Burnes takes the award with 151 points, including 12 first place votes.
First the first time in 39 years, the Cy Young Award goes to a Milwaukee Brewer. Corbin Burnes is the 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner. The award was announced tonight on MLB Network. Corbin Burnes received 12 of 30 first place votes, and finished with a total of 151 points. Zack Wheeler finished in second, also with 12 first place votes but only had 141 points. Max Scherzer finished in third with 113 points and 6 first place votes, and Walker Buehler was fourth with 70 points. Teammate Brandon Woodruff was fifth with 21 points.
Corbin Burnes’ case for the Cy Young award this season was one of the best the Brewers have had in decades. He leads the NL among qualified starters in fWAR (7.5), ERA (2.43), FIP (1.63), walks allowed (34), home runs allowed (7), and strikeout rate (12.61 K/9), and his total strikeouts (234) rank fifth. He began the season with 58 strikeouts before issuing a walk, struck out 10 straight Cubs in a game, and was part of the Brewers second no-hitter in team history. The only knock against him is his innings pitched (167 IP), which was not even in his control. The only games he missed were due to being on the COVID list near the start of the season.
Last season, Burnes finished 6th in the vote with 12 points with Devin Williams finishing 7th with 3 points. Burnes’ 12 points at the time were the highest a Brewer had received in votes since 1986, when Teddy Higuera finished second with 42 points. The Brewers have had two Cy Young award winners before this season: Pete Vuckovich in 1982 and Rollie Fingers in 1981.
Brandon Woodruff also received some votes. He finished fifth in the vote with 21 points, being named on 19 of 30 ballots. He received 2 fourth-place votes and 17 fifth-place votes. The full voting breakdown is on the BBWAA website.
Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs.