Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cy Young Award
- Makio Mukai
- Jan 2
- 4 min read
Last year, in 2025, Paul Skenes was selected as the National League Cy Young Award winner. I think that was a predictable and natural selection.
However, in Japan, many people were very disappointed that Yoshinobu Yamamoto did not win the award. These people seemed to assume that Yamamoto's postseason performance would be considered for the Cy Young Award, even though that is not the case.
So, will Yamamoto be able to win the Cy Young Award in the future? This time, I'd like to consider the answer to this question by looking at Yamamoto's performance during his time in Japan.
In a column titled "Pitcher's Triple Crown" included on this website, I wrote about how Yamamoto won the Pitcher's Triple Crown (leading in wins, ERA, and strikeouts) in each of his final three years in Japan (2021, 2022, and 2023) before moving to the Major Leagues. I also wrote that not only has Yamamoto been the only pitcher in Japanese professional baseball to win the Pitcher's Triple Crown three consecutive years, but also that no other pitcher has ever won the Pitcher's Triple Crown three times, and that while there are pitchers in the Major Leagues who have won the Pitcher's Triple Crown three times, no one has done so three times in a row.
I didn't mention in that column that Yamamoto won Japan’s prestigious Eiji Sawamura Award during the three years he won the Pitcher's Triple Crown.
The Eiji Sawamura Award is awarded in memory of the legendary Eiji Sawamura, a pitcher who flourished in the early days of Japanese professional baseball in the 1930s and 1940s. In the United States, the Eiji Sawamura Award is often described as the equivalent of Major League Baseball's Cy Young Award, which is not incorrect. However, there are several differences between the Cy Young Award and the Eiji Sawamura Award, which I will briefly explain here.
The Cy Young Award is given to two pitchers, one from each of the two leagues, but the Eiji Sawamura Award is given to only one pitcher from across both leagues.
The Cy Young Award is primarily given to starting pitchers, but it can also be given to relief pitchers, although the number of recipients is quite small. On the other hand, the Eiji Sawamura Award is exclusively given to starting pitchers.
Unlike the Cy Young Award, which is voted on by reporters, the Eiji Sawamura Award is selected by deliberation by a five-member selection committee. Furthermore, the selection criteria are clearly stated: number of games pitched (25 or more), number of complete games (10 or more), number of wins (15 or more), winning percentage (60% or more), number of innings pitched (200 or more), number of strikeouts (150 or more), and ERA (2.50 or less). The award is made based on these criteria, but the winner does not have to meet all of them. As the division of roles between pitchers, such as starters, setup pitchers and closers, is progressing in Japanese professional baseball, just like in Major League Baseball, the number of complete games required will be eight or more, and the number of innings pitched will be 180 or more, starting from 2026.
Five pitchers, including Yamamoto, have won the Eiji Sawamura Award three times, but only one other pitcher has won it three years in a row (Masaichi Kaneda, the Japanese record holder with 400 career wins). Incidentally, other Japanese pitchers who have also played in the Major Leagues and received the award besides Yamamoto include Koji Uehara (twice), Daisuke Matsuzaka, Kei Igawa, Kenshin Kawakami, Yu Darvish, Hisashi Iwakuma, Kenta Maeda (twice), Masahiro Tanaka (twice), and Tomoyuki Sugano (twice).
Eleven pitchers have won the Cy Young Award three or more times (including some incredible pitchers like Roger Clemens, who won it seven times, and Randy Johnson, who won it five times!), but only Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson have won it for three or more consecutive years, both of whom won it four years in a row.
I hope what I’ve written so far has made it clear to you just how outstanding a starting pitcher Yamamoto was in the history of Japanese professional baseball, but Yamamoto didn't immediately become a star after joining a professional baseball team.
Yamamoto joined a professional baseball team in 2017, but he began to stand out in 2019, his third year with the team. That was the year he cleared the required number of innings pitched for the first time and had the best ERA in the league. Then, in 2020, his fourth year, he led the league in strikeouts. From 2021, his fifth year, two years after clearing the required number of innings pitched for the first time, he became the pitcher's triple crown winner for three consecutive years and won the Eiji Sawamura Award.
Yamamoto moved to the majors in 2024, but due to an injury midway through the season, he only pitched 90 innings with a 7-2 record and a 3.00 ERA, which wasn't particularly impressive. However, in his second year in 2025, he stayed in the rotation throughout the season, posting a 12-8 record with a 2.49 ERA and 201 strikeouts, clearing the required number of innings pitched (173.2 innings). While none of these results were league-leading and he missed out on the Cy Young Award, they were still impressive.
Considering Yamamoto's overwhelming performance in Japan, winning the Pitcher's Triple Crown and the Eiji Sawamura Award for three consecutive years starting two years after he first cleared the required number of innings pitched, it's safe to expect that Yamamoto, who cleared the required number of innings pitched for the first time in the major leagues last year in 2025, will perform even better in 2026 than he did last year and begin to produce results worthy of the Cy Young Award. I truly hope that this will be the case.
( If I’ve made a mistake or left out something important, please let me know. I’ll make corrections or additions.)