The Baseball Writers Association of America had to issue a correction to their NL Cy Young award vote totals on Wednesday after making a $100,000 error.
Jacob deGrom won the NL Cy Young award almost unanimously, as he received 29 of 30 possible first-place votes. The initial vote totals posted by the BBWAA showed that Hyun-Jin Ryu and Max Scherzer tied for second with 72 points, while Jack Flaherty and Stephen Strasburg tied for fourth with 69 points.
Per his contract terms, Scherzer receives $500,000 for winning either Cy Young or MVP, $250,000 for finishing second in either, and $150,000 for finishing third in either. The way the BBWAA initially announced the results, Scherzer was due a $250,000 bonus.
However, TrueBlue LA’s Eric Stephen, who is a BBWAA member, crosschecked the publicly published ballots with the points totals and realized the association made an error in the way they listed and calculated points. The issue is the ballots showed Ryu received 10 second-place votes, not 6, and that Strasburg received six, not 10. Their amount of second-place votes received was flipped, causing an incorrect amount of total points.
Wait, the ballots show Ryu got 10 second-place votes, not 6. Strasburg got 6 second-place votes, but was listed as having 10.
Doesn’t matter except it would make Ryu 2nd and Scherzer 3rd, and Scherzer’s CYA bonus goes from $250k to $150k (https://t.co/0UeJPXKfch) https://t.co/OkIMR3dNXk
— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen) November 13, 2019
After the error was pointed out, the BBWAA later released new totals that fixed the error involving the flipped amount of second-place votes Ryu and Strasburg received. The result is there were no longer ties for second and fourth. The real order of finish is:
1) DeGrom
2) Ryu
3) Scherzer
4) Flaherty
5) Strasburg
CORRECTION: The vote totals for Hyun-Jin Ryu and Stephen Strasburg have been corrected. Jack Flaherty finishes 4th, Strasburg 5th. pic.twitter.com/HzsApPCOXH
— BBWAA (@officialBBWAA) November 14, 2019
The error never should have been made, but at least they corrected it quickly. The benefit of publicly releasing the votes is that people were able to double-check things and point out the error, allowing them to make the correction.
How do you think Scherzer would have spent the extra $100K? Maybe with a gift for his catcher?
