1951 Cy Young Awards

1951 American League - Early Wynn, Cleveland Indians

20-13, 3.02 ERA, 133 K

The Cleveland Indians of the late 1940s and early 1950s had some of the best pitching rotations ever assembled outside of an All Star team.  In fact, there's a good case that they might have had the greatest starting rotation ever; for several years, their four regular starting pitchers were Early Wynn, Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, and Mike Garcia.  There have been other great rotations; Baltimore's 1971 team stands out in particular, with Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson, Jim Palmer, and Dave McNally each winning at least 20 games.  There have been plenty of teams with multiple Hall of Famers in their rotations (The 1987 Indians, for example, had both Phil Niekro, age 48, and Steve Carlton, age 42, in their rotation), but for the Indians of the early 1950s, they had three Hall of Famers who were all in their prime, plus a solid starter in Mike Garcia.  In any case, it comes as no surprise that, including Wynn, five of the last six pitchers that I have selected in the AL have been Indians pitchers.  It wasn't an amazing season for Wynn; he didn't lead in any Triple Crown categories, but he finished near the top in most of them.  He finished third in ERA, fourth in wins, and second in strikeouts; nobody else ranked higher than him in those categories, plus he led the league in innings pitched (274.1).  Incidentally, Cleveland's four regular starting pitchers finished first, second, fourth, and fifth in the league in innings pitched.


1951 National League - Sal Maglie, New York Giants

23-6, 2.93 ERA, 146 K

Maglie had a great record in 1951, and played a huge role in leading the Giants to an improbable NL pennant-winning season.  However, probably the most famous game that he pitched in was one that he didn't receive a decision for; he pitched the first 8 innings of a game that was later won on a Bobby Thomson home run, which apparently was kind of a big deal.  In any case though, he had a great season, winning over 20 games for the only time in his career, and along with leading the league in wins, he also finished second in ERA, fourth in WHIP, third in strikeouts, and first in ERA+ (134).  Maglie had a few other decent seasons outside of 1951, including the runner-up for the first ever Cy Young Award, but 1951 was definitely his best season.