Could Rays’ Chris Archer be an early Cy Young favorite?

So far into the season the best pitcher in baseball has been the Rays 26 year old Chris Archer.  Will he be able to continue his astoundingly low numbers and go on to win this years AL Cy Young?

The Tampa Bay Rays lost an ace pitcher in the form of David Price via trade last Summer.  Pitchers of Price’s caliber do not come along very often, but the Rays may have found someone to fill the void left by Price last season. 

So far this season, Chris Archer has been statistically the best pitcher in the major leagues and hasn’t allowed a run since Opening Day. Archer also pitched Opening Day on short rest when assumed Tampa Bay Rays ace Alex Cobb was unable to pitch due to injuries. 

One month into the baseball season Chris Archer has provided us with a Cy Young frontrunner.  Even in Archer’s worst start of the season he gave up three earned runs in 5.2 innings pitched. Since then, he has pitched 26.2 innings, has given up 12 hits, and five walks with 32 strikeouts.  To go with that Archer has a 3-1 record with the one loss coming against the Boston Red Sox, where Archer did not give up an earned run. 

The Rays have benefitted from Archer’s emergence as well, as they are tied for second place in the AL East with the Red Sox, one game behind the New York Yankees.  They are accomplishing this while having an alarming nine players currently on the disabled list.  The Rays did, however, get back fellow promising young player Drew Smyly. 

Much Like Jose Fernandez and Matt Harvey in 2013, Archer has seemingly come out of nowhere, performing on a level most people did not expect and is around the same age.  Harvey and Fernandez have, however, had injury issues since their big 2013 season, but both will play this season as Harvey has already made starts for the New York Mets and Fernandez will be off the DL before the All-Star Break.  Corey Kluber is also a player who seemingly came out of nowhere, but had the honorable distinction of winning the AL Cy Young award last season, and did so at a slightly older age than the aforementioned pitchers. 

If Archer were to keep up these numbers statistically, writers would be hard-pressed to find another pitcher worthy of the award.  Precedence as a whole has seemed to matter less and less to baseball writers when it comes to handing out end-of-the-season awards.  With the 2010 Cy Young going to Felix Hernandez, who only won 13 games that season but had a wins above replacement above the second place finisher David Price that was more than two games higher even while Price had six more actual wins.  Even if the Rays start to fall apart as projected going into the season in a tough AL East division, as long as Archer keeps throwing like he is he would be hard to catch or measure up to.   

It maybe due to the fact that Archer was rather buried on the pitching depth chart behind players like Price, Cobb, and Matt Moore, none of whom who are currently on the Rays’ active roster that Archer had yet to really arrive as a number one quality pitcher.  It is the Price trade and these injuries that have shown the Rays what kind of prospect Archer is, after starting 55 games over the last two seasons and having a 3.28 earned run average to go with them.  If there was a Cy Young Award for the month of April, Archer would certainly deserve it, but there isn’t.  Given the opportunity going forward the best maybe yet to come from Chris Archer.