Article: Justin Steele, Fifth Place?! The Writers Crossed a Line This Time

[Jeff Ward]

I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you all to get up right now, go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, "Justin Steele should have won the Cy Young Award!"

Image courtesy of © John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports

With Spencer Strider in the mix, I didn’t think the Man of Steele would finish first, but I would’ve bet good money that he’d do better than a distant fifth in the Cy Young Award voting. And to come in behind Blake Snell and the lowly Logan Webb? I realize the Hall of Fame and postseason awards have become nothing more than popularity contests. Still, that shift doesn’t absolve sportswriters from maintaining at least a tenuous grip on some sort of recognizable reality.  

So, let’s examine the four National Leaguers who came in ahead of our beloved Justin Steele.

1.  Blake “I Never Met a Man I Didn’t Wanna Walk” Snell
This man led both leagues in free passes, with an absurd 99, which should’ve automatically disqualified him from pitching in the major leagues. Given his 180 innings pitched, that comes out to five flippin’ walks per nine innings, an abomination mitigated by the Padres' sixth-place team defense. By contrast, Steele walked a miniscule 36 batters in a comparable 173 innings pitched.

Snell’s 14-9 record is hardly the stuff of pitching legend, either. The entire point of a Cy Young or MVP award is (purportedly) to honor the player who helped the entire team succeed the most, and Steele’s 16-5 mark was far more critical to the Cubs than Snell’s was to the Padres, who were never in contention. This is, by far, the worst Cy Young choice since Steve Bedrosian beat out the Cubs’ Rick Reuschel in 1987.

2. Logan Webb
All I can say is, I want to take whatever drug the sportswriters who put this bleep in second place are taking, because it’s gotta be a good one. The man had a dismal 11-13 record, for god’s sake! The only pitcher to win the award with a losing record was the Dodgers' Eric Gagne in 2003, but he also converted 55 out of 55 save opportunities, a record that will likely never be broken.

Steele’s 3.06 ERA was better than Webb’s 3.25, and their low walk totals were comparable, as were their hits per nine innings. Webb’s 0.8 home runs per nine were close, but Steele’s 0.7 led the National League. But that’s all rendered moot when you consider that Justin’s 16-5 record, which put the Cubs on the brink of the postseason, should’ve put him in front of the inexplicably second-place Webb. And the Giants were never truly in the race, to the point where it cost manager Gabe Kapler his job.

3. Zac Gallen
Don’t get me wrong; Zac Gallen is the kind of pitcher I’d love to see play for the Cubs someday. But while he certainly deserves to be in the running, his winning percentage was worse than Steele’s, as was his ERA.

This one is very close, and my propensity for hyperbole aside, only four votes separated the two, but two full spots ahead of our hero? I don’t think so!

4. Spencer Strider
How this man didn’t win the NL Cy Young is beyond me. Spencer’s gotta be thinking, “Whose stride do I have to Spence to win this thing?”

All he did was amass a 20-5 record, lead the majors in strikeouts (281) by a long shot, walk just 58 batters in 186 2/3 innings, lead the NL with a 2.85 FIP, post MLB's second-best pitcher WAR (5.5), singlehandedly mitigate the possibility of a lengthy Braves slump, and lead the team to the best record in baseball. At the same time, the rest of the Atlanta staff could barely pull their weight.  

Without Strider’s 20 wins, the Braves would’ve been a Wild Card team--you know, as long as they forfeited those game and only those. The fact that he didn’t get as much as one first-place vote diminishes the award, to the point where it’s becoming meaningless. More like Cy Old, it says here.

This is how the NL Cy Young voting should’ve played out:

1. Spencer Strider
2. Justin Steele
3. Zac Gallen
4. David Bednar
5. Clay Kershaw

Ah well. What can you say about a group of nitwits who put light-hitting Ozzie Smith in the Hall of Fame?

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[Outshined_One]

If you had told me two years ago that Justin Steele was the ace of the staff in 2023, my response would have been to ask who we were planning on taking #1 overall in the 2024 MLB Draft.

Credit where it's due for the pop-up and turnaround, but, none of us saw it coming.

[mul21]

Hard to take this article seriously when you're citing team wins as a major factor and poo poo Ozzie Smith and his career 76.9 bWAR/67.6fWAR as not HOF worthy when those are well clear of the threshold for induction.

[Sammy Sofa]

[jersey cubs fan]

49 minutes ago, Sammy Sofa said:

[Jeff Ward]

No! I'm citing a pitcher's wins and the fact that I'm old enough to remember when the MVP and Cy Young Awards went to  players who advanced their entire team above and beyond any stat consideration, though stats matter, too. 

And WAR? Don't get me started on that useless stat. NO ONE with a .262 lifetime batting average and a meager .237 OPB deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. In fact, Ozzie's inclusion there rendered the entire proposition worthless. That's why WAR really stands for Weak Ass Ridiculousness. 

And as far as not taking me seriously, that's the joy of a bit of satire!

[Brock Beauchamp]

7 hours ago, mul21 said:

Hard to take this article seriously when you're citing team wins as a major factor and poo poo Ozzie Smith and his career 76.9 bWAR/67.6fWAR as not HOF worthy when those are well clear of the threshold for induction.

The article isn’t meant to be taken seriously, though. 

[Outshined_One]

30 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The article isn’t meant to be taken seriously, though. 

Is it actual satire, or the kind of satire where you share a really unpopular opinion, wait to hear the reaction to it, and then claim you're joking when everyone gives you a really dirty look?

[Brock Beauchamp]

6 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

Is it actual satire, or the kind of satire where you share a really unpopular opinion, wait to hear the reaction to it, and then claim you're joking when everyone gives you a really dirty look?

I’m 98% sure Jeff had his tongue in his cheek but for the other 2%, you’d have to check with him. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

It never felt like he was gonna win, I honestly thought it would be Strider. If Steele had not imploded over those last 2 starts, and, say, had allowed 5-6 runs instead, he probably places 4th ahead of Webb but I don't think he would have gotten the votes over Gallen. I agree though that Snell is a dubious choice. Way too many walks and absurd LOB fortune. Worst CY winner in quite a while IMO.

[chopsx9]

4 hours ago, Jeff Ward said:

 ....a meager .237 OPB . 

hard time believing this is accurate.

[Jeff Ward]

Arrrgghhhh! I do mean what I said. Snell's walks should've eliminated him from contention, as should Webb's losing record. Strider should've won it, Steele should've come in second or third along with Gallen. Did I liberally apply satire and hyperbole to those contentions? Yes!  Because I enjoy those lost arts, but neither is a smokescreen for my opinion which I will eagerly and unequivocally stand behind. 

I was also having a little fun with how seriously some of those Facebook vintage baseball group best-of-all-time conversations descend directly into the kind of quagmire that Mark Twain described. (Never wrestle with the pig in the manure because you both get covered with it and the pig likes it.)

As for Mr. Smith's OBP, I did have a little dyslexia there as it was .327, which still completely sucks for a purported Hall of Famer. 

[CubinNY]

I hate the Cardinals with a red hot passion, but Ozzie and Honus Wagner are considered to be the two best defensive SS ever. He belongs in the HOF. I remember watching him as a kid and not believing what I saw. And on astroturf.