Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — For the second straight year, a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers will be a finalist for the Cy Young award in the National League. Julio Urias topped off his breakout year with a nomination for the highest award in all of pitching. On Tuesday, the league announced the three finalists for the prize, and none of the names was exactly a surprise. Urías joins the Braves’ Max Fried and the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara on the list. It is one more sign that Julio has joined the ranks of the games’ elite hurlers.
The inclusion of Urías on the list is well deserved. For the second straight season, Urías was absolutely nails from start to finish in 2022. He had 31 starts, 19 of which quality starts (six or more innings giving up three or fewer runs). In 175 innings pitch, El Culichi notched 166 strikeouts while posting an ERA of 2.16 (tops in the league). In addition, Urias’s WHIP (0.96), strikeouts per 9 (8.54) average against (.199) and batting average on balls in play (.229) were all among NL leaders in those categories.
However, it seems like the strong start to the season by Sandy Alcantara puts him as the odds-on favorite to take home the prize. His 1.76 ERA prior to the All-Star break was remarkable, and even though his production waned slightly toward the tail end of the year, I’m not sure he fell off enough to make voters erase the memory of the first few months of the year.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see how close the race is this year. Last year, the Dodgers had two of the top four vote getters. Max Scherzer finished third in the voting, and Walker Buehler, who looked for a while like he’d win the thing, finished in fourth place, considerably behind the eventual winner, Corbin Burnes of the Brewers.
In the end, it might be Alcantara’s heavier workload that gives him the advantage in this one. However, there are those in Dodgerland who don’t see this a legit criterion to judge the season on. Toward the end of the year, manager Dave Roberts had this to say about the whole thing, and why Urías didn’t get the long starts that characterized Alcantara’s year.
“These are decisions I’ve made for the best interest of the organization, the ballclub and him,” Dodgers manager he said. “Teams that are not playing through October have more of a luxury. They don’t have to plan for an extra month of baseball. That’s our reality. That’s a good thing.
“I don’t think he should be penalized for it.”
Well, that extra month of baseball never materialized. And we’ll just have to see how that affects the voting this year.
Nevertheless, a great year from a fantastic Dodger.
