Verlander wins his second Cy Young
Edging Cole in first-place votes 17-13 provides winning margin for second time in career
Astros ace Justin Verlander beats out teammate Gerrit Cole to capture the American League’s Cy Young Award on Wednesday. Verlander last won the honor in 2011 with the Tigers.
Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole took turns racking up wins and strikeouts as baseball’s best pitchers in 2019, but the cruel reality of electoral politics dictated that only one of the Astros’ aces could be selected as the American League’s Cy Young Award winner.
That honor goes to Verlander, who received 17 of 30 first-place votes to finish ahead of Cole in results announced Wednesday by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Based on a 7-4-3-2-1 points total, Verlander had 13 second-place votes for 171 points. Cole had 13 first-place votes and 17 secondplace votes for 159 points.
Verlander previously won the Cy Young in 2011 with the Tigers, and he said the passage of time, his successful recovery from midcareer injuries and three secondplace finishes, including last year’s, have increased his appreciation for the award.
“2011 was a magical season, but I hadn’t really had to grind through much at that point in time,” he said. “A lot has changed since then personally and professionally, but I think it makes it that much sweeter.”
After a couple of runner-up finishes, he said, “I don’t want to call it a relief, because it wasn’t. It just put things in perspective and made this all the better, all the more exciting for me and my family.”
Verlander, who was the AL’s Cy Young runner-up in 2012 and 2016 before finishing second with the Astros in 2018, was 21-6 in 2019 with a 2.58 ERA and a career-best 300 strikeouts in 223 innings during his second full season in Houston.
His 0.803 WHIP was the third lowest of baseball’s modern era
behind 0.74 for Pedro Martinez in 2000 and 0.77 for Walter Johnson in 1913, and Verlander averaged 12.1 strikeouts per nine innings. He also pitched his third career no-hitter Sept. 1 against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Verlander also recorded his 3,000th career strikeout in 2019 and, with the recent retirement of CC Sabathia, is the active leader in that category with 3,006.
While celebrating his second Cy Young Award, Verlander also recognized the excellence of Cole’s season.
Cole, in his seventh big league season and second with the Astros, was 20-5 with a 2.50 ERA and a league-leading 326 strikeouts in 212 1⁄3 innings after starting the season with a 4-5 record through May 22.
From there, however, he was 16-0 in his final 22 regular-season starts, tying an American League win-streak record accomplished by five others, most recently Roger Clemens with the 2001 Yankees. Cole had double-digit strikeouts in 21 games, including an MLB-record nine in a row to end the season.
Cole averaged 13.8 strikeouts per nine innings, a major league record, with a walks-plus-hits per innings pitched average of 0.895, second among all major league pitchers to Verlander. His 326 strikeouts were the most for any pitcher since Randy Johnson’s 334 in 2002.
“Gerrit put it best. He said it’s like when you go out and run your best race and you look up and one of your great friends is running right next to you,” Verlander said. “There’s nobody you’d rather see competing against you than somebody you’ve been training with and somebody you’ve grown to be friends with.
“I appreciate everything he did. You see the numbers, you see the excellence that he had, but what everybody misses is what goes on behind the scenes and how much work he put in.”
Cole, meanwhile, said he can appreciate and take satisfaction from finishing second to Verlander because of their shared journey.
“We just kept pushing and pushing deep into October,” he said in a text message. “When you do work like that with your teammates, you can look the guy in the face at the end of the year and be like, it’s all out there. That’s a very satisfying feeling.”
As he looked back on the season, Verlander also looked ahead, saying he plans to work during the offseason on different training methods with an eye on regaining some of the top-end velocity he enjoyed earlier in his career.
“I plan on tweaking some things,” he said. “If there are things I want to tweak or monitor, I can, and I can also trust that my mechanics and body are sound enough to push it a little bit.
“There are a few things that I plan on trying to do new during the offseason to help increase the top end of my velocity. … I will always try to push the boundaries of what I can do, and if my body says, ‘Hold on, you can’t do that anymore,’ I will pull back.”
Regarding the Astros’ World Series loss to the Washington Nationals, Verlander said he will view the season as an opportunity to learn, grow and improve.
“On one hand, it’s bittersweet because you make it so far, and on the other side it’s almost harder when you get that far and don’t come away with a championship,” he said. “But personally, the hard work and everything I did to get to the top of my game again, it felt and feels great.
“As a team, it always feels good to be as good as we were. But there’s just that little bit at the end where we weren’t able to finish.”
Former Astros pitcher Charlie Morton of the Rays was the third AL Cy Young finalist. In his first season at Tampa Bay after pitching for the Astros in 2017-18, Morton was 16-6 with a 3.05 ERA and 240 strikeouts in 194 2⁄3 innings.
The Verlander-Cole race marked the 11th time since 2000 that teammates have finished in the top three of a Cy Young race, including the 2004 National League voting in which Astros teammates Clemens and Roy Oswalt were first and third, respectively.
The only other 1-2 finishes this century, though, both involved Arizona Diamondbacks teammates Johnson and Curt Schilling in the 2001-02 National League voting. Johnson won both years, by margins of 156-98 in 2001 and 160-90 in 2002.
“I offer congrats to JV on an incredible accomplishment, especially given his competition,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch. “He led our pitching staff in so many ways and continued to dominate all season. He was every bit the workhorse and consistent starter, both defining characteristics of an ace. I’m happy for him to be recognized yet again. Job well done.”
Pitching and defense have been the traditional core of Astros baseball throughout the team’s history, so it stands to reason that the selection of Verlander gives Houston four Cy Young Award winners, more than it has posted in any of the major BBWAA awards categories.
Righthander Mike Scott was the Astros’ first honoree in 1986, which culminated in his Sept. 25 no-hitter, a 2-0 win over the Giants that clinched the National League West title.
Clemens won the National League award in 2004, becoming at age 42 the oldest pitcher to win the trophy. It was his seventh career Cy Young Award, a record that still stands.
Lefthander Dallas Keuchel was the American League winner in 2015 as Houston made the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Two voters from each league city vote for the awards, with voters in American League cities selecting AL awards and voters in National League cities voting for NL honors.
Chronicle writers do not vote for BBWAA awards in accordance with the newspaper’s ethics policy.