Thursday Thought: Where will Mets pitchers finish in Cy Young voting?

The New York Mets have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball. Of course, they’ve got the big names at the top of the rotation and at the back of the bullpen, and those are the names we’re going to look at for Cy Young predictions.

The Mets have two pitchers who will receive Cy Young votes, and one other has a chance

Let’s start out with something that’s obvious but also a little bit of a downer: I don’t think Jacob deGrom will receive Cy Young votes this season. Due to his injury in spring training and the setback he had in-season, he’s only made four starts and he’s been on pitch limits for all of them. He’s looked really good, but he’s just not going to get the workload to garner votes.

Max Scherzer is likely going to be the top Cy Young finisher for the Mets. He should be in the top five for the ninth time in his career. He’s got a shot being a finalist, but he’s got some stiff competition. Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins and Tony Gonsolin of the Dodgers are basically guaranteed to be finalists, with the other spot either going to Scherzer, Aaron Nola, or Max Fried. It’s worth noting that due to Scherzer’s injury, Nola and Fried both have more starts and innings than Scherzer, and that’s usually a big factor for voters.

The next Mets who has a chance to get votes is Chris Bassitt. He’s having a very similar season to 2021, in which he finished 10th in the AL Cy Young voting. He’ll likely finish this season with more starts and innings than last year, since he hasn’t missed any time. If he gets votes, he will probably finish around the same spot as last year, since the Cy Young race in the NL is going to be fierce. He'll be contending with names like Corbin Burnes, Zack Wheeler, and Joe Musgrove.

The last Mets to get votes will be Edwin Diaz. He’s had one of the best seasons we’ve seen from a reliever in recent memory, and he’s setting records for the amount of swings and misses he’s getting. I’d peg him in the 7-9 range.

Below is my projection of what the NL Cy Young standings will look like. The main factors I considered were innings pitched, ERA, ERA+, and WAR.

1. Sandy Alcantara
2. Tony Gonsolin
3. Max Fried
4. Max Scherzer
5. Carlos Rodon
6. Aaron Nola
7. Edwin Diaz
8. Corbin Burnes
9. Julio Urias
10. Zack Wheeler
11. Joe Musgrove

My big takeaway from doing this is just how deep the Cy Young race is this year. I didn't even include names like Chris Bassitt, Zac Gallen, and Logan Webb because there just isn't room for them, even though they're all having great seasons. Most years have 8-10 Cy Young vote-getters, I went to 11 and still left those studs out. The voters have the work cut out for them this offseason.