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One of the big pieces of news in Major League Baseball within the last week was the situation with Phillies ace Zack Wheeler. There was a blood clot in his shoulder area and it was removed. There's no timetable for his return. 

The order of operations here is to first be concerned with the well-being of Wheeler as a person. Second, the playoff implications (notably: The Phillies still likely win the NL East, but a deep playoff run without Wheeler is exponentially less likely than with him). After those two things are out of the way, we have the mental capacity to also consider the implications regarding the race for the NL Cy Young. 

Wheeler has been neck and neck with Pirates phenom Paul Skenes all season. 

Wheeler leads the league in strikeouts (by 20) and WHIP. He's fifth in ERA, fourth in ERA+ and fourth among pitchers in WAR. As he's finished second in Cy Young voting twice, his pedigree gave us reason to believe he had the ability to finish the season strong. 

Now, it seems like he'll miss weeks, if not the rest of the regular season. The odds reflect the injury, as Wheeler has tumbled. He's not even among the top nine listed at Fanduel. Here are the top five: 

Is this simply a coronation for Skenes now? The odds do not necessarily say so. Phillies' replacement ace Sánchez has a shot, so I guess we're sticking in the state of Pennsylvania anyway. A quick side-by-side: 

  • Skenes is 7-9 with a 2.16 ERA (195 ERA+), 0.96 WHIP and 174 strikeouts against 37 walks in 154 innings. 
  • Sánchez is 11-4 with a 2.46 ERA (181 ERA+), 1.10 WHIP and 169 strikeouts against 38 walks in 157 innings. 

Sánchez has the lead in baseball-reference's version of WAR, while Skenes leads in Fangraphs and both are close enough to be within the margin of error.

Overall, it seems awfully close with Skenes slightly in front. He has the name recognition and the stuff, too. 

The funny thing here is that, back a few decades, Sánchez would have the big advantage over Skenes due to the records. In fact, Skenes would have been eliminated from contention with a 7-9 mark, despite the fact that his team is bad and this is an individual award. Of course, if that were the case, we'd say hello to Peralta and his 15-5 record for the best team in baseball. 

Peralta leads in wins and ranks seventh in WAR, sixth in ERA, 10th in WHIP, 11th in strikeouts and 12th in innings pitched. He's a legit candidate. So is Boyd. He's been the Cubs' rock through injuries to their top two pitchers, one of whom has been done for the season since April. He's 12-6 with a 2.61 ERA (fourth in NL). He's fifth in WHIP and seventh in innings. 

Webb leads the league in innings pitched, but he's outside the top 10 in ERA while playing half his games in a pitcher's heaven. Even if he finishes strong, that's a lot of dudes to leapfrog. 

What about Andrew Abbott of the Reds? He's at +10000 odds. He's second to Skenes with a 2.28 ERA, is third in WAR, seventh in WHIP and is 8-3. He's only at 130 innings, though, putting him 22nd in the league. He'd need a ton of help to overcome that lack of workload, but the rate stats are very impressive. 

Still, at this point, I feel like we'd be bending over backward to push for anyone to beat Skenes. The award doesn't say anything about team achievement and that's why it was always dumb that the W-L record was the most important stat for some voters. 

The Cy Young is for the best pitcher in the league. You'd be hard pressed right now to tell me that, come the end of the season, it'll be anyone on the NL side other than Paul Skenes.