1906 Cy Young Awards

1906 American League - Doc White, Chicago White Sox

18-6, 1.52 ERA, 95 K

This particular race was wide open - there was no single pitcher that even came close to standing out as exceptional.  In the end though, I went with White.  Pitching for the World Series winning White Sox, White led the league in ERA, ERA+ (169), and WHIP (0.903), although he did so in "only" 219.1 innings, and had "only" 18 wins.  However, there were no other pitchers who both pitched substantially more than White and had an ERA that wasn't substantially higher than White's.  Although I will often give preference to the pitcher with a slightly higher ERA and substantially more innings pitched, there was nobody who fit that description this year.  Interestingly though, despite the fairly low innings pitched figure, White had the second highest WAR in the league (5.6).  Interestingly, the White Sox had the lowest batting average in the league, yet they still won the World Series, which says something about the quality of their pitchers, including White.

1906 National League - Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, Chicago Cubs

26-6, 1.04 ERA, 144 K

The title of the best pitcher in the AL in 1906 might have been wide open, but there was no such problem in the NL, where future Hall of Famer Mordecai Brown put up one of the best pitching seasons ever.  Brown, who acquired his nickname from a farm machinery accident when he was young (and has a given name even more interesting than his nickname - Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown), had been a successful pitcher in his previous three seasons, but 1906 was when his career really took off.  Pitching three times as many shutouts as he had fingers on his pitching hand, Three Finger Brown actually worked his disability to his advantage; his missing fingers allowed him to give extra spin that a pitcher with a full set of fingers would not be able to do.  His 1906 season was the first of four consecutive seasons with an ERA under 1.50, and his ERA of 1.04 in 1906 was by far the best in the league (by nearly half a run), and it remains the second-lowest in post-1893 baseball, and the lowest among any pitcher with over 250 innings pitched, in any time period.  In addition, he led the league in ERA+ with an absurd figure of 253, meaning his ERA was more than 2.5 times the league average, and he also led in WHIP (.934), shutouts, and finished second in wins.  With Brown's help, the Cubs reached the World Series in 1906, losing to the "Hitless Wonders" White Sox.