Kansas City Royals' Zack Greinke wins American League Cy Young Award - ESPN

Zack Greinke wins American League Cy Young Award; Felix #2

Greinke's 16 wins were the lowest in history for an AL starting pitcher, excluding the strike years. In fact, even if the strike years are included, no AL starter has ever won the Cy Young with fewer victories. And you fave to go back to 1991 to find a starter who won with a W-L pct lower than Greinke's .667

Why did the voters excuse his 16-8 record. One word: Royals. "The Royals went 65-97 last season, by far the worst winning percentage of an AL team that had a Cy Young winner."

The voting wasn't really close. Greinke took 25 of the 28 first place votes, and was the second choice on the other three ballots. Felix received two firsts. On his 26 remaining ballots, he received 23 seconds and a third. The other first place vote went to Verlander, who finished third overall. Sabathia and Halliday were the only other pitchers to receive votes.

I mentioned earlier in the year that Greinke really went through some hard times early in his career. In 2005 he was 5-17 with a 5.80 ERA! That year he struck out only 114 in 183 innings. That ratio has been improving constantly. This year he kayoed more than one per inning, finishing second in the league.