Paul Skenes' dominant MLB Cy Young ranking still has Pirates fans questioning voters

If there was ever a pitcher who could've become the second player ever to win both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards in the same season, it was 2024 Paul Skenes. However, Fernando Valenzuela is still the only pitcher who's done it. While Skenes ran away with the RoY over the Padres' Jackson Merrill, Chris Sale almost unanimously won the Cy Young for his Triple Crown-winning campaign with the Braves last year.

Even so, Skenes is expected to waste no time in adding the Cy Young to his trophy case. Voters in a new MLB.com poll projected Skenes as the NL's winner with 32 first-place votes (out of 40 voters and five candidates per league).

However, there was a lot more dissent within the National League than the American League. Tarik Skubal got 37 first-place votes, while Max Fried got two and Kris Bubic got one. In the NL, despite Skenes' dominance, Zack Wheeler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Logan Webb also picked up two apiece, and Wheeler ranks at No. 2 behind Skenes thanks to the poll's 5-4-3-2-1 voting structure.

Even if this early poll makes Skenes far and away the No. 1 pick, we'd like to have a talk with whoever voted Wheeler, Yamamoto, and Webb higher.

Pirates' Paul Skenes is the clear early favorite for the 2025 NL Cy Young, but there's still some dissent

There's no one — except perhaps Skubal — in all of baseball who's doing it quite like Skenes. He leads qualified MLB starters in innings pitched and has the fifth-lowest ERA behind four pitchers who have all thrown fewer innings than him. Meanwhile, Yamamoto has pitched the fewest innings of any of the other candidates, and Wheeler has the highest ERA. None of Wheeler, Yamamoto, or Webb have pitched a complete game this season (Yamamoto rarely ever even pitches through seven because of how breakable the Dodgers are).

Maybe we're being too nitpicky — after all, the vast majority of voters polled did choose Skenes as their No. 1 — but it's genuinely absurd he's going so deep into games every time he steps onto the mound and is still sitting on a sub-2.00 ERA.

There's a lot of season to go, and maybe some of those voters (probably beat writers, if we're being real) will be swayed by the end of the year. Either way, it looks like Skenes has this one in the bag. Before you know it, everyone will come to their senses.