When thinking about potential Cy Young favorites, worldwide superstars like Paul Skenes, Shohei Ohtani, and Tarik Skubal may come to mind. There is one pitcher who has been getting little recognition outside their team’s fan base and should be strongly considered for this award: Davis Martin of the Chicago White Sox. He is currently second in the MLB in ERA (1.62) and tied for first in WAR (2.7). He is also top 10 in the AL in WHIP (1.00), walks per 9 (1.8), innings (50.0), and strikeouts (52). Martin has dominated in the key voting stat categories. This should, in effect, greatly improve his odds of capturing the award. As it stands, though, that is definitely not the case.
Martin is currently not in the top 10 in ESPN odds for AL Cy Young and has +6000 odds on BETMGM, tied with pitchers like Framber Valdez, who has an ERA close to 3 runs higher. This doesn’t make any sense. Martin has been an ace for a team that has been surprising everyone by holding a wild-card spot 41 games into the season. This could be a great story for the media to run with, and, shockingly, there has been no chatter whatsoever on what he has done so far.
What Is Stopping Him From Cy Young Consideration?
The first and most obvious reason is that Martin isn’t known by most fans around the league. He was a 14th-round pick and was never a ranked prospect for the White Sox, so there weren’t many expectations for him to become a star. With the lack of hype surrounding his name, he would have to take the league by storm right away to get people talking about him as one of the best pitchers in the game.
This did not happen as through his first three seasons in the majors, he appeared in 51 games and had a 4.32 ERA. These numbers are not horrible and probably would be seen as amazing if Chicago were shown what his future production would look like as a 14th-round pick. His numbers in his breakout age 29 season, however, would be seen as amazing for any round pick.
Another reason is definitely due to the team he plays for. The White Sox have been a disaster of a franchise ever since their 2005 World Series win. They have only made the playoffs three times in the last 20 seasons, never making it past the divisional round. This, along with three straight 100+ loss seasons, including their horrific 2024 season, where they had the 5th worst record in the modern era, has caused the team to float into irrelevancy. With little eyes on the team, it allows for stellar, Cy Young potential seasons to get glanced over.
Can He Actually Become a Cy Young Winner?
While Martin has been having a Cy Young season up to this point, many people do not believe he has any chance to sustain this success. There may be some truth to this, as up to this point, there weren’t many signs that he would ever be even close to winning, but crazier things have happened.
Cy Young favorites Skubal and Garrett Crochet have essentially been knocked out of the race due to injuries that will sideline them for some time. This leaves the race for the award wide open. The AL race is way less top-heavy than the NL at the moment and could lead to a surprising candidate, like Martin, slowly but surely sneaking into consideration when awards season rolls around. Who knows? Maybe he will continue to prove everyone wrong and do just enough to take home the award.
