Guardians fans embarrassing themselves with ridiculous Skubal-Clase Cy Young debate

There's just no way around it — Tarik Skubal is going to be this year's AL Cy Young winner. There's simply no other pitcher in the AL who's been able to touch him. He leads almost every major category — ERA, wins (tied with Seth Lugo but with fewer losses), strikeouts — and his WHIP is the second-lowest behind Logan Gilbert, who has a far worse ERA. Skubal has a 10.70 K/9 and a 1.65 BB/9, and his pitching run value puts him in the 100th percentile.

All of the odds are in Skubal's favor. As long as he can stay healthy through these last few weeks of the season (and maybe even if he doesn't), he'll win it in a landslide, if not by unanimous vote.

This seems like an indisputable truth to most baseball fans, even ones who aren't following the Tigers closely. However, Guardians fans are trying to nose in on the action and are embarrassing themselves in the process. Noise is getting louder online as they push for closer Emmanuel Clase to win it over Skubal.

Barstool Sports went as far as to publish a take that called Skubal's clear dominance in the race "sickening."

Guardians fans pushing for Emmanuel Clase over Tarik Skubal for AL Cy Young is ridiculous

Eric Gagne was the last reliever in the majors to win the Cy Young in 2003, and Dennis Eckersley was the last to do it in the AL, all the way back in 1992. This is not to say that just because it's rare for relievers to win, they shouldn't at all; Shohei Ohtani is the odds-on favorite to win the NL MVP this year and would be the first ever pure DH to do so.

However, there are reasons why relievers rarely win and pure DHs have never won. Relievers don't take on the same workload as starters, and DHs don't play the field. Clase hasn't pitched more than one inning through the entire season; Skubal got to eight in his Aug. 31 start and has pitched through seven innings seven times. The Tigers are 19-10 when he's on the mound. If the Guardians were to task Clase with a start that had to last at least five innings, and he made it out looking as good as Skubal, then maybe we'd be able to have a real conversation.

In the Barstool article, the author writes, "Don't get me wrong, Skubal is having a hell of a year. But starting pitchers have had better years than that. Pedro, Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Greg Maddux come to mind right off the top of my head," and then goes on to argue that Clase's season has been unmatched by any relief pitcher that's come before him.

In a graphic supplied by the author himself, it looks pretty clear that Gagne's 2003 season was better than Clase's 2024. Gagne pitched in 77 games and struck out almost three times the batters Clase has. He had a lower batting average against, a lower FIP, and a higher fWAR. Even if the argument that some former Cy Young starters have had better seasons than Skubal was even relevant at all for an award that's granted to a different group of players every year, it's immediately undercut by the fact that Clase isn't having a better season than the last reliever to break the mold.

This isn't a serious argument. Skubal will win the Cy Young, and any Guardians fans who are working themselves up about this are going to crash back to earth as soon as the winner is announced.