Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara officially one of three NL Cy Young Award finalists
The announcement on Monday was merely a formality for Sandy Alcantara.
The Miami Marlins’ ace is officially one of three finalists for the National League Cy Young Award, the honor given annually to the NL’s top pitcher.
The Atlanta Braves’ Max Fried and Los Angeles Dodgers’ Julio Urias are the other finalists. The winner will be announced Nov. 16. Should Alcantara win, he would be the first Marlins pitcher ever to take home a Cy Young Award.
And Alcantara, understandably, is perceived as the heavy favorite for the award after his breakout 2022 season.
The 27-year-old right-handed pitcher led MLB in innings pitched (228 2/3) and complete games (six) and worked at least eight innings in 14 of his starts — the most by any MLB pitcher since 2014. Alcantara’s 2.28 ERA was the second-lowest in Marlins’ history (behind Kevin Brown’s 1.89 in 1995) and in the National League in 2022 (behind Urias’ 2.16). He held opponents to two earned runs or fewer in 25 of his starts.
“Everything that I’ve been doing, they know,” Alcantara said. “I’ve been on the frontline every time, every fifth day when I got the opportunity to go outside and I gave my 100 percent all the time. They know I’m here to compete.”
He went on a run of 13 consecutive starts with at least seven innings pitched heading into the All-Star Break and gave up no more than two earned runs in 12 of those outings. Eight of those 13 games came against teams that made the postseason — three against the Mets, two against the Braves, two against the Phillies and one against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Three of his six complete games also came against playoff teams: The Braves (May 22), Cardinals (June 29) and Dodgers (Aug. 27).
“Really nobody else in baseball gets into the seventh inning very often,” catcher Jacob Stallings said. “He did it so many times in a row. That stretch was when I was like ‘OK, this guy’s a little different than the rest of us.’”
Alcantara is also the first pitcher in Marlins franchise history to have multiple 200-inning, 200-strikeout seasons and the first in MLB to hit those marks in consecutive seasons since Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom all did so in 2018 and 2019.
“I’m just going to start calling him Cy,” Marlins general manager Kim Ng said toward the end of the season. “I will tell you he’s been an absolute pleasure and joy to watch all season long. Take out a couple starts and this guy has been absolutely nails. Every fifth or sixth day you think you could be watching history tonight.”
As for the other finalists...
Fried went 14-7 with a 2.48 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP, .225 batting average against and 170 strikeouts against 32 walks over 185 1/3 innings in 30 starts.
Urias went 17-7 with a 2.16 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, .199 batting average against and 166 strikeouts against 41 walks over 175 innings in 31 starts.
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