Will Tarik Skubal take home his second straight Cy Young? Will a dark horse jump ahead of him?

Although I came to an early decision on who would win the NL Cy Young, the AL Cy Young is a much more difficult conversation in my opinion.

Tarik Skubal came out of the offseason looking bigger and better than he did in a season when he not only won the Cy Young, but also won the pitching Triple Crown (wins, strikeouts, and ERA). Max Fried, in his first season in the Bronx, enters into the AL conversation for the first time in his career after eight successful seasons with the Atlanta Braves. Garrett Crochet joins a Boston Red Sox organization that looks to be fielding a competitive team in 2025, and a Cy Young-type season might put them over the edge in a tough AL East. Cole Ragans, Greyson Rodriguez, and Gerrit Cole are also names in the hat that is the deep starting pitching in the AL, not to mention Emmanuel Clase, who could also threaten a Cy Young with another stellar season as the Guardians closer. Let’s deep dive into my top three candidates.

Skubal’s Case

Tarik Skubal boasted one of the best starting pitching seasons we have seen in a long time, leading the AL in wins (18), ERA (2.39), and strikeouts (228) en route to a Triple Crown-winning, Cy Young season. His underlying stats prove his dominance was far from flukey, posting a 6.3 bWar (first among pitchers) and a 2.49 FIP. Another eye-popping stat to me is his strikeout-to-walk ratio being elite over the last two seasons, reigning in a whopping 7.29 SO/BB in 2023 over 80 innings, and a 6.51 in 2024 over 192 innings.

In his first Spring Training outing, he hit 100.1 mph, a figure he did not reach until May 11th of 2024, when he hit triple digits for the first time in his career. I am looking for Skubal to come out of the gate hot, and as long as he picks up where he left off in 2024, it is going to be hard to pass him up in the Cy Young race. 2024 Skubal looked as dominant as prime Jacob deGrom. We could be looking at a top-tier Cy Young favorite year in and year out for the forseeable future.

Crochet’s Case

Garrett Crochet spent the first half of 2024 right on Skubal’s tail in the Cy Young conversation, and stood as the only relevant piece for the Chicago White Sox in their pursuit of the single worst Major League record in the history of the sport. The fireballer posted a 3.58 ERA in 2024, but his underlying metrics say he was much better than that, with a 2.69 FIP. In just 146 innings, he struck out 209 batters, giving him a very impressive 12.9 K/9.

The most important piece of Crochet’s case in 2025 is that he will be competing for something more than the worst record in MLB history, as the Red Sox had an excellent offseason. They are tired of being mediocre and want to return to relevancy, and the addition of Crochet was a highlighting piece in that effort. Working with pitching mastermind Andrew Bailey, beside a veteran in Walker Buehler, and under the braintrust of Craig Breslow (another pitching guru), this season could take Crochet from a guy with great stuff to an elite starter who would stand at the top of any rotation in baseball.

Gilbert’s Case

A guy I did not even mention in the introduction because I wanted to leave something ominous about my dark horse pick. Logan Gilbert of the Seattle Mariners seems to have earned respect around the league, and the media, since his debut in 2021. His consistency has pointed to him being a top-of-the-line pitcher heading into the 2025 season, yet no one seems to bring him up in the Cy Young conversation. This is very evident in his preseason odds, sitting at +1200, compared to Crotchet’s +500 and Skubal’s +350, according to BetMGM.

Gilbert led the AL in innings pitched at 208.2, earning a 3.23 ERA (3.27 FIP), and racking up 220 strikeouts (9.5 K/9). With a heavy workload over the past three seasons, injury is always a concern, but if he remains on that inning track and lowers his ERA down just below 3, I see a world where he could land at the top of the podium. Based on trends, both his K/9 and K/BB ratio have made improvements every season since he became a full-time starter in 2022. He also led the league in WHIP in 2024 with a .887, meaning he’s not allowing base runners.

The main difference for Gilbert, in contrast to my other two candidates, is that I believe he goes as the Mariners go, while the other two are the other way around, where their team's success relies heavily on how they pitch. If the Mariners have an opportunity to win the AL West in a year that the Astros seem to have taken a massive step back, I believe Gilbert will thrust his name into the conversation early and remain there for the whole season.

My Prediction

After doing the research, I see very reasonable and likely paths for all three of these guys to take home the hardware next offseason. But my pick for the 2025 AL Cy Young is Garrett Crochet. Not only is this the pitcher I want to win the award, but I believe he is the one with the arsenal and opportunity to bring the award home. I think at the end of the year, when Boston's push for the AL East title is coming to a head, they are going to lean on Crochet a lot. He is the ace they have been lacking since 2018 Chris Sale. He is the guy in the clubhouse who is going to take that mound and put it on his own shoulders to carry the team home. And that is why he is my pick for the 2025 American League Cy Young.

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