Posthumous Cy Young parallel

USUALLY, come September, I start making lists for postseason awards, checking weekly to see if I need to add or subtract anyone and what I think of the order I had the week before.

At some point Sunday, I noticed this was my last NL Cy Young top f ive from about seven to ten days earlier: Max Scherzer, Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Noah Synder- gaard and Jose Fernandez.

Fernandez remains eligible for the award — as of Monday, he actually was the top pitcher in Fangraphs’ version of Wins Above Replacement. Each of the 30 voters has to select onethrough-five in order, and it will be fascinating to see on how many ballots Fernandez appears. Will voters posthumously honor Fernandez by in- cluding him? Or feel somehow off-put by selecting a deceased player?

I was trying to think of a parallel, and the closest I can come is Heath Ledger winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2008 for playing the Joker in “The Dark Knight” after he died at age 28 from an overdose of prescription drugs before the movie was even released.