Last season’s National League Cy Young Award was pretty cut and dry — as it should have been. After leading all qualified pitchers in both leagues in ERA (2.38), FIP (2.09), strikeout rate (32.1%) and fWAR (6.4), Chris Sale received 26 of a possible 30 first place votes. In all honesty, it probably should have been a clean sweep.
Sale enters 2025 with the third-best odds to repeat at +800, trailing both Paul Skenes (+300) and Zack Wheeler (+750).
That all well and good, but Spring Training is a time to dream big. So let’s go through a few longer shots who might have a chance to take home some hardware at season’s end.
2025 NL Cy Young Award Odds
Blake Snell (+1000)
It feels like Snell’s new home in Los Angeles could be a double-edged sword when it comes to accolades like the Cy Young. On the one hand, the Dodgers will be the absolute center of attention for the whole baseball season, and being the best starter on a team that might win 110 games could certainly sway a couple voters. On the other hand, is Snell the best starter on Los Angeles’ stacked roster? Could that pitching surplus lead to a six-man rotation or phantom IL stints? Is the entire Dodgers organization more focused on the World Series than individual awards?
These are all valid concerns. To me, Snell’s upside remains high enough to dilute some of the red flags. Which I guess makes them… Pink flags? It doesn’t matter. What does matter is track record. We’ve already seen that Snell has the ability to win a Cy Young with just 180 innings of work. In fact, he’s done it twice. We’ve also seen what he looks like with a proper Spring Training ramp-up. Snell signed late in last year’s offseason and it effected his first few outings with the Giants. However, after getting his legs under him, the left-hander was dominant following the All-Star break, leading all qualified arms in ERA (1.45), FIP (1.72) and strikeout rate (39.6%).
With a normal schedule this spring, look for Snell to thrive. If he can make 30 starts, he’ll surely be in the mix.
Hunter Greene (+2200)
Look, it’s certainly difficult to envision the NL Cy Young award winner being someone that has to pitch half their games in Great American Ball Park. Yet, the Hunter Greene breakout happened last season and, were in not for an injury in August, we’d all be talking a lot more about the former second-overall pick.
Among pitchers with 150 innings thrown in 2024, Greene’s 2.75 ERA ranked behind only Sale, Wheeler and Tarik Skubal. In fact, with less than two months remaining in the regular season, it was Greene, not Sale or Wheeler, that was leading all NL starters in bWAR. Could some of that be chalked up to a .237 BABIP and an 80.5% strand rate? Of course. However, Greene’s career 29.6% strikeout rate lessens the potential for serious regression. If anything, I’d be more concerned about Greene repeating his career-low 0.72 opponent HR/9, though that can also be explained by a sharp drop in both Greene’s average exit velocity (87.3) and barrel rate (5.2%).
Obviously, there’s enough risk in his profile that Greene shouldn’t be a favorite for this award — but he’s not. He is a former top prospect with elite pedigree, though. He is the starting pitcher with the highest average fastball velocity (97.8). You don’t have to squint too hard to see how this could all come together in 2025.
Spencer Schwellenbach (+4000)
In general, I can’t say that I feel bad for Spencer Schwellenbach. He’s a young, tall, MLB pitcher who happened to receive a $1,000,000 signing bonus when the Braves drafted him in 2021. Still, his amazing rookie campaign was somewhat overshadowed by what feels like the most stacked National League freshman class in recent memory. Paul Skenes, Jackson Merrill, Jackson Chourio and Shota Imanaga headlined an incredible group, a group that was good enough that Schwellenbach didn’t even garner a single third place NL Rookie of the Year vote.
That might not seem all that noteworthy, but consider that Schwellenbach posted a 3.35 ERA and a 3.29 FIP across 123.2 innings after starting 2024 in High-A. Consider his 2.6 fWAR was much higher than Luis Gil’s 2.2 mark — the man who took home AL Rookie of the Year honors. Consider that Schwellenbach’s 5.52 K/BB ratio was the fourth-best figure among all NL pitchers to throw at least 120 innings last season. He wasn’t just good for a first-year player, he was legitimately good.
In the second-half of 2024, Schwellenbach ranked 10th in SIERA (3.15), 12th in ERA (2.73) and 12th in WHIP (0.97) across all of baseball. For his season as a whole, the RHP combined a 96th percentile chase rate (34.2%) with 95th percentile walk rate (4.6%). It’s hard to ask for much more from a 24-year-old getting his first taste of the big leagues. If Schwellenbach can maintain that success in Year 2, he should flirt with a 5.0 fWAR campaign. If he improves in his sophomore season, the sky is the limit.
