1925 Cy Young Awards

1925 American League - Stan Coveleski, Washington Senators

20-5, 2.84 ERA, 58 K

For once, there's a Washington Senators pitcher featured here whose name isn't Walter Johnson.  Johnson did pitch for the Senators in 1925, and they did win the AL pennant again, but this time their best pitcher was 1920 winner Stan Coveleski, who was just acquired from the Indians.  Although 35 years old, the future Hall of Famer had one of his best seasons, leading the league in ERA, and finishing second in wins.  He also had an impressive, league-leading win-loss percentage of .800, and finished third in WHIP (1.257), hits per 9 innings (8.589), and first in WAR (6.0) and ERA+ (150).  Along the way, he helped the defending World Series winners to win the AL pennant again, although he was the losing pitcher in two of the games in the World Series, which the Pirates ultimately won four games to three.

1925 National League - Dolf Luque, Cincinnati Reds

16-18, 2.63 ERA, 140 K

This was a tough call; it's hard to name someone as the best pitcher in the league when he had a losing record, but that was the case for Luque, the 1923 winner, in 1925.  Although other pitchers had more wins and better records, Luque was so far above them in every other category that it was hard to hold his record against him.  After all, a pitcher only has so much control over getting the win or loss.  In Luque's case, the Reds scored two runs or less in 13 of his starts, which accounted for over a third of his starts.  Ironically, he pitched best in games that his team scored two or fewer runs - his record was 3-10 in those games, but his ERA was 1.83, which suggests that it was bad circumstances, rather than bad pitching, that accounted for his sub-.500 record.  What Luque did do was lead the league in ERA (by a lot, with an ERA+ of 156), shutouts (4, 2 of which accounted for 2 of his 3 wins when his team scored 2 or fewer runs), WHIP (1.172), hits per 9 innings (8.134), and WAR (6.2).  He also finished second in innings pitched (291) and third in complete games (22).  Overall not bad for a pitcher who finished under .500.