MLB Awards Watch: How good is Chris Archer?

AL Cy Young

1. Chris Archer, Tampa Bay Rays – Archer is one of the few pitchers to make five starts this season, and the young right-hander has been electric in each of them. For the season, the 26-year-old has posted a 0.84 ERA, and it isn’t a fluke, with Archer striking out 10.3 batters per 9 innings against just 1.67 walks in that same timeframe. Polling casual fans would not result in a lot of votes for Chris Archer as a legitimate Cy Young candidate, but he looks the part at the moment.
2. Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners – King Felix is still King Felix. The big right-hander has a 1.61 ERA across four starts (28.0 innings), and he is main reason that the Mariners have remained competitive at 8-11 on the year. At this point, we expect ridiculous numbers from Hernandez on an annual basis, and he is obliging to this point with a 6-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio and lights-out numbers.
3. Scott Kazmir, Oakland Athletics – Kazmir actually has a better ERA (0.99 to 1.61) than Hernandez, but the advanced metrics indicate that he has been a bit on the lucky side. Still, the veteran left-hander has been outstanding for Oakland, striking out more than a batter per inning across his four starts and 27.1 innings of work. His 93.2% left-on-base percentage is wholly unsustainable, but even as his ERA rises, Scott Kazmir will continue to be one of the best stories in all of baseball as a former hot-shot prospect turned MLB reclamation project.

Next: NL MVP