1922 Cy Young Awards

1922 American League - Red Faber, Chicago White Sox

21-17, 2.81 ERA, 148 K

Who would've imagined a time when the two best pitchers in the league would both be named Urban?  Faber (whose real first name was Urban) and St. Louis's amusingly-named Urban Shocker were the top two, with Faber getting a slight edge over the other Urban (to think he was only the second best pitcher in the league named Urban) because of his lower ERA.  In any case, it was the second year in a row that Faber led the league in ERA, although like I mentioned before, part of that had to do with the fact that he was allowed to throw the spitball.  One might argue that because of that, the other Urban should win the award instead, but he was grandfathered in as well, making it a moot point.  It's possible that it was an Urban thing to be allowed to throw the spitball, but Cleveland had an infielder later in the decade named Urban Hodapp, and by all accounts he was not permitted to throw the spitball, not that he would've tried.  And who knows, maybe if he had tried, they would've given him a pass because of his name.  But anyway, moving on from the topic of unusual first names, Faber finished first in WHIP (1.185), complete games (31), innings (352), and WAR(7.9), and second in strikeouts (one behind league-leading Urban Shocker), and shutouts (4).  He only finished fifth in wins, and had a mediocre 21-17 record, but much of that had to do with the fact that, following the Black Sox scandal, the White Sox quickly collapsed, and in 1922 finished fifth with a 77-77 record, and had the third lowest OPS in the league, as opposed to Urban Shocker's second place Browns, who led the league in OPS.


1922 National League - Wilbur Cooper, Pittsburgh Pirates

23-14, 3.18 ERA, 129 K

It was a pretty mediocre year in the NL for pitching - there was nobody who was particularly dominating, and the pitcher I chose as the best didn't lead the league in any category except WAR (6.0) complete games (27).  However, he was overall ranked higher in more statistics than anyone else; he finished second in wins, fourth in ERA, and second in strikeouts, and he was the only person to finish in the top 4 in all of those categories.  He also had the second most innings pitched (294.2) and the third most shutouts (4), although he finished a distant tenth in WHIP (1.327).  However, although he gave up more walks and hits than other pitchers, he was better at not letting them score than most of the rest; he had the fourth highest ERA+ at 129.  Such an ERA+ certainly doesn't indicate a particularly dominating season, but none of the three pitchers ahead of him came close to pitching as many innings; none of them even topped 200.