Cy Young voting shouldn’t be influenced by Jose Fernandez tragedy

Ryan Fagan

Cy Young voting shouldn’t be influenced by Jose Fernandez tragedy image

Earlier this week, ESPN reporter Buster Olney had a brilliant idea .

He suggested that the Baseball Writers' Association of America should create The Jose Fernandez Award, an honor that, in Olney’s words, would be “given to the young player who, in his first years in the big leagues, best exemplifies Fernandez’s spirit of joy and passion, in the way he plays and treats his peers and fans.”

That’s such a great idea, an idea that absolutely needs to happen. Fernandez was a once-in-a-generation baseball player, an incredible talent and an even better person. His memory will forever create smiles. 

And it shouldn’t just be the BBWAA. MLB should create a Jose Fernandez Training Complex in Cuba if and when the opportunity arises. The player’s union should create a Jose Fernandez Scholarship for high school players who start from disadvantaged backgrounds, like Fernandez did. The Baseball Hall of Fame should create a permanent spot for Fernandez in Cooperstown. 

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He really was the best of us, and his legacy deserves to be honored for as long as baseball exists.

I don’t, though, think Fernandez’s horrible, tragic, stunning, senseless, heartbreaking death should impact the 2016 NL Cy Young voting. A counterpoint was brought up by MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince Thursday morning .

Fernandez absolutely belongs in the discussion, of course. 

He did great things on the mound for the Marlins this season. Fernandez leads the majors in strikeouts per nine innings, at 12.5 (Arizona’s Robbie Ray is second, at 11.4). He’s second in the majors in FanGraphs’ version of WAR, at 6.2, and in FIP, at 2.30 (Mets starter Noah Syndergaard is first in both categories, at 6.5 and 2.28). 

Lots of other NL starters have had great seasons, too. Nationals ace Max Scherzer probably is the favorite, and a couple of Cubs starters — lefty Jon Lester and righty Kyle Hendricks — will be considered for first-place votes, too. Syndergaard is in the conversation, and so are Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto and Tanner Roark. 

Based on what Fernandez accomplished on the mound through his Sept. 20 start against the Nationals — when he was brilliant, again, throwing eight shutout innings, allowing just three hits while striking out 12 — Fernandez earned a spot in the discussion. 

If a voter values strikeouts above all else (after all, how can a hitter reach base and eventually score if he can’t make contact against a pitcher?), then Fernandez just might be deemed worthy of the top spot on that voter’s ballot. That’s a logical position. 

THURM: Fernandez's endless joy was shining example to players

I don’t have a Cy Young vote this year. I did have an NL Cy Young vote last year , and I spent hours and days and weeks trying to figure out whether my first-place vote was going to Zack Greinke, Jake Arrieta or Clayton Kershaw (I eventually went in that order). 

The Cy Young vote should be about what happened on the field during a certain season. It shouldn’t be anything else. The 30 voters are tasked with filling out their five-person ballots. I understand the impulse to vote Fernandez No. 1, the desire to do something personal to honor him. I get that, I really do. But let’s not make the Cy Young Award something it isn’t.

Let’s not make the results of the Cy Young award a referendum on Fernandez’s impact on baseball. It’s OK if he finishes fourth or fifth or sixth or even 10th, based solely on how his on-field production compared to the on-field production of the other NL pitchers.

That not a sign of disrespect to Fernandez’s legacy. Everybody loves Fernandez. We always will. And we should create awards and training programs and scholarships to make sure people in the the following years and decades never forget him, either.

That’s how we truly honor his legacy, not by the results of the 2016 NL Cy Young race.

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.