Bryce Harper says Zack Wheeler is the Cy Young, not Chris Sale

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The NL Cy Young race is all but wrapped up as Chris Sale turned in another impressive outing against the Reds yesterday, even when he didn’t have his best stuff, allowing just two runs over five innings. It resulted in his league-leading 18th win, and it was also his 18th straight start in which he’s gone at least five innings and allowed two earned runs or fewer. Over that stretch, Sale has a 1.96 ERA and an even more impressive 1.83 FIP.

He’s been unbelievable, leading all of Major League Baseball in wins, ERA, and strikeouts, aiming to become the first pitcher to capture the Triple Crown since Clayton Kershaw did it more than a decade ago.

After four years of injury-plagued seasons, Sale has remained healthy and pitched better than ever. He’s 18-3, which is an MLB-best .850 win percentage, to go with his MLB-leading 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts as well as his MLB-leading 175 ERA+, 2.09 FIP, 0.5 HR/9, and 11.4 SO/9.

He’s been unbelievable and will eventually garner some MVP votes to go with his first-ever Cy Young, but that isn’t the opinion of everyone. If you ask Bryce Harper, it’s not Chris Sale but rather his teammate Zack Wheeler who deserves the Cy Young.

Wheeler is among the best arms in baseball. He owns an impressive 16-6 record, 2.56 ERA, and 0.954 WHIP, and if you’re going off year-to-year consistency, he might be the best pitcher in baseball over the last half-decade. Unfortunately, for Wheeler, and Harper, that’s not how the award works.

If that were the case, Chris Sale would already have multiple Cy Young awards under his belt after he never finished outside the top-six for the award in seven straight seasons from 2012-2018. The award goes to who has been the most dominant pitcher in the game over the entire season, and there isn’t a pitcher that comes close to Chris Sale in the year 2024.

Even if you want to take Harper’s approach about not caring what the numbers say and just considering a pure pitching standpoint, Sale is still better. There’s a stat for that too. It’s called FIP, or fielding independent pitching.

FIP focuses solely on the events a pitcher has the most control over — strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches and home runs. It entirely removes the balls in play, which pitchers rarely have control over. Sale’s is an MLB-best 2.02, lower than his 2.35 ERA, while Wheeler’s is 3.15 and much higher than his 2.56 ERA.

Of course, what else would you expect from Bryce Harper? He’s going to bat for his teammate, but let’s not pretend like there’s been a better pitcher in baseball than Chris Sale this season.

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David John Griffin/Icon Sportswi

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