A quick glance through the history of Cy Young Award voting makes it clear that favorites don’t always win and sometimes, pitchers emerge from off the radar.
More often than you might expect, pitchers without demonstrated prior success put together seasons that make them Cy Young Award contenders. Also more often than you might expect, many of these pitchers fade right back to league average or, in some cases, right out of the league. Some Cy Young Award winners (Hoyt, Vuckovich, Denny, Stone, Lonborg, McCormick) took home the award in the only year that they ever received votes.
Pitching success can be fleeting, and in some special cases, sustained. This makes it challenging to project favorites to be the best pitchers in the majors each year. Regardless, the challenge is fun. There is a significantly high probability that the 2020 Cy Young Award winners will come from the list below, but certainly, others will surprise. Here are the preseason front-runner candidates for the Cy Young Award in each league in order of my assumed probability of winning. Projected stats are from SportsLine based on the expectation of a full 2020 season. Over the course of the season, probably at the end of each month, we’ll update with realized stats and reset the leaderboard of Cy Young Award contenders.
| Innings | ERA | WHIP | W | L | K | BB | H | |
| AMERICAN LEAGUE | ||||||||
| Gerrit Cole | NYY | 202 | 3.29 | 1.18 | 16 | 9 | 246 | 70 | 168 |
| Justin Verlander | HOU | 200 | 3.32 | 1.05 | 19 | 8 | 250 | 53 | 157 |
| Shane Bieber | CLE | 178 | 3.79 | 1.15 | 13 | 8 | 204 | 40 | 165 |
| Blake Snell | TB | 163 | 3.19 | 1.17 | 15 | 9 | 197 | 55 | 136 |
| Mike Clevinger | CLE | 175 | 3.09 | 1.19 | 16 | 6 | 204 | 56 | 152 |
| Jose Berrios | MIN | 192 | 3.6 | 1.28 | 16 | 7 | 200 | 65 | 181 |
| Zack Greinke | HOU | 191 | 3.29 | 1.07 | 17 | 6 | 213 | 44 | 160 |
| NATIONAL LEAGUE | ||||||||
| Jacob deGrom | NYM | 202 | 2.41 | 1.05 | 15 | 7 | 229 | 48 | 164 |
| Max Scherzer | WAS | 207 | 2.99 | 1.09 | 15 | 8 | 253 | 54 | 172 |
| Stephen Strasburg | WAS | 189 | 3.05 | 1.12 | 15 | 8 | 218 | 50 | 162 |
| Walker Buehler | LAD | 175 | 2.98 | 1.06 | 14 | 4 | 202 | 41 | 144 |
| Jack Flaherty | STL | 172 | 3.03 | 1.1 | 13 | 7 | 186 | 51 | 139 |
| Clayton Kershaw | LAD | 171 | 3.2 | 1.12 | 15 | 6 | 177 | 42 | 151 |
| Aaron Nola | PHI | 178 | 3.63 | 1.24 | 13 | 6 | 199 | 59 | 163 |
| Luis Castillo | CIN | 175 | 3.48 | 1.14 | 14 | 9 | 196 | 55 | 146 |
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