Baseball writers overlooked the fact that the Royals did not give Zack Greinke any run support this season and voted him the American League Cy Young Award winner. Greinke was just 16-8, but that record hid the fact that his ERA of 2.16 was the lowest the league has seen since Pedro Martinez’s 6 years ago. Greinke was dominant at the start and end of the season, but he could do little to help a team that had a weak offense and had trouble stringing wins together.

This is one of the few awards the writers have gotten right this year. They failed miserably with the Hank Aaron Award, which honors the games best hitters and for some reason went to Derek Jeter in the American League instead of oh I don’t know, Joe Mauer, who beat Jeter in every hitting category except hits and runs (which Jeter won because Mauer missed the first month of the season). Greinke beat out Felix Hernandez of the Mariners, another good pitcher on a lousy team, along with Justin Verlander and CC Sabathia for the Cy Young. Anyone who watched baseball this year knows Greinke was a notch above those other guys.

Tags: american league, baseball, cy young, zack greinke