Dylan Cease was named to the All-MLB second team alongside pitchers Max Fried, Max Scherzer, Aaron Nola, and Julio Urias. It is an impressive group of pitchers to be associated with and another accolade for his impressive 2022 resume.
However, it is not the group of pitchers Cease should have been grouped. Cease being on the second team is like the scene from Soprano's where Christopher doesn't want to be seen around the pizza parlor anymore.
No disrespect to Aaron Nola or Max Fried, but Cease should not be in the same second-team rotation as them. He belonged on the All-MLB first team. Three pitchers that made the cut finished behind him in the AL Cy Young voting.
Not only did Cease not make the first team, but some voters also had the audacity to leave him off the ballot altogether. MLB Network insider Mark Feinsand didn't even pencil in Cease for a second-team selection. Feinsand deserves respect for posting his ballot because most writers submit them anonymously to avoid backlash. However, it is fair to wonder what the hell he was thinking when he submitted his ballot.
Snubbed Again
It's not the first time Dylan Cease has gotten screwed. The first time he was snubbed was for the AL All-Star team. This was despite having better statistics in every major category than Paul Blackburn and Nestor Cortes, the two pitches chosen in favor of Cease.
Cortes has no business being on the roster over Cease. Cease has the same amount of quality starts (6), more wins (8), a lower ERA (2.30), lower opponent OPS (.618), more strikeouts ( 142), more strikeouts per nine innings (13.09), more starts with no earned runs allowed (8), and more starts with ten plus strikeouts (4). The only category Cortes has Cease beat is WHIP. Not only could he not crack the initial roster, but the MLB would not even name him as a replacement.
The White Sox ace would go on to post a 14-8 record with a 2.20 ERA and 227 strikeouts in 184 innings. He ranked fifth in the AL in bWAR, second in strikeouts, and 10th in innings.
The only pitcher better than Cease in the American League was Justin Verlander. Verlander was the unanimous first-place finisher after receiving all 30 first-place votes. It was a deserving victory for Verlander, who continues to defy father time. At the age of 39, he led the MLB with 18 wins. He also put up a league-best 1.75 ERA and 0.829 WHIP.
Cease finished behind Verlander in the Cy Young voting with 97 points. The White Sox ace received 14 second-place and ten third-place votes, enough to beat out Alek Manoah of the Blue Jays by ten points. Yet somehow, Manoah made the All-MLB First Team.
Here is the list of pitchers that were named to the first team:
MLB First Team Starting Pitchers:
SP: Sandy Alcantara, Marlins
SP: Shohei Ohtani, Angels
SP: Justin Verlander, Astros
SP: Framber Valdez, Astros
SP: Alek Manoah, Blue Jays
Sandy Alcantra was the National League Cy Young winner, so he deservedly made the list. But after Alcantra and Verlander, no other pitcher had a better case than Cease.
His opponents hit just .190 against him on the season, and he set a new MLB record with 14 consecutive starts of no earned runs allowed. Do the voters hate his mustache? Is there an anti- Cease bias? There is no reasonable explanation. Let's go down the list.
Shohei Ohtani
Shohei Ohtani is the darling of the MLB. For good reason. Ohtani is a once-in-a-lifetime talent. But he didn't have a better season on the mound than Cease.
Ohtani had a higher ERA (2.33), fewer strikeouts (219), fewer innings pitched (166), and a slightly lower WAR (6.2 to Cease's 6.4). His opponents also had a higher batting average against him (.203). The numbers don't lie. Cease was the better pitcher in 2022, which is why he finished fourth in the Cy Young voting.
Framber Valdez
Valdez had an excellent season for the Houston Astros, but placing him above Cease is laughable. He had the 11th-best ERA in baseball, while Cease was third-best.
Opponents hit .233 off of him, higher than Julio Urias and Aaron Nola, who were both on the second team. Opponents also hit Valdez harder than Cease. His average exit velocity was 89.3 mph and had a hard-hit percentage of 42.1 compared to Cease's opponents, who had just a 31.4 hard-hit rate and 86.6 mph average exit velocity.
Valdez's 194 strikeouts didn't place him in the top 10 in the MLB, and his 3.7 WAR was well below Cease's. He finished fifth in the Cy Young Voting.
Alex Manoah
Alex Manoah was an All-Star. He was a deserving Cy Young finalist but again, and I can't stress this enough, HE FINISHED BEHIND CEASE FOR A REASON!
Manoah had a higher ERA (2.24), ranked 22nd in the MLB in strikeouts (180), had a higher opponent batting average (.202), and did not throw a complete game.
That's not to say he shouldn't have been on the first team. But if you put someone ahead of the second-best pitcher in the American League, they better have overwhelmingly better stats. Manoah's resume doesn't fit the bill.
Maybe this will be the motivation Cease needs to go on a revenge tour next season because the amount of disrespect he got was genuinely baffling.
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