MLB Player Choice Awards Outstanding Pitcher vs. Cy Young Voting

Zack Greinke won the Outstanding NL Pitcher Award from the MLB Players Choice Awards on Monday.  Unlike the other awards yet to be given out, these are voted on by the players themselves instead of the media.  The Cy Young talks have been debated for months now but as the awards season gets underway the time for talk is now!

So how often does the winner of the Players Choice Award win the Cy Young?

Well the Players Choice Awards were started in 1992 but pitchers weren't specifically recognized with their own category until 1994 so let's look at the pitchers who've won since then:

Out of the 21 previous years, the AL only had three instances (really three and a half since 1998 was a tie) that the Cy Young voting didn't match the Players Choice.  Two of those years were fairly recent with last year having a mismatch of the players choosing King Felix over Corey Kluber who eventually took home the Cy Young. 

"Why don't the other guys like me...?"

The NL however had 7 of the 21 years produce a mismatch between the two awards, most recent being 2009 where instead of Adam Wainwright winning the Cy Young, it was Lincecum winning it for the second year in a row.  Combining the two leagues shows that about 76% of the time (32 of the 42 winners, the only caveat being the tie however the players were technically half right!) the winner of the Players Choice Award goes on to win the Cy Young.  If you're Zack Greinke or Dallas Keuchel, the odds are pretty favorable that you're going on to win the Cy Young Award in a couple of weeks.  Unless the league differences actually matter in which case Keuchel's chances are a bit higher and Greinke's would be at about 66% but you could always listen to Han Solo and say: