Yankees starter Gerrit Cole has spent a decade as one of baseball’s best pitchers, but he was still missing a Cy Young award on his résumé. That drought ended on Wednesday, as MLB announced that Cole won the 2023 AL Cy Young award for the first time in the starting pitcher’s career.
Cole is coming off a dominant season in 2023, starting 33 games and pitching to a 2.63 ERA and 0.981 WHIP in 209 innings, all of which were enough to lead the league. It was the second straight season that Cole made the most starts in the AL, and the fourth time in the last six seasons that he had an ERA under 3.00.
In his career, Cole has been the runner-up for the award twice, once in 2019 when his then-Astros teammate Justin Verlander won, and again in 2021 when then-Blue Jays starter Robbie Ray was victorious. He also becomes the first Yankee to win the award since Roger Clemens in 2001.
The Yankees starter is a rare workhorse ace at the top of a rotation, throwing over 200 innings six times in the last eight full seasons. After a relatively down season in 2022, Cole bounced back to carry the Yankees pitching staff this year.
Cole beat out finalists Kevin Gausman of the Blue Jays and Sonny Gray of the Twins for the award, but the voting was not particularly close. The Yankee received all 30 first place votes, earning a unanimous selection.
