Greinke Setting Many Firsts For Cy Young Winners

There’s more than meets the eye to Zack Greinke pulling in the Cy Young award today:

Never before has a pitcher won the ALCY with less than 18 victories in a complete season… until now (16). There had never been a pitcher rank lower than fourth in victories… until now (tied for 7th). There has never been a pitcher win the ALCY when his team won less than 72 games… until now (65). The fact that all of them are true at the same time – along with the fact that Greinke got 25 of 28 first place votes is remarkable. But, it also means the ALCY voting has permanently moved into a new era – one where the success of the team is no longer considered critical.

While it seems baseball writers are still a little obsessed with batting average (see: 2009 NL Rookie of the Year winner), according to most, they nailed the Cy Young down correctly for all the right reasons.

We’ll see if the trend continues Wednesday when the National League Cy Young is announced.