What is the Cy Young Award? Definition, Voting, and Winners
The Cy Young Award is given annually to the best pitcher in each MLB league, as voted on by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
What is the Cy Young Award?
The Cy Young Award is the most prestigious honor a pitcher can earn in Major League Baseball. One award is given each season to the best pitcher in the American League and one to the best pitcher in the National League, as determined by a vote of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). The award is named after Cy Young, the winningest pitcher in MLB history with 511 career victories, and was established in 1956 — one year after Young's death.
How the Cy Young Award is Voted On
From 1956 through 1966, a single Cy Young Award covered all of Major League Baseball. Starting in 1967, the award split into separate AL and NL honors. Thirty BBWAA members vote for each league's award — two writers from each city with a team in that league. Each voter submits a ranked ballot of five pitchers, and points are assigned on a 7-4-3-2-1 scale (7 points for a first-place vote, down to 1 point for fifth). The pitcher with the highest point total wins.
Ballots are submitted before the postseason begins, so playoff performance has zero influence on the outcome. Voters weigh whatever criteria they choose, but modern voting has shifted decisively toward advanced metrics: ERA, FIP, strikeout rate, WHIP, and WAR now matter far more than raw win totals. Felix Hernandez won the 2010 AL Cy Young with a 13-12 record because his 2.27 ERA and league-leading peripherals overwhelmed the outdated "pitcher wins" narrative.
Worked Example: Tarik Skubal's 2024 AL Cy Young
Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers won the 2024 AL Cy Young unanimously, receiving all 30 first-place votes for 210 points. His season line: 18-4 record, 2.39 ERA, 228 strikeouts in 192 innings, and a 0.92 WHIP — a pitching Triple Crown (wins, ERA, strikeouts) plus the league's best walk suppression. Skubal's 2025 follow-up was arguably better, making him the first back-to-back AL Cy Young winner since Pedro Martinez in 1999-2000. On the NL side, Paul Skenes captured the 2025 award in his first full season, riding a sub-2.00 ERA and a fastball averaging over 98 mph.
Why the Cy Young Award Matters
The award drives real money. Most modern pitching contracts include Cy Young bonus clauses, and a win permanently raises a player's arbitration salaries and free-agent market value. It also anchors Hall of Fame cases: multiple Cy Youngs all but guarantee Cooperstown (every eligible pitcher with three or more is in). For fantasy players, tracking the Cy Young race is a proxy for identifying which arms deliver first-round value. In Legends Deck, a pitcher's Cy Young-caliber season is reflected directly in his card's ratings — elite Stuff+, command, and run-prevention grades that make him the anchor of any simulated rotation.
Limitations and Common Misconceptions
The Cy Young measures one season, not career greatness — plenty of winners (Eric Gagne, Barry Zito) never repeated. It's also a narrative-driven vote despite the analytics shift: voters still penalize pitchers on bad teams and reward September surges. Relievers are technically eligible but almost never win; only nine relievers have ever taken the award, the last being Dennis Eckersley in 1992. And the award is often confused with the MVP — pitchers are MVP-eligible too, but winning both in one year (as Clayton Kershaw did in 2014) is rare.