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Tampa Bay — The Cy Young Award is a prestigious award that is given to the best pitchers in Major League Baseball – one for an American League Pitcher and one for a National League Pitcher. Former Cy Young Award winners include Corbin Burnes, Jacob DeGrom, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, and many other all-time great pitchers. Surprisingly, the AL Cy Young frontrunner this year is Shane McClanahan, starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. Compared to last season, McClanahan has stepped up his game and leads the MLB in almost every pitching category. 

This season, McClanahan owns a stellar 1.77 ERA and a 0.83 WHIP with 8 wins and 3 losses.   What helps McClanahan maintain a low ERA and WHIP is his ability to strike out a lot of batters while limiting the number of walks he issues per game. In terms of K/9, McClanahan is second in the MLB only behind Dylan Cease, with 12.1 K/9. For reference, the league average K/9 is 8.46. Also, he is in the top 3% of the league with a 35.7% K rate and only a 4.6% BB rate which is in the top 8% of the league. On the season, batters are only hitting .183 against McClanahan. 

McClanahan’s pitch arsenal is a huge reason for his high strikeout rate. In terms of pitch usage, he throws a 4-seam fastball (35.9%), curveball (25.5%), changeup (22.6%), and a slider (15.9%). Generally, it’s impressive when a starting pitcher can throw 100 mph but Shane McClanahan has made it look all too easy this season (he reached 101 mph once this season as well). After throwing 100 mph, McClanahan then slows batters down with a curveball at 86 mph or a hard changeup at 90 mph. His most effective pitch is his curveball which has a 44.7% K rate, and batters are only slashing .133/.161/.200 against it. 

So how did Shane McClanahan take such a huge leap from last year’s rookie season? For starters, he dropped his hard-hit rate by 13.8%, which has reduced the number of batters who hit the ball hard against McClanahan. By reducing this number, he has also lowered his ERA. Furthermore, McClanahan’s K rate rose 8.4%, and his whiff rate rose 4.3%. The league average K rate is 22.2%, and McClanahan is well above that number with a K rate of 35.7% – which shows how dominant McClanahan is. 

While the Cy Young Award is not based on improvement but rather on who is the best pitcher, McClanahan has shown that he is both the most improved and best pitcher in the American League. From McClanahan’s above-average K% to his low BB%, it can be clearly seen that McClanahan is most deserving of this award. In the month of June, he only allowed 9 runs! The Former 1st round pick out of the University of South Florida should be proud of his accomplishments in only his 2nd season! In the future, I expect Shane McClanahan to keep putting on a show every time he takes the mound (with some minor regression expected).

Matthew Suh is a staff writer and contributor for Talking Points Sports. While Matthew covers football, basketball, and baseball, he tends to focus on writing about the MLB and baseball Questions about the MLB or baseball? Follow or DM Matthew on Twitter @matthewsuh for inquiries. Be sure to follow @TalkingPointsSports on Twitter for the latest sports content!