Bauer: ‘Huge honor’ to win Cy Young award

Trevor Bauer has had a photo of Jim Palmer winning the Cy Young Award on the background of his phone for nine or 10 years. He has wanted to win the award himself since he won the Golden Spikes Award as college baseball’s best player in 2011.

On Wednesday, Bauer’s dream came true. He became the first pitcher in Cincinnati Reds history to win the Cy Young Award, receiving 27 of 30 first-place votes to beat two other National League finalists: Yu Darvish, of the Chicago Cubs, who finished second and received three firstplace votes; and the winner of the last two awards, Jacob deGrom, of the New York Mets.

“All the offseason work, all the time studying, learning, researching, all the bad years that I’ve had, the bad pitches I’ve made,” Bauer said, “to find a way to overcome all that and to actually accomplish something I’ve wanted for that long, it’s pretty special.”

Reds pitchers had finished second in voting five times: Tom Seaver (1981); Mario Soto (1983); Danny Jackson (1988); Pete Schourek (1995); and Johnny Cueto (2014).

Bauer, who the Reds acquired from the Cleveland

Indians at the trade deadline in 2019, won the award in his first full season with the Reds. He’s now a free agent and deferred a question about his future to his agent on Wednesday night. The Reds were the only team founded before 1961 that didn’t have a Cy Young winner.

“That’s a huge honor,” Bauer said. “For the oldest franchise in baseball to have not had a Cy Young Award winner, it’s about time that Cincy had one. I look forward to being able to share it with the people and interact with the fans and Cincy at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future.”

Bauer, 29, led the league with a 1.73 ERA, a 0.79 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched), 5.06 hits per nine innings and a .159 opponents’ batting average. He finished second with 100 strikeouts.