1884 Cy Young Awards

1884 American Association - Guy Hecker, Louisville Eclipse

52-20, 1.80 ERA, 385 K

This year was the first of four in which there were three different major leagues, so as a result I will be giving out three retroactive Cy Young Awards, the first of which will go to Guy Hecker of the Louisville Eclipse.  Hecker certainly deserved it, winning the Triple Crown by a healthy margin in each category.  His 52 wins (third most all-time) were 15 more than the pitcher who finished second, and he pitched an impressive 670.2 innings, competing 72 of his 73 starts and pitching 6 shutouts.  His league-leading 385 strikeouts are also the 7th most all-time, two better than Nolan Ryan's best season.  Hecker never came close to having another season quite like 1884, but he was known as one of the best hitting pitchers of his day, and possibly of all time.  In 1882, he was 4th in the league in home runs, and in 1886 he became the only pitcher ever to win a batting title, hitting .341 while playing first base and outfield on the days that he wasn't pitching.

1884 National League - Old Hoss Radbourn, Providence Grays

59-12, 1.38 ERA, 441 K

Guy Hecker had a great season in the American Association in 1884, but his performance was overshadowed by one of the greatest pitching seasons of all time.  Radbourn, who became Providence's only pitcher after their other pitcher, Charlie Sweeney quit halfway through the season, and Radbourn agreed to pitch the remainder of the team's games.  In the process, he set an unbreakable MLB record of 59 wins, won the Triple Crown, and led his team to the 1884 equivalent of the World Series title, against the New York Metropolitans of the American Association.  His 441 strikeouts are 5th all-time, and his 73 complete games and 678.2 innings pitched are the second most ever pitched in one season.  In the following seasons, Radbourn could never quite duplicate his impressive 1882-1884 seasons, but he continued as a capable pitcher until his retirement in 1891.  He finished with 309 career wins and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.


1884 Union Association - Bill Sweeney, Baltimore Monumentals

40-21, 2.59 ERA, 374 K

The Union Association was the first of several attempts at creating a third major league; it ended after only a year, but it featured a number of players who had played in the other two leagues.  However, because the overall talent pool was poorer than either the NL or AA, some have argued that the UA wasn't truly a major league, but MLB and many others recognize it as such, so I will be giving a retroactive Cy Young to the league's best pitcher, in my opinion.  This was, unlike the other two leagues in 1884, a fairly tough choice.  One pitcher in particular, Billy Taylor, put up an impressive win-loss record and ERA, but switched leagues halfway through the season.  Because of that, I chose Bill Sweeney, whose ERA was good but not great compared to the rest of the league (128 ERA+) but he led the league by far in wins (40, over the second place pitcher who had 28), starts (60), complete games (58), and innings pitched (538).  Curiously, this was only Sweeney's second MLB season, and after 1884 he played several more seasons in the minors, but never played in any major league again.