Three explanations for why Giants ace Logan Webb ought to prevail. NL NBC Sports Bay Area first aired the Cy Young Award.
Giants star For the first time in his MLB career, Logan Webb is a finalist for the Cy Young Award, and that in and of itself is reason for celebration.
The 26-year-old pitcher was a bright spot in a mediocre 2023 season for San Francisco, enhancing his reputation as one of the most reliable and efficient starters in the league. But does he stand a chance of winning the Cy Young award?
Many people believe that Blake Snell, who has been leading the San Diego Padres’ rotation this season, is the favorite to win the National League award. Zac Gallen of the Arizona Diamondbacks, another finalist, will provide Webb with fierce competition.
Even though he doesn’t believe it, Webb has a case, of course.
The always humble Webb predicted that Snell would win the Cy Young award after he pitched the second complete game of his career for the Giants in September. “In baseball, he is the best pitcher.”
Webb has been surpassed by Snell in a number of important statistical categories, but the veteran right-hander for the Giants has excelled in many other areas as well. Three reasons exist for Webb to be called up when the Cy Young winners are revealed on Wednesday:
Deserving Workhorse
This season, Webb had to contend with something that few MLB pitchers ever encounter: a starting rotation devoid of, well, starters. For the Giants in 2023, Webb’s propensity for long outings was a big factor in the team’s prolonged postseason prospects. He was the epitome of a workhorse for San Francisco.
With a career-high 216 innings pitched over 33 starts this season, Webb became the first pitcher for the Giants to lead the league in innings since Gaylord Perry in 1970. Pitch counts are king in this era, and analytics usually decide mid-to-late game matchups, but Webb’s durability this season is something else entirely.
Webb’s final start of the season was the full game that was previously mentioned. San Francisco fans would have had plenty to cheer about in the postseason if the Giants had not experienced their late-season collapse and had advanced to the postseason.
As one of the Giants’ only reliable starters, Webb maintained his position alongside Alex Cobb and demonstrated why he deserves to remain at the top of the rotation for the foreseeable future.
Not a Free Pass
Webb entered the season with 194 strikeouts, which is one less than Snell (234) and Gallen (220) combined. His 3.25 earned run average (ERA) placed him fourth among NL starters, one run higher than Snell’s. Cy Young voters will consider these two figures above all others when selecting a candidate, but there is another that is also significant.
The Giants ace led the National League in strikeout-to-walk ratio (6.26) and walks per nine innings (2023) with just 31 batters walked. Furthermore, Webb trailed only Spencer Strider of the Atlanta Braves for the National League lead in strikeout percentage (67.8%) this season. With a 1.07 WHIP, Webb also shared the second-best mark in the National League with Milwaukee Brewers’ Corbin Burnes, trailing only Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw at 1.06.
To put it briefly, pitchers aim for the kind of control that Webb exhibited by limiting the number of baserunners allowed. The most crucial attribute a pitcher can possess is a propensity to throw strikes, especially ones that are hard for the other team to hit. Together with the other numbers we’ve gathered, Webb’s MLB-leading ground-ball percentage of 62.1 percent this season indicates that his command is excellent, possibly leagues above that of his fellow Cy Young finalists.
The Franchise’s Face
How should we start? It’s no secret that the Giants had a difficult season in 2023, beginning with the team’s inability to sign a free agent superstar in the previous winter.
But what if the celebrity had been present in the clubhouse the entire time? In his fifth MLB season, Webb demonstrated that he was a leader in the clubhouse in addition to being a high performer on the field. There are some things that statistics just cannot measure. The pitcher maintained his composure despite the ups and downs of a perplexing San Francisco season, even though it was occasionally challenging to play that role.
This season, the Giants have been a rare source of run support for Webb, giving him an MLB-low 3.1 runs in 33 starts, which has contributed to his 11-13 record. By contrast, Snell (14-9) and Gallen (17-9) scored 4.3 and 4.8 runs per start, on average, respectively. But Webb was a team leader who never blamed his teammates for losses and usually took the blame for any runs he allowed.
“That’s just part of baseball,” Webb said Aug. 30 after the Giants’ 4-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. “I’ve just got to go out there and, as a pitcher, if it’s a 0-0 game, you’ve got to keep it at 0-0. It’s more my fault than anything.”
Webb used his voice for good in situations that seemed anything but, from taking the blame when his Webb Gems went to waste to demanding change when the Giants were losing ground toward the end of the season. He solidified his position as the Giants’ future this past spring by agreeing to a five-year contract extension, and he’ll keep doing that in the future.
We know that Cy Young voters do not take intangibles into account. Though Webb’s chances of winning the award are slim, Giants supporters have seen enough of the young ace to know that he will likely be considered again in the future. Whether or not Webb wins the Cy Young Award, San Francisco has plenty to build around him as they head into another crucial offseason in search of a spark.