Mets are now tied for second-most Cy Young wins thanks to Jacob deGrom

For the second straight year, Jacob deGrom is the National League Cy Young winner. The seventh in New York Mets franchise history puts the team in a tie for second-place all-time.

With back-to-back National League Cy Young victories, Jacob deGrom helped pushed the New York Mets into a tie for second place for the most by a team. The seven won by Mets players ties the Atlanta/Milwaukee Braves, Boston Red Sox, and Philadelphia Phillies. Only the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers have won more with 12.

deGrom won his second Cy Young Award with 29 of the possible 30 votes for first-place. Hyun-Jin Ryu of the Dodgers received the only other first-place consideration.

The Mets have been fortunate in the 2010s with Cy Young winners. Three of the ten were won by Mets players. deGrom has the two most recent with R.A. Dickey adding another back in 2012 when he prevented Clayton Kershaw from potentially winning four in a row.

It wasn’t always this easy for the Mets. Before Dickey in 2012, one would have to go back to 1985 to find the most recent. This was Dwight Gooden’s historic sophomore season when he put up numbers that only compared to players from the Dead-ball era.

Prior to Doc, we find Tom Seaver with wins in 1969, 1973, and 1975. It wasn’t always easy for Seaver either. He had to fight alongside another great of the era, Steve Carlton, for the honors. In 1971, he famously lost to Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins despite having numbers I believe were better than the Chicago Cubs starter.

Unlike last year when deGrom earned all but one first-place vote, this season was a little tighter. The story of last year’s Cy Young race was all about how well deGrom pitched in spite of getting little run support from his teammates. This didn’t exactly change in 2019. However, with deGrom’s ERA climbing a little higher toward normalcy, it wasn’t the same headline news as it was in 2018.

deGrom earned every vote he got. Sometimes, though, I feel voters want to see change and will go with a first-timer over another player they actually thing deserves the award.

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There are fair arguments to make for others who were in the running for the Cy Young. In the end, it was deGrom who outpitched them and became the clear best pitcher in the league when the voters put their pen to paper at season’s end.