NL Cy Young Watch: Who are the Risers and Fallers?

Hyun Jin Ryu (+275)

After handling a plethora if accidents earlier in his big league career, Ryu has captured fire of the final calendar year and is quite much in the lead in the NL Cy Young race right now.
Ryu currently leads the big leagues using a ridiculous 1.35 ERA on the year. The funny part about that is it might not even be his most impressive stat as he is also sporting an unheard of 0.56 BB/9 rate. In other words, it’s taking him roughly 18 innings to walk a batter this season. Simply unbelievable.
It’s not simply this season that Ryu has been coping as he made an eye-popping 1.97 ERA across 15 starts last season and he submitted a 1.88 ERA across 52.2 innings after coming back from injury in August. Pitchers just don’t return from a three-month lack to control this league very frequently but Ryu’s done it in spades.
If injuries had not restricted him to just 108 begins since appearing in Los Angeles at the 2013 period — and making 30 starts — he’d be looked upon as one of the absolute best pitchers in baseball.
Here are his MLB ranks since making his North American debut in that 2013 campaign.
Luis Castillo (+750)
What a difference a year can make.
This time last year, Castillo was one of the worst pitchers in all of baseball — by the numbers — as his first half 5.49 ERA was the third-worst markers of qualified MLB starters, before only Lucas Giolito — very much an AL Cy Young candidate this year — and Jason Hammel.
Jump ahead to the second half of the 2018 year and Castillo crafted a 2.44 ERA to rank eighth among qualified starters and sixth on the NL side of matters.
He was even better across the board. The strikeouts picked up to 9.36 percent innings, the walks dropped into a stout 1.90 per nine and 3.17 xFIP less or more supported his fine work down the stretch last season.

ORDER ONLINE