The Indians, Corey Kluber and Chris Sale

If Corey Kluber wins the AL Cy Young this season he will have to thank his teammates.

Duh!  Everyone thanks his teammates when he wins an award like this, right?

No, REALLY!  If Kluber wins the Cy Young it might be by the thinnest of margins...a margin created by the Indians spanking Chris Sale in his two starts against the Tribe.

If you remove those two starts Sale has made against the Indians his stats look like this:

170.1 IP
116 H
44 ER
31 BB
245 K
13 HR
2.32 ERA

Now, add those two starts in and you have:

178.1 IP
132 H
57 ER
35 BB
253 K
15 HR
2.88 ERA

Now let's look at Kluber's current numbers

152.2 IP
107 H
45 ER
32 BB
206 K
17 HR
2.65 ERA

So if you adjust for IP here are how Kluber and Sale stack up:

Kluber               Sale
0.70 H/IP         0.74 H/IP
2.65 ERA         2.88 ERA
0.21 W/IP        0.20 W/IP
1.34 K/IP         1.42 K/IP
0.11 HR/IP      0.083 HR/IP
0.750 win pct.  0.700 win pct.
4 CG/22 starts   1 CG/25 starts

Now, there is a lot of season left and anything can happen but looking at the stats immediately above, Kluber seems to have a slight advantage.  Most of the stats are pretty much dead heats but Kluber's ERA, win pct. and complete games normalized for number of starts are demonstrably better than Sale's.  If you subtracted out Sale's two starts against Cleveland he would be leading in every category above except CG/start.  If you subtract out Sale's two starts against Cleveland, he wins the Cy Young if the vote was today.   But adding those starts in...it gives the voters a reason to watch closely the rest of the season instead of already having their ballot filled out (at least in their mind).  Plus, Kluber pitched well against Boston on Wed. in his only start against them this year.

BTW, if you look at how each has pitched against teams going to the playoffs I think Kluber has the edge there, too, with a good part of his advantage over Sale being, once again, developed from his two starts against the Indians.

It is likely to be a close race down to the end but, if Kluber beats out Sale for this year's AL Cy Young award, he has to thank his teammates for beating up on Sale in his two starts against the Indians.   Not just beating SALE those games, but beating him AND trashing Sale's season stats!