2019 Ben McDonald candidates

There was no 20-game winner in 2019. There was no historic season by a relief pitcher. It seems like the race for the Ben McDonald Award is much more wide open than in years past.

Voters for the McDonald, recognizing the DMBL's best pitcher, can cast ballots for 6 pitchers: 10 points for 1st place, 5 for 2nd place, 4 for 3rd place, 3 for 4th place, 2 for 5th place, and 1 for 6th place.

Last year, Hopatcong's Stephen Strasburg led the league with 20 wins, very nearly setting a new record for win percentage, on his way to the McDonald by a pretty wide margin. The ESPN Cy Young Predictor -- which relies heavily on traditional stats like wins, innings, K's and especially saves -- pegged Strasburg for last year's hardware.

There were no historic seasons from relievers in 2019; Tucson's Craig Kimbrel led the league in saves with 30, the lowest total by a league leader in at least four seasons. A year after Chad Green became the first reliever to top 200 strikeouts in a season, Josh Hader of Tucson one-upped him, finishing the year with 206 strikeouts in 113 innings across 91 appearances.

This year's Cy Predictor shows Livingston's Gerrit Cole as the leader, with more than 175 points, outpacing Tucson's Max Scherzer and Nate Eovaldi of Poovey Farms. Cole and Eovaldi led the league in wins with 19. Scherzer logged the most innings of any pitcher (240.7) and his 327 strikeouts not only led the league but ranked among the top 5 all-time in a season.

It looks like a pretty wide open race for the McDonald in 2019, all depending on which numbers matter to you. This year's leading candidates would barely finish among the top 3 when compared to the 2018 field (Strasburg eclipsed 200 points in the Cy Young Predictor, followed by historic seasons from relievers Andrew Miller and Chad Green, while Scherzer finished 4th).

Livingston's Hyun-Jin Ryu won the ERA title (2.85) after leading the way most of the season in that category. He also had the most quality starts (27 - four more than Zack Greinke, who was second) and quality start percentage (.818) yet the Cy Young Predictor had him a distant 4th, likely because of his low win total (13-7). He added 4 complete games, tied for 3rd in the league with three others.

Ryu and Eovaldi tied for the league lead in WHIP at 0.98, followed by San Francisco's Chris Sale, who was in a tie with Scherzer and Carlos Carrasco at 1.02.

Carrasco also finished 2nd in ERA after splitting the season between two teams. Hillsborough dealt him with Kurt Suzuki in July to Tucson in exchange for Jon Lester and a 2020 1st rounder. He flourished in Tucson, going 8-0 over 15 starts with 119 strikeouts after a blase 5-2 and 97 Ks in 12 starts with Hillsborough. He finished second in K/BB ratio at 7.7.

Allentown's Mike Minor ranked 4th in wins (16-8) and found himself toward the back of the top 10 in innings (212.1, 8th), batting average (.223, 9th), WHIP (1.06, 9th) R/9 (10.0, 9th), H/9 (7.5, 10th) and HR allowed (36, 10th). There's also his teammate, Miles Mikolas (14-9, 3.83), who was just ahead of him in WHIP (1.05, 8th) and innings (214, 7th).

If you're looking for a dark horse candidate, it could be in Philly. Trevor Bauer, acquired from Blue Ridge before the start of the season, finished 15-10 with 273 strikeouts across 216.2 innings, ranking 4th and 6th, respectively, in the latter categories. Besides Greinke, there's also Masahiro Tanaka (10-9) and Clay Buchholz (12-11), who may have had low win totals and win percentages but ranked among the top 10 in WHIP as well as ERA.

Hillsborough's Justin Verlander finished only 10-13 yet he was among the top 5 in WHIP (1.08) and strikeouts (301) despite a 3.88 ERA. He led the league with a 8.1 K/BB ratio.