Blake Snell of the Padres takes home the NL Cy Young Award for 2023. He joins a long list of pitchers who won in both leagues:

Padres’ left-hander Blake Snell, a previous winner in the American League with the Rays in 2018, won the National League Cy Young Award. He joined the company of Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Max Scherzer, Gaylord Perry and Roy Halladay as Cy Young Award winners in both leagues.

BBWAA.com

All of those pitchers had Hall of Fame worthy careers. I suspect Snell will be the first double league winner not to be considered for the Hall. While his two Cy Young seasons were great, he’s been just okay otherwise. Maybe he’ll go on a tear in the 30s and wind up looking a lot better when he retires.

He led the majors in ERA with a 2.25 mark. He allowed just 5.8 hits per 9 IP, but walked a ton of batters. That may be why he was not a unanimous choice. His 6 rWAR did lead the NL among pitchers.

The interesting part of the voting came down to third and fourth place with Zac Gallen edging out Spencer Strider of the Braves. Strider received more high votes (1 or 2), but Gallen appeared on more ballots finishing four points better. Strider would be an old-school candidate as he collected 20 wins. New schoolers would note that his ERA was about a run higher than his FIP, so maybe his defense let him down. There were reasons for people on both side of the wins divide to vote for Strider, and I’m a bit surprised he didn’t appear on more ballots.