After some particularly impressive performances against usually-dominant starting pitchers last week, this graphic began making the rounds on social media…
A truly remarkable battering of three hurlers who could easily find themselves in AL Cy Young Award consideration by season’s end.
Per my usual “this got me wondering about…” thought process, I looked back at the past 15 years (2011-2025) of AL Cy Young Award winners to see how the Twins performed against each in their hardware haul campaigns. What
I found was surprising in just how easily the Cy Young chuckers carved up MN lumber:
- 2011 Justin Verlander: 3-0, 21.2 IP, 2.49 ERA, 1.11 WHIP
- 2012 David Price: 1-0, 7 IP, 2.57 ERA, 1.00 WHIP
- 2013 Max Scherzer: 3-0, 20.1 IP, 1.77 ERA, 0.98 WHIP
- 2014 Corey Kluber: 2-1, 23.1 IP, 2.70 ERA, 1.11 WHIP
- 2015 Dallas Kuechel: 1-0, 8 IP, 3.38 ERA, 0.88 WHIP
- 2016 Rick Porcello: 1-0, 13.2 IP, 3.29 ERA, 1.02 WHIP
- 2017 Kluber: 0-0, 7 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0.71 WHIP
- 2018 Blake Snell: 1-1, 10 IP, 3.60 ERA, 1.30 WHIP
- 2019 Verlander: 1-1, 14 IP, 1.29 ERA, 0.57 WHIP
- 2020 Shane Bieber: 2-1, 21 IP, 2.14 ERA, 0.81 WHIP
- 2021 Robbie Ray: 1-0, 6 IP, 1.50 ERA, 1.17 WHIP
- 2022 Verlander: 2-0, 14 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0.21 WHIP
- 2023 Gerrit Cole: 1-0, 9 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0.33 WHIP
- 2024 Tarik Skubal: 2-0, 18 IP, 2.50 ERA, 0.89 WHIP
- 2025 Skubal: 1-0, 14 IP, 1.93 ERA, 0.71 WHIP
In a certain sense, this is a little unsurprising. For a pitcher to win the award named after Denton True Young, wire-to-wire dominance is nearly a requirement. Even so, I would have expected the Twins to have at least put a crooked number in the tally of one award-winner over the past decade and a half. But outside of “hey, we scored a couple run off Blake Snell in 2018”, it hasn’t happened.
So, if the likes of Valdez, Skubal, or Crochet hoist hardware in November, 2026 would represent the first time in a while that the Twins have truly traumatized a top-flight black-ink bump man.
