Atlanta Braves: Pitchers most likely to win ’20 Cy Young (Part 2)
By Seth Carter
Mike Soroka
Due to recency bias, this is probably the most popular choice. Outside of Braves’ country – and due to the nature of today’s game – many people are predicting Soroka to regress in 2020.
Steamer has Soroka projected to go 12-10 with a 4.14 ERA in the upcoming season.
Some people aren’t buying into his staying power with just a 20.3% K-rate.
Let’s recap quickly, Soroka finished his rookie campaign with a 2.68 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and only gave up .72 homers per nine.
Soroka also finished right behind teammate Max Fried in groundball percentage. The Braves were very good at keeping the ball on the ground last season.
Can a pitcher with Soroka’s reliance on the two-seamer win a Cy Young? Ask Dallas Keuchel.
Just because he doesn’t strikeout 1,000 guys per game doesn’t mean he can’t consistently be a great pitcher.
In part one, I referenced Tim Hudson and his career 3.42 ERA. Reminder: He struck out 6.0 hitters per nine over the course of his 17 years in the majors.
With Soroka doing what he did in his rookie year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the K’s increase, but it doesn’t mean he’ll be one of the elite strikeout pitchers in the game. He doesn’t need to be.
He has pinpoint accuracy and his two-seamer has the same arm-slot and release point as his slider, yet they are going to two completely different destinations.
Soroka finished his rookie year for the Braves among the game’s elite in groundball rate and home runs per nine.
Among pitchers with more than 160 innings pitched (because I didn’t change it from earlier), he finished second in all of the MLB with a .72 HR/9 rate.
He finished ahead of aces Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jacob deGrom, Zack Greinke, and Max Scherzer – and they all finished in the top 10!
There’s no doubt that Soroka’s accuracy and movement make it very difficult to get good wood on the ball.