Cy Young Award

History

The Cy Young Award was introduced in 1956 by Commissioner of Baseball Ford C. Frick in honor of Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young, who died in 1955. Originally given to the single best pitcher in the major leagues, the award changed its format over time. From 1956 to 1966, the award was given to one pitcher in Major League Baseball. After Frick retired in 1967, William Eckert became the new Commissioner of Baseball. Due to fan requests, Eckert announced that the Cy Young Award would be given out both in the American League and the National League. From 1956 to 1958, a pitcher was not allowed to win the award on more than one occasion; this rule was eliminated in 1959. After a tie in the 1969 voting for the Cy Young Award, the process was changed, in which each writer was to vote for three pitchers: the first-place vote received five points, the second-place vote received three points, and the third-place vote received one point.

The first recipient of the Cy Young Award was Don Newcombe of the Dodgers. The Dodgers are the franchise with the most Cy Young Awards. In 1957, Warren Spahn became the first left-handed pitcher to win the award. In 1963, Sandy Koufax became the first pitcher to win the award in a unanimous vote; two years later he became the first multiple winner. In 1978, Gaylord Perry (age 40) became the oldest pitcher to receive the award, a record that stood until broken in 2004 by Roger Clemens (age 42). The youngest recipients were Dwight Gooden (age 20 in 1985) and Fernando Valenzuela. In 2012, R. A. Dickey became the first knuckleball pitcher to win the award.

In 1974, Mike Marshall became the first relief pitcher to win the award. In 1992, Dennis Eckersley was the first modern closer (first player to be used almost exclusively in ninth-inning situations) to win the award. Since then only one other relief pitcher has won the award, Éric Gagné in 2003 (also a closer). Nine relief pitchers have won the Cy Young Award across both leagues.

Steve Carlton in 1982 became the first pitcher to win more than three Cy Young Awards, while Greg Maddux in 1994 became the first to win at least three in a row (and received a fourth straight the following year), a feat later repeated by Randy Johnson.

Winners

Major Leagues combined (1956–1966)

American League (1967–present)

National League (1967–present)

Multiple winners

Twenty-two (22) pitchers have won the award multiple times. Roger Clemens has won the most awards won, seven. His first and last wins were 18 years apart. Greg Maddux (1992–1995) and Randy Johnson (1999–2002) share the record for the most consecutive awards won with four. Clemens, Johnson, Pedro Martínez, Gaylord Perry, Roy Halladay, Max Scherzer, and Blake Snell are the only pitchers to win the award in both the American League and National League. Sandy Koufax is the only pitcher to win multiple awards during the period when only one award was presented for all of MLB. Roger Clemens was the youngest pitcher to win a second Cy Young Award, while Tim Lincecum is the youngest pitcher to do so in the National League, and Clayton Kershaw is the youngest left-hander to do so. Kershaw is the youngest pitcher to win a third Cy Young Award. Clemens is also the only pitcher to win the award with four different teams; nobody else has done so with more than two different teams. Justin Verlander has the most seasons separating his first (2011) and second (2019) Cy Young Awards.

Wins by teams

Only two teams have never had a pitcher win the Cy Young Award. The Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers have won more than any other team with 12.

Unanimous winners

There have been 22 players who unanimously won the Cy Young Award, for a total of 29 wins.

Six of these unanimous wins were accompanied by a win of the Most Valuable Player award (marked with * below; ** denotes that the player's unanimous win was accompanied by a unanimous win of the MVP Award).

In the National League, 13 players have unanimously won the Cy Young Award, for a total of 16 wins.

• Sandy Koufax (1963*, 1965, 1966)
• Greg Maddux (1994, 1995)
• Bob Gibson (1968*)
• Steve Carlton (1972)
• Rick Sutcliffe (1984)
• Dwight Gooden (1985)
• Orel Hershiser (1988)
• Randy Johnson (2002)
• Jake Peavy (2007)
• Roy Halladay (2010)
• Clayton Kershaw (2014*)
• Sandy Alcántara (2022)
• Paul Skenes (2025)

In the American League, nine players have unanimously won the Cy Young Award, for a total of 13 wins.

• Denny McLain (1968**)
• Ron Guidry (1978)
• Roger Clemens (1986*, 1998)
• Pedro Martínez (1999, 2000)
• Johan Santana (2004, 2006)
• Justin Verlander (2011*, 2022)
• Shane Bieber (2020)
• Gerrit Cole (2023)
• Tarik Skubal (2024)

Notes

• The formula is: Score = 7F + 4S + 3T + 2FO + FI, where F is the number of first-place votes, S is second-place votes, T is third-place votes, FO is fourth-place votes and FI is fifth-place votes.
• See: Decision (baseball)
• In baseball, a save is credited to a pitcher who finishes a game for the winning team under certain prescribed circumstances. It became an official statistic in Major League Baseball in 1969.

References

Specific

General

References

1. (2025-11-13). "Why the Cy Young Award was named after Cy Young".
2. "Cy Young Award".
3. "Cy Young Award Winners (American League)".
4. (September 11, 2011). "Voting FAQ".
5. "AL & NL Cy Young Award Odds".
6. (2004). "Cy Young Award voting results".
7. Rubin, Adam. (November 14, 2012). "R. A. Dickey wins NL Cy Young".
8. Zimniuch, Fran. (August 1, 2018). "Baseball's New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961-1998". U of Nebraska Press.
9. Passan, Jeff. (April 26, 2010). "Should managers play Scrabble with relievers?".
10. Jenkins, Chris. (September 25, 2006). "Where's the fire?". [[The San Diego Union-Tribune]].
11. Kepner, Tyler. (October 1, 2016). "Zach Britton Is Perfectly Unorthodox Choice for Cy Young Award". [[The New York Times]].
12. (November 9, 2021). "These pitchers won back-to-back Cy Young Awards".