Indians: Ranking all Tribe Cy Young winners from 2007 and on

2020 – Shane Bieber

Stats: 8-1, 1.63 ERA, 0 CG, 77.1 IP, 122 Ks, 21 BB

Adjusted Stats (across a projected 223 innings)

Stats: 29-4, 1.63 ERA, 0 CG, 223 IP, 353 Ks, 63 BB

Now this one will be controversial. While some people will want to discredit Shane Bieber’s 2020 season because it was only 37% of a regular baseball year, that doesn’t change just how dominant he was. You can see his numbers from this year, and they’re brutal. 122 strikeouts in 77.1 innings? He had a K/9 of 14.2 for crying out loud. So to put his season in proper perspective, we took his rate of production, found the average inning’s pitched between Corey Kluber, C.C. Sabathia, and Cliff Lee’s Cy Young seasons, while also adding in Bieber’s 2019 for good measure, and found an average of 233 innings pitched.

So we took that average, multiplied it by the rate of production, and bam; you have Nolan Ryan numbers. Those are a rough estimate, mind you, but it gives you an idea of what his season would’ve looked like if he had pitched more than just a third of the season.

Now to be fair, he didn’t throw 233 innings, he threw 77.1, so that is being taken into consideration. His efficiency has him at No. 2 and it’s easy to see why. His stats are what they are, however, and no projection will take the place of two Cy Young wins.