How did Fergie Jenkins win the Cy Young over Seaver in 1971?

[stevejrogers]

Working on an article on Mets & Cy Young voting. Kind of curious if anyone recalls or knows how Fergie Jenkins overwhelmingly won over Seaver despite Tom have better overal numbers? Even a better win percentage!

Were the 4 extra wins THAT much bigger of a deal back then?

[Frayed Knot]

SteveJRogers wrote: Were the 4 extra wins THAT much bigger of a deal back then?

Yes, that was a big part of it. Also 40 extra innings pitched and half the number of walks.
And with Seaver only besting Jenkins by 0.1 in WAR that season many voters probably felt it OK to simply discount that difference although I don't seem to remember any writers specifically citing that as their reason.

[dinosaur jesus]

Wins, yeah. Plus I think they figured Jenkins was due, that being the fifth time in a row he'd won 20. He needed some kind of award for that. They may even have considered that since Wrigley was a hitter's park and Shea was a pitcher's park, the ERA difference wasn't as important as it looked. (Seaver's ERA on the road was 1.63, but never mind.)

[Benjamin Grimm]

Didn't Seaver name his dog Ferguson Jenkins because he beat him out for the Cy Young in 1971?

[Edgy MD]

I think that was a cat. His dog of that period was a poodle named Slider. He had a friend who was a failed pitcher and became a baseball writer instead --- O'Brien or somebody --- who told him if he had another dog named Curveball, he'd have won 400 games.

[G-Fafif]

Seaver was 11-8 on August 1, while Jenkins was 17-8. That's four months of impressions Tom had to overcome in the era when wins really were the proving ground for writers.