Robbie Ray of the Blue Jays and Corbin Burnes of the Brewers won 2021 Cy Young Awards over Box-Toppers’ two top-ranked pitchers for 2021.
Box-Toppers postseason honors ballot
Here are Box-Toppers' ballot selections for Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA) Cy Young Awards. The ballot required voters to rank the top five pitchers in each league.Players are shown with their team and their Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2021.
| AL Cy Young | |||
| Player | Team | BTP | |
| 1 | Gerrit Cole | Yankees | 22.4 |
| 2 | Robbie Ray | Blue Jays | 17.7 |
| 3 | Shohei Ohtani | Angels | 16.1 |
| 4 | Sean Manaea | Athletics | 15.7 |
| 5 | Dylan Cease | White Sox | 14.4 |
| NL Cy Young | |||
| Player | Team | BTP | |
| 1 | Max Scherzer | Dodgers | 25.1 |
| 2 | Zack Wheeler | Phillies | 21.1 |
| 3 | Julio Urias | Dodgers | 19.1 |
| 4 | Corbin Burnes | Brewers | 18.1 |
| 5 | German Marquez | Rockies | 17.4 |
Ray won the American League Cy Young Award after ranking second in 2021 Box-Toppers points among AL pitchers, behind Gerrit Cole of the Yankees. Cole had 22.4 Box-Toppers points and Ray trailed by 4.7 with 17.7. Cole finished second in AL Cy Young voting.
Burnes won the National League Cy Young Award after ranking fourth in 2021 Box-Toppers points among NL pitchers, behind Max Scherzer of the Dodgers, who led all players with 25.1 points. Burnes had 18.1 points, 7.0 points behind Scherzer and also trailed second-ranked Zack Wheeler of the Phillies (21.1) and Julio Urias of the Dodgers (18.1). Scherzer finished third in NL Cy Young voting, Wheeler finished second and Urias finished eighth.
The awards are voted on by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Votes are cast at the end of the regular season, before the start of the postseason, and were announced Wednesday. (See charts below American League Cy Young Award voting and National League Cy Young Award voting for voting results and how top candidates fared in Box-Toppers points and rankings.)
This is the fifth time in 27 chances (since Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995) that both the AL and the NL pitching leaders in Box-Toppers points have both failed to win their league’s Cy Young Award. And this will be the fourth time in 27 tries that all four Box-Toppers category leaders will fail to win any major postseason award. Neither the AL nor the NL Box-Toppers points leaders for batters are among the finalists for their league’s Most Valuable Player Award, which will be announced Thursday.
AL Cy Young
Ray won 29 of the 30 first-place votes for the AL Cy Young Award. Cole won the other.
Ray’s 17.7 Box-Toppers points ranked second among AL pitchers and sixth among all players. Ray earned 13.7 of his points in the second half of the season, earning Player of the Game honors nine times. Of course this means during the first half of the season he only earned 4.0 points, earning four Player of the Game honors.
By contrast, Cole who finished second overall with 22.4 points, led in overall Box-Toppers season player rankings more days that any other player (51), but did not earn any points or Player of the Game honors after Sept. 1.
Awards voters tend to favor stellar performance late in the season, even though early season games count just the same.
Shohei Ohtani of the Angels is Box-Toppers’ highest-ranking AL pitcher to earn no votes in AL Cy Young voting. Ohtani had 16.1 Box-Toppers points in 2021, third among all AL pitchers, behind Cole (22.4) and Ray (17.7). It’s kind of surprising, given the hype around Ohtani as a dual-threat player as both a starting pitcher and a home-run hitting designated hitter, plus the fact that by Box-Toppers measurements, he was far more dominant as a pitcher. Ohtani earned 12.1 of his points as a starting pitcher and 4.0 as a designated hitter. Ohtani is a finalist for AL Most Valuable Player to be awarded Thursday, an honor he will likely win.
Lance Lynn of the White Sox finished third in AL Cy Young voting, but ranked ninth among AL pitchers in Box-Toppers points with 12.4, which is fewer than three AL pitchers who did not receive AL Cy Young votes:
Ohtani, third among AL pitchers with 16.1
Sean Manaea of the Athletics, fourth among AL pitchers with 15.7.
Tyler Glasnow of the Rays, eighth among AL pitchers with 12.7. Notably, Glasnow earned all his points June 8 and prior and was out injured after that most of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
NL Cy Young
Burnes won 12 of the 30 first-place votes en route to his win. Wheeler also won 12 first-place votes and Scherzer picked up six.
While Burnes ranked fourth among NL pitchers in Box-Toppers points (18.1), he trailed Scherzer (25.1) by a significant amount, 7.0 points. Burnes earned 12 Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors in 2021, fairly evenly spread out through the season, with four in August.
Scherzer meanwhile started the season with the Nationals and earned 10.7 points before being traded to the Dodgers at the end of July. From Aug. 4 on, he earned 14.4 Box-Toppers points, taking the overall player rankings lead Sept. 12 and holding it for the final 22 days of the season.
Scherzer earned Player of the Game honors 16 times in 2021, eight times with the Nationals and eight times with the Dodgers. He earned Player of the Game honors four times each in both August and September.
If the AL Cy Young Award for Ray is based mostly on his second-half performance, the NL Cy Young Award mostly ignores that. Scherzer had the most dominant final two months of the season. Burnes earned 9.0 points in the final two months while Scherzer earned 14.4. In addition to that, Scherzer’s first four months were pretty good, too. His 10.7 Box-Toppers points on July 31 ranked seventh among NL pitchers. Burnes earned 9.1 points during the first four months of the season, just outside the top 10 NL pitchers.
Even Ray, who won the AL Cy Young for his second-half performance, only had 9.7 points from Aug. 1 on, far fewer than Scherzer’s 14.4 in that span.
Wheeler finished second in NL Cy Young voting. His 21.1 Box-Toppers points was second among NL pitchers, 4.0 behind Scherzer, but 3.0 ahead of Burnes. Wheeler took the overall Box-Toppers season player rankings lead for eight days on Aug. 8 when he reached 17.1 points, until he was passed by Cole on Aug. 16 with 18.4.
One other NL pitcher who had more 2021 Box-Toppers points than Burnes was Julio Urias of the Dodgers, who had 19.1, third among NL pitchers and fourth overall. But Urias finished tied for seventh in NL Cy Young voting with only three fifth-place votes.
Box-Toppers’ highest-ranked NL pitcher to earn no votes for Cy Young is German Marquez of the Rockies, whose 17.4 points was fifth among NL pitchers, just 0.7 points behind Burnes.
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The pitcher who leads his league in Box-Toppers points often coincides with the winner of the Cy Young Award. Since Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995 and through 2020, there were 52 Cy Youngs awarded over 26 seasons and 32 of them (61.5 percent) led their league’s pitchers in Box-Toppers points.
This is the fifth time in 27 chances that both the AL and the NL pitching leaders in Box-Toppers points have both failed to win their league’s Cy Young Award. The other four:
2003—Pedro Martinez of the Red Sox led AL pitchers with 23.4 and Jason Schmidt of the Giants led NL pitchers with 24.7. Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays (14.1) won in the AL and Eric Gagne of the Dodgers (19.0) won in the NL.
2008—Ervin Santana of the Angels led AL pitchers with 16.7 and CC Sabathia of the Brewers led NL pitchers with 26.7. Cliff Lee of the Indians (15.0) won in the AL and Tim Lincecum of the Giants (17.7) won in the NL.
2012—Justin Verlander of the Tigers led AL pitchers with 24.8 and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers led NL pitchers with 20.8. David Price of the Red Sox (14.1) won in the AL and R.A. Dickey of the Mets (19.1) won in the NL.
2019—Gerrit Cole of the Astros led AL pitchers with 32.2 and Stephen Strasburg of the Nationals led NL pitchers with 20.7. Justin Verlander of the Astros (27.5) won in the AL and Jacob deGrom of the Mets (19.1) won in the NL.
And this will be the fourth time in 27 tries that all four Box-Toppers category leaders will fail to win any major postseason award. Neither the AL nor the NL Box-Toppers points leaders for batters are among the finalists for their league’s Most Valuable Player Award, which will be announced Thursday. That happened previously in 2003, 2012 and 2019.
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IBWAA Cy Young vote
The Internet Baseball Writers Association of America voted Ray and Scherzer as their 2021 Cy Young winners. Box-Toppers votes in the IBWAA awards and voted for Cole and Scherzer for the awards. Here are the IBWAA results:
AL Cy Young
1st Place: Robbie Ray, Blue Jays - 330 points
2nd Place: Gerrit Cole, Yankees - 277 points
3rd Place: Lance Lynn, White Sox - 102 points
NL Cy Young:
1st Place: Max Scherzer, Dodgers - 240 points
2nd Place: Corbin Burnes, Brewers - 231 points
3rd Place: Zack Wheeler, Phillies - 216 points
The IBWAA was established in 2009 to serve the baseball writing community, representing more than 700 baseball content creators. Voting for full season awards takes place at the close of the regular season each year, with selections being announced in November. The IBWAA also holds Hall of Fame, preseason prediction, and All-Star Game voting.
About Box-Toppers—Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.
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Related
Box-Toppers’ picks for postseason awards include Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, Jose Ramirez
A look at 2021 awards finalists and how they fared in Box-Toppers rankings
Box-Toppers looks at previous year’s Cy Young voting: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015
American League Cy Young Award voting
Robbie Ray of the Blue Jays was voted 2021 AL Cy Young Award winner as the league’s top pitcher. Gerrit Cole of the Yankees led AL pitchers in 2021 Box-Toppers points. Below are the AL pitchers in order of their voting finish, shown with their first- through fifth-place votes and their voting points total. Also shown are each player’s Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2021 and their rank in points among AL pitchers.| AL pitcher | Team | Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | Points | BTP | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Robbie Ray | Blue Jays | pi sp | 29 | 1 | 207 | 17.7 | 2 | |||
| 2 | Gerrit Cole | Yankees | pi sp | 1 | 29 | 123 | 22.4 | 1 | |||
| 3 | Lance Lynn | White Sox | pi sp | 11 | 5 | 5 | 48 | 12.4 | 9 | ||
| 4 | Nathan Eovaldi | Red Sox | pi sp | 8 | 6 | 5 | 41 | 14.1 | 6 | ||
| 5 | Carlos Rodon | White Sox | pi sp | 4 | 8 | 6 | 34 | 11.7 | 12 | ||
| 6 | Frankie Montas | Athletics | pi sp | 2 | 6 | 3 | 21 | 12.4 | 10 | ||
| 7 | Lance McCullers Jr. | Astros | pi sp | 1 | 4 | 3 | 14 | 8.7 | 25 | ||
| 8 | Liam Hendriks | White Sox | pi cp | 3 | 1 | 10 | 7.0 | 33 | |||
| 9 | Jose Berrios | Blue Jays | pi sp | 1 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 9.4 | 21 | ||
| 10 | Chris Bassitt | Athletics | pi sp | 2 | 2 | 13.7 | 7 | ||||
| 11 | Lucas Giolito | White Sox | pi sp | 1 | 1 | 11.4 | 14 | ||||
| 11 | Raisel Iglesias | Angels | pi cp | 1 | 1 | 6.0 | 49 |
National League Cy Young Award voting
Corbin Burnes of the Brewers was voted 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner as the league’s top pitcher. Max Scherzer of the Dodgers led NL pitchers in 2021 Box-Toppers points. Below are the NL pitchers in order of their voting finish, shown with their first- through fifth-place votes and their voting points total. Also shown are each player’s Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2021 and their rank in points among NL pitchers.| NL pitcher | Team | Pos | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | Points | BTP | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Corbin Burnes | Brewers | pi sp | 12 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 151 | 18.1 | 4 | |
| 2 | Zack Wheeler | Phillies | pi sp | 12 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 141 | 21.1 | 2 |
| 3 | Max Scherzer | Dodgers | pi sp | 6 | 5 | 13 | 6 | 113 | 25.1 | 1 | |
| 4 | Walker Buehler | Dodgers | pi sp | 2 | 9 | 17 | 1 | 70 | 16.7 | 8 | |
| 5 | Brandon Woodruff | Brewers | pi sp | 2 | 17 | 21 | 17.1 | 6 | |||
| 6 | Kevin Gausman | Giants | pi sp | 1 | 4 | 7 | 13.7 | 11 | |||
| 7 | Julio Urias | Dodgers | pi sp | 3 | 3 | 19.1 | 3 | ||||
| 7 | Adam Wainwright | Cardinals | pi sp | 3 | 3 | 12.0 | 18 | ||||
| 9 | Jacob deGrom | Mets | pi sp | 1 | 1 | 16.7 | 7 |