had 17.4 Box-Toppers points, ninth among all players and sixth among AL pitchers.
Chris Paddack of the Padres—Paddack had 15.8 Box-Toppers points, 14th among all players and eighth among NL pitchers. To be clear, Box-Toppers didn’t vote Paddack as one of its five choices for NL Cy Young, but he did finish ahead of NL Cy Young third-place vote-getter Scherzer (15.4). Earlier this week, Paddack also was overlooked in NL Rookie of the Year voting, receiving no votes, despite being far-and-away 2019’s best rookie as measured by Box-Toppers.
•
The Internet Baseball Writers Association of America also voted Verlander and deGrom as their Cy Young winners in voting results announced Wednesday. Box-Toppers votes in the IBWAA awards and voted for Cole and Strasburg for the awards. Here are the IBWAA results:
AL Cy Young
1st—Justin Verlander, Astros – 718 points
2nd—Gerrit Cole, Astros – 648
3rd—Charlie Morton, Rays – 259
4th—Shane Bieber, Indians – 178
5th—Mike Minor, Texas Rangers – 67
NL Cy Young
1st—Jacob deGrom, Mets – 684 points
2nd—Max Scherzer, Nationals – 400
3rd—Hyun-Jin Ryu, Dodgers – 300
4th—Stephen Strasburg, Nationals – 287
5th—Jack Flaherty, Cardinals – 102
About Box-Toppers—Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.
Box-Toppers strives for accuracy. See a mistake in a post? A wrong name, wrong team, grammar error, spelling goof, etc.? Thanks for pointing it out! Contact Box-Toppers here. Let's fix it and make it right.
Related
American League Cy Young Award voting
Justin Verlander of the Astros was voted AL Cy Young Award winner as the league’s top pitcher. Below are the AL pitchers in order of their voting finish, shown with their first- through fifth-place votes and their voting points total. Also shown are each player’s Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2019 and their rank in points among AL pitchers.| AL pitcher | Team | Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | Points | BTP | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Justin Verlander | Astros | pi sp | 17 | 13 | 171 | 27.5 | 2 | |||
| 2 | Gerrit Cole | Astros | pi sp | 13 | 17 | 159 | 32.2 | 1 | |||
| 3 | Charlie Morton | Rays | pi sp | 18 | 10 | 1 | 75 | 18.8 | 3 | ||
| 4 | Shane Bieber | Indians | pi sp | 11 | 13 | 5 | 64 | 18.1 | 4 | ||
| 5 | Lance Lynn | Rangers | pi sp | 3 | 12 | 18 | 15.0 | 7 | |||
| 6 | Eduardo Rodriguez | Red Sox | pi sp | 3 | 2 | 8 | 11.4 | 14 | |||
| 7 | Lucas Giolito | White Sox | pi sp | 8 | 8 | 13.7 | 10 | ||||
| 7 | Mike Minor | Rangers | pi sp | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 13.7 | 9 |
National League Cy Young Award voting
Jacob deGrom of the Mets was voted NL Cy Young Award winner as the league’s top pitcher. Below are the NL pitchers in order of their voting finish, shown with their first- through fifth-place votes and their voting points total. Also shown are each player’s Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2019 and their rank in points among NL pitchers.| NL pitcher | Team | Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | Points | BTP | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jacob deGrom | Mets | pi sp | 29 | 1 | 207 | 19.1 | 2 | |||
| 2 | Hyun-Jin Ryu | Dodgers | pi sp | 1 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 88 | 17.4 | 4 |
| 3 | Max Scherzer | Nationals | pi sp | 8 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 72 | 15.4 | 9 | |
| 4 | Jack Flaherty | Cardinals | pi sp | 5 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 69 | 16.5 | 5 | |
| 5 | Stephen Strasburg | Nationals | pi sp | 6 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 53 | 20.7 | 1 | |
| 6 | Mike Soroka | Braves | pi sp | 1 | 6 | 9 | 11.4 | 16 | |||
| 7 | Sonny Gray | Reds | pi sp | 4 | 4 | 14.4 | 10 | ||||
| 8 | Clayton Kershaw | Dodgers | pi sp | 1 | 3 | 12.7 | 14 | ||||
| 9 | Walker Buehler | Dodgers | pi sp | 1 | 2 | 16.4 | 7 | ||||
| 10 | Kirby Yates | Padres | pi cp | 1 | 2 | 7.0 | 44 | ||||
| 11 | Patrick Corbin | Nationals | pi sp | 1 | 1 | 16.4 | 6 |
Box-Toppers
Tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score stats. A method to measure & compare baseball's top players.
Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. Players earn Box-Toppers points for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.