Chris Sale spent an entire season dealing with a lack of support, so he shouldn't be surprised by the writers leaving him hanging.
Sale wasn't among the BBWAA's three finalists for the American League Cy Young award. Instead, the writers went with Max Scherzer, Yu Darvish and Hisashi Iwakuma as a surprising third pick. Sale didn't stand a chance of winning the Cy Young, but removing Sale's name from the official discussion makes a quiet awards season damn near silent for the White Sox.
I'd feel worse for Sale, but he probably agrees with the voters. I haven't seen any quotes from him recently, but he touted Scherzer as the most deserving candidate back in September. In other words, he's a terrible hype man.
However, he would've qualified as a finalist if it were up to SB Nation MLB Awards voters. The results in the race for the AL's Best Pitcher:
- Max Scherzer, 249 points (32 out of 37 first-place votes)
- Yu Darvish, 105 points (four first-place votes)
- Chris Sale, 96 points (three first-place votes)
- Anibal Sanchez, 93 points
- Felix Hernandez, 75 points
- Hisashi Iwakuma, 31 points
- Justin Verlander, 8 points
- Bartolo Colon, 5 points
- James Shields, 1 point.
Sale appeared on 35 of 37 ballots, and Larry gave him one of the first-place votes (I had him second on my ballot).
You can check out the rest of the awards here, and the rest of our votes below.
My MVP ballot:
- Mike Trout
- Miguel Cabrera
- Josh Donaldson
- Chris Davis
- Robinson Cano
- Evan Longoria
- Max Scherzer
- David Ortiz
- Chris Sale
- Dustin Pedroia
Larry's MVP ballot:
- Mike Trout
- Miguel Cabrera
- Josh Donaldson
- Robinson Cano
- Manny Machado
- Chris Sale
- Chris Davis
- Max Scherzer
- Evan Longoria
- Hisashi Iwakuma
My Best Pitcher ballot:
- Max Scherzer
- Chris Sale
- Yu Darvish
- Hisashi Iwakuma
- Anibal Sanchez
Larry's Best Pitcher ballot:
- Chris Sale
- Max Scherzer
- Hisashi Iwakuma
- Anibal Sanchez
- Yu Darvish
My Rookie of the Year ballot:
- Wil Myers
- Jose Iglesias
- Chris Archer
Larry's Rookie of the Year ballot:
- Wil Myers
- Jose Iglesias
- David Lough