FanSided MLB 2012 Awards: AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander

For many fans, the end-of-season player awards are one of the biggest highlights of the long MLB offseason. There’s just one problem: the most deserving players don’t always win. Though the BBWAA generally does a better job with the MVP and the Cy Young than with, say, the Hall of Fame, their picks for the coveted hardware are often questionable, if not dumbfounding.

So at FanSided, we decided to put our money where our collective mouth is. At the end of the 2012 MLB season, 52 FanSided writers representing 28 different sites from around the MLB network cast their ballots for Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, Manager of the Year, and Rookie of the Year.

We’ve already unveiled the results of our first awards: the Rookies of the Year (AL, NL) and Managers of the Year (AL, NL). This week we turn our attention to the Cy Youngs, starting today with the American League.

A couple notes on the voting: Balloting opened on October 1 (when each team had three games left to play) and closed on October 5 before the first playoff game stared. Each voter named three players on his or her ballot, with votes scored on a 9-7-5-3-1 basis.

Without further ado, here are the results:

Justin Verlander is our pick to win his second consecutive AL Cy Young award, earning 386 out of a maximum 450 points. David Price comes in at a (relatively) close second with 336 points. Felix Hernandez, Jered Weaver, and Chris Sale comprise the third tier, followed by Fernando Rodney. CC Sabathia, Matt Harrison, Yu Darvish, Jim Johnson, Max Scherzer, and James Shields also got some support.

A majority of our voters had Verlander as their top choice, as he received 28 out of 50 first-place selections. Price earned 16 first-place votes, while Hernandez earned five and Rodney got one.

What do you think? Did we make the right pick?