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Phillies: Figuring out where Aaron Nola stands in the Cy Young race

By John Town

PHILADELPHIA, PA - AUGUST 17: Starting Aaron Nola #27 of the Philadelphia Phillies delivers a pitch in the first inning against the New York Mets at Citizens Bank Park on August 17, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - AUGUST 17: Starting Aaron Nola #27 of the Philadelphia Phillies delivers a pitch in the first inning against the New York Mets at Citizens Bank Park on August 17, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images) /
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Phillies ace Aaron Nola is right in the middle of a tight National League Cy Young race. Where does he stand compared to his competition?

Aaron Nola is not only having the best season of all Phillies pitchers, he is also among the best pitchers in the entire league. He has been in the Cy Young race all season long, and with about a month and a half left in the season, where does he stack up against the competition?

The NL Cy Young race is generally considered a three-horse race between Nola, Max Scherzer, and Jacob deGrom. All three pitchers have had great seasons, with strong cases to win the award.

So far this year, Nola has a 14-3 record, 2.24 ERA, 2.73 fielding-independent pitching, and 0.98 WHIP in 25 starts. He has racked up 160 strikeouts while giving up 44 walks and just eight home runs in 161 innings pitched. Nola’s 8.2 bWAR is the most among all NL pitchers.

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deGrom is another strong candidate and will test just how much voters still care about win-loss record. He is just 8-7 this year despite leading the league with a 1.71 ERA and 2.09 FIP. He also ranks among the top five NL pitchers in walks per nine, strikeouts per nine, innings pitched, innings pitched, strikeouts and WAR.

Both Nola and deGrom have to compete with the two-time reigning Cy Young winner, Max Scherzer.

He leads the NL in wins (16), innings pitched (174.2), strikeouts (234), WHIP (0.887), hits per nine (5.9), strikeouts per nine (12.1), and strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.71). Simply put, Scherzer has dominated the competition this year.

Of course, there are a few pitchers who are still dark horse candidates who could become finalists with a strong final push this season. Miles Mikolas of the Cardinals and Patrick Corbin and Zack Greinke of the Diamondbacks have had strong seasons of their own and may just yet enter the conversation.

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ESPN’s Cy Young predictor expects Scherzer to win the award by a decent margin, even though the Nationals likely won’t win the division. Nola is about 10 “Cy Young points” behind Scherzer, with the rest of the competition separated by a wide margin.

Last week, Dan Zymborski of Fangraphs used their ZiPS projection system to project who would win the award. At the time, Scherzer had the best odds at 54.8%, with Nola coming in at second with a 21.3% chance and deGrom in third at 13.7%.

At this point, Scherzer seems to be the favorite, but the season is still far from over.

Each pitcher should get about seven or eight more starts before the year is over. How they perform in the final playoff push could go a long way to determining who wins the award.

Next. Phillies v Braves: How the division race stacks up. dark

Nola is certainly in the race barring a major collapse at the end of the season with the chance to potentially win it with a strong finish to the year.

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