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Assessing Ranger Suarez’s Cy Young Credentials
By Joe Tansey
Published:
The Philadelphia Phillies are blessed to have two pitchers in the top five of the National League Cy Young Award odds.
Zack Wheeler is the favorite to win the award at New Jersey sportsbook apps and Pennsylvania sportsbook apps, priced around +350, but Ranger Suarez has emerged as a potential winner as well.
Suarez is down to +800 at DraftKings and +900 at FanDuel after his incredible start to the season, which he hopes to continue on Wednesday night against the New York Mets. He became the first pitcher to reach seven wins in the majors in his last start and ranks third in ERA and first in WHIP.
Those are better numbers than Tyler Glasnow, Wheeler, AL Cy Young Award favorite Tarik Skubal, and a handful of other top arms across the major leagues.
The Phillies southpaw allowed more than two earned runs just twice in his eight starts. He completed at least six innings in every appearance since his season debut and logged eight or nine strikeouts in four of his trips to the mound.
Wins is probably the last statistic that voters use to pick a Cy Young winner in the era of advanced stats, but it’s worth noting Suarez is already halfway to the highest win total from a NL Cy Young winner in the last six years.
Blake Snell and Sandy Alcantara both went 14-9. Snell turned in a league-best 2.25 ERA and struck out 234 batters in 2023. Alcantara had a 2.28 ERA and 207 Ks in 2022.
Suarez is pacing to hit the mid-2 ERA and 200 K milestones that seem like the basic bar to reach for serious Cy Young candidacy.
The other stat that stands out with Alcantara and Snell is their ERA+, which was over 180 in their award-winning seasons. Suarez’s current ERA+ is 226, while his 0.722 WHIP is also far less than Alcantara’s 1.213 and Snell’s 1.189.
Wheeler, Shota Imanaga, Dylan Cease, and Glasnow are Suarez’s top competition for the Cy Young this season.
Imanaga leads Suarez by one percentage point in WAR for pitchers. The two lefties are the only NL pitchers with an ERA under two.
Glasnow, Cease and Wheeler all sit in the top five in strikeouts per nine innings. They are the top three strikeout earners in the NL.
Suarez probably will not beat out those three hurlers in the strikeout department, but if he continues to limit damage, he can balance out his case with better efficiency numbers than the power arms he’s competing against.
I’d have to imagine Suarez needs to outclass Wheeler in a majority of stat categories to really get the odds to turn in his favor and for the voters to take him, but there’s at least a strong foundation being built for a Cy Young case, one that probably looks stronger with a marvelous performance against the Mets at Citizens Bank Park.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.