1928 Cy Young Awards

1928 American League - Lefty Grove, Philadelphia Athletics

24-8, 2.58 ERA, 183 K

Lefty Grove won for the second time, without a whole lot of competition.  This time, he substantially improved his win-loss record, leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and finishing third in ERA.  He also finished second in WHIP (1.116), hits per 9 innings (7.842), ERA+ (155) and shutouts (4), and first in WAR (6.3).  Benefiting from a much improved lineup (they finished second in runs and batting average instead of second to last in 1926), Grove helped the A's win 98 games, and finished just 2.5 games behind the defending world champion Yankees.  Interestingly though, Grove did not even place in the MVP voting, behind five other AL pitchers, all of whom had ERAs substantially higher than his.

1928 National League - Dazzy Vance, Brooklyn Robins

22-10, 2.09 ERA, 200 K

It's been a long time since ERAs have been below 2.00, but Dazzy Vance came pretty close in 1928.  The 1924 winner was once again the best in the league, leading not just in ERA and ERA+ (192), but also in strikeouts, WHIP (1.063), hits per 9 innings (7.256), shutouts (4), and WAR (9.0).  Interestingly though, he only finished third among pitchers in MVP voting; apparently ERA was not particularly important to voters back then, who seemed to favor pitchers with higher win totals.  Still, Vance's 22 wins were third in the league, with the two leaders tied with 25.  It was also the seventh and last consecutive season that he led the league in strikeouts, the most of any NL pitcher.  Like Ray Kremer, the NL winner in the previous two seasons, Vance didn't play full-time in the majors until he was 31; he played just 11 games in the majors over the course of two seasons prior to that.  In the end, he won 197 games and was elected to the Hall of Fame, but it's interesting to speculate how much better his career could've been if he had played in the majors earlier.