The Tigers’ Tarik Skubal and the Pirates’ Paul Skenes were the clear Cy Young favorites going into the 2025 season, and they never let up. Along the way, though, other pitchers made their own impressive bids for the honor.
Skubal, who won the American League Cy Young Award last year, is joined by the Astros’ Hunter Brown and the Red Sox’s Garrett Crochet among this year’s AL finalists. The Phillies’ Cristopher Sánchez and the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto are the National League finalists alongside Skenes, the 2024 NL Rookie of the Year.
The winners will be revealed Wednesday on MLB Network at 7 p.m. ET. Before we find out who won, here’s a look at each finalist’s Cy Young case.
Brown, 27, had the best season of his career and was the anchor of the Houston pitching staff. He made 31 starts and was 12-9 with a 2.43 ERA and a career-low WHIP of 1.03. He struck out a career-high 206 batters in 185 1/3 innings and allowed only 133 hits. He had eight starts in which he didn’t allow an earned run.
Among AL starters, Brown ranked first in opponents’ slugging percentage (.318), second in ERA and opponents’ OPS (.589), tied for second in quality starts (21), third in strikeouts, fourth in WHIP, strikeouts per nine innings (10) and pitching WAR (4.8) and fifth in opponents’ batting average (.201).
The longest scoreless innings streak in the Major Leagues in 2025 belonged to Brown, who threw 28 of them from April 3-27 — the fifth-longest single-season streak by an Astros starter in history.
Brown was named the AL Pitcher of the Month for June, posting a 1.19 ERA and 0.82 WHIP in 30 1/3 innings, with the Astros winning all five of his starts during the month. He began the season with seven consecutive quality starts, becoming the first pitcher to do that since Guardians right-hander Shane Bieber had eight in a row to start the ’21 season.
The Astros went 18-13 in games Brown started. — Brian McTaggart
One of the top abilities for a true ace is availability, and Crochet took pride in leading the AL with 205 1/3 innings in his first season in Boston. Crochet also set the pace in the AL with an 11.18 K/9 and led MLB with 255 K’s. The big lefty was among the league leaders in several other key categories, including WHIP (fifth) and opponents average (eighth). Only Skubal had a better K/BB ratio than Crochet’s 5.54.
The under-the-hood numbers are every bit as impressive. Crochet ranked in the 90th percentile or better in the following Statcast categories: pitching run value (99), fastball run value (95), breaking run value (99), expected ERA (91) and chase percentage (90).
Crochet was the ultimate example of a player who started winning streaks, extended winning streaks and stopped losing streaks. There were many outings that stuck out during Crochet’s season-long run of excellence. With his team trying to break out of a slump on June 1, Crochet struck out 12 while allowing one run over seven innings in a 3-1 win in Atlanta. While extending his team’s eventual 10-game winning streak to nine on July 12, Crochet went the distance in a 1-0 win over the Rays, walking none and punching out nine. In his final three regular-season starts against the rival Yankees, Crochet had a 2.11 ERA and had three walks and 30 strikeouts in 21 1/3 innings. — Ian Browne
Skubal didn’t win the pitching Triple Crown this year, but in some areas he actually outperformed his Cy Young campaign from last season. His 6.5 bWAR topped last year (6.4), and outpaced fellow finalists Crochet (6.3) and Brown (6.1). Skubal’s 2.21 ERA was nearly a quarter of a run better than second-place Brown (2.43). His 2.45 FIP far outpaced second-place Crochet (2.89). His 7.3 strikeout-to-walk ratio was nearly two better than Crochet at 5.54.
Skubal’s 187 ERA+ was the best by an AL qualifier since Justin Verlander in 2022. It wasn’t just the full-season dominance, but the stretches within it. Skubal was one of five AL pitchers to toss a shutout this season, but his complete-game two-hit blanking of the Guardians on May 25 was a masterpiece with no walks and 13 strikeouts. His 94th and final pitch of the day was a 102.6 mph fastball for a strikeout, the hardest pitch of his career.
Skubal tossed seven or more scoreless innings in nine of his 31 regular-season starts. He allowed one run over 30 2/3 innings in a four-start stretch from May 25 to June 12, then tossed 19 more scoreless innings from late June into July.
Even on pure stuff, Skubal stood atop his peers. His changeup was the dominant pitch by run value (+25), producing a 46.8 percent whiff rate and a .154 batting average allowed. He had the 10th-best four-seam fastball among AL pitchers with a +12 run value.
Overall, Skubal’s +51 run value easily topped the Majors, outpacing Skenes and Yamamoto at +42. No one else topped +40. — Jason Beck
The Phillies suffered a massive blow in August, when Zack Wheeler developed a season-ending blood clot near his right shoulder. It required surgery.
But the Phils were as well positioned as anybody to handle a loss like that because they had Sánchez, who has developed into one of the game’s best pitchers. Sánchez went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA in 32 starts this season. He struck out a career-high 212 and walked 44 in a career-high 202 innings. He led MLB with 8.0 bWAR. He finished second in the NL with 6.4 fWAR.
Sánchez is fun to watch, particularly when his changeup is on. Opponents batted .170 against it, which ranked 11th out of 96 pitchers (minimum 250 changeups thrown). They whiffed at it 45.1 percent of the time, which ranked second only to Skubal (minimum 250 swings on changeups). Sánchez struck out 130 batters on his changeup to lead baseball.
No other pitcher in baseball struck out more batters on a single offspeed or breaking pitch than Sánchez did with his changeup. — Todd Zolecki
If you’re willing to look past Skenes’ 10-10 record (his offense only provided him with 11 runs of support in those 10 losses, after all), his case speaks for itself.
His 1.97 ERA was more than half a run lower than his closest competition in the National League. His 0.95 WHIP was the best in the League, as was his FIP (2.36), ERA+ (217), home runs allowed per nine innings (0.5) and Win Probability Added (5.1). His 216 strikeouts were the most ever for a Pirates right-hander and tied for the second-most in the League, and he finished in the top five in the Senior Circuit in hits per nine innings, walks per nine innings and innings pitched. It’s a cocktail of some of the best analytical and old school stats that paints a picture of perhaps the most dominant pitcher in baseball.
Want more than stats? OK, what other pitcher generated more interest on their start day this season? Who else was going to start the All-Star Game again? He came into this year as the favorite for this award, and there was never a point where it felt like he lost that pole position.
Skenes finished third in Cy Young voting as a rookie last year with basically the same rate stats and 54 2/3 fewer innings. If volume was the only thing that kept him from winning the award last year, then he should earn some hardware this time around. — Alex Stumpf
It is not exactly a surprise that Yamamoto has cemented his status as one of the best pitchers in baseball, given the Dodgers’ willingness to sign him to a 12-year, $325 million contract — the most total dollars for a pitcher in MLB history — before he had even thrown a pitch in the Majors. Still, Yamamoto amazed even his own team with the strides he made in his sophomore season in the big leagues.
Yamamoto’s 2.49 ERA ranked second to only Skenes in the NL. He led qualified Major Leaguers with a .183 opponent batting average and reached the 200-strikeout mark for the first time as a big leaguer. Statistics don’t paint the full picture of his value to the Dodgers, whose rotation was ravaged by injuries early on. The only member of the rotation who didn’t miss a start, Yamamoto stepped up as the staff ace.
Remember that BBWAA awards balloting takes place before the postseason begins, so Yamamoto’s extraordinary World Series performance that earned him MVP honors is not taken into consideration for Cy Young voting. But the way he almost single-handedly willed his team through that series on the mound is emblematic of what the Dodgers came to expect when he had the ball during the regular season.
Yamamoto, looking to become the Dodgers’ first Cy Young winner since Clayton Kershaw took home his third honor in 2014, is deservingly in the conversation — and figures to be there for years to come. — Sonja Chen
