2024 Diamondbacks Pitcher of the Year: Zac Gallen

San Francisco Giants v Arizona Diamondbacks — Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images

The third such honor for our Opening Day starter

While remaining victorious, Zac Gallen’s margin was considerably smaller than the last time he won the award. In 2022, Gallen was voted Pitcher of the Year, but on that occasion, he was chosen on more than ninety percent of the ballots. This time? He obtained less than one-third of the votes, getting 31%. Each of the five candidates were in double-digits, with Brandon Pfaadt (22%) and Ryne Nelson (20%) helping make this year’s victory rather short on whelm for Gallen. Still, he becomes the first three-time winner since we started these awards in 2007, breaking the five-way tie he had been in, with Merrill Kelly, Zack Greinke, Patrick Corbin and Brandon Webb.

That’s now five years in a row that Gallen and Kelly have strictly alternated in this award, on which basis I’m going to predict a great season for Merrill in 2025. We’ll see: ideally, I’d like them BOTH to have a great full season, which seems not to have happened very much. But with regard to last year, I think it’s safe to say that Gallen’s performance was not what it had been the previous two times he won. Here’s an overview of his stats – remember that 2020 was a shortened campaign:

2020: 72.0 IP, 2.75 ERA, 3-2 record, 1.111 WHIP, 2.5 bWAR
2022: 184.0 IP, 2.54 ERA, 12-4 record, 0.913 WHIP, 5.3 bWAR
2024: 148.0 IP, 3.65 ERA, 14-6 record, 1.264 WHIP, 2.7 bWAR

The bWAR figures are probably the most striking. Gallen posted barely have the production he had in 2022, and little more than he did in 2020, when he made only a dozen starts. All told, the only more disappointing season than 2024 during his time on the Diamondbacks was probably 2021, a campaign which was similarly curtailed by injury. That year, he went 4-10 with a 4.30 ERA and was only worth 2.1 bWAR. However, in a year where Arizona’s pitching – and stop me if you’ve heard this before – was an area of concern, Gallen still had the capacity to shine. His Game Score average of 54.1 was best of any starting pitcher on the team, and half of all Arizona’s tough losses (L’s in quality starts) went to Zac.

There’s no doubt that health was an issue. Gallen was just rounding in form in May, with an ERA for the month of 2.81, and a FIP of 2.93, when he suffered a strained right hamstring after half a dozen pitched on May 30. While he looked great in the first start on his return, a month later, that did come against Oakland. July subsequently proved ugly, with an ERA of 5.10 across his six appearances, and the results thereafter were mixed. It very much felt like a season of two halves for Gallen:
Apr-Jun: 12 GS, 63.2 IP, 2.83 ERA, 3.09 FIP, 67:16 K:BB
Jul-Sep: 16 GS, 90.1 IP, 3.99 ERA, 3.44 FIP, 96:39 K:BB
Up until the hammie issue, Zac was at least in the Cy Young conversation.

Even thereafter, he could still prove literally unhittable on occasion. One of his best starts of the year came on September 4 in San Francisco. He tossed six no-hit innings against the Giants (above), with eight strikeouts – it was one of five outings this season where Zac went at least six innings, and allowed two or fewer hits. Only four pitchers in the National League last year had a higher number of such dominant starts. But it feels like the weaker second half may have factored into our end of season rankings. As DbacksEurope noted, despite winning, Gallen’s score of 7.19 was actually the lowest of any of the five nominees, below Pfaadt (7.30), Nelson (7.70), Justin Martinez (7.81) and A.J. Puk (8.46).

2025 is going to be a big year for Zac. It’s currently scheduled to be his final year under team control, unless they sign him to an extension – and being a Scott Boras client, that has always seemed unlikely. If he intends to test free-agency then staying healthy and delivering a big walk season will certainly something he’ll want. Though Merrill Kelly is also in the same situation right now, which could make for an interesting head-to-head battle. However, with Corbin Burnes also on the roster for Arizona, there’s perhaps the chance since the streak began, that someone will break the Gallen/Kelly duopoly in this category, which has held ownership of the award since 2019.

Previous winners