A voter’s ballot would reveal their values.

Should the award reward run-prevention above all else? What’s to be said for shouldering a heavier load, especially in this day and age? And where does pure dominance in the areas most in a pitcher’s control — that don’t necessarily translate to a low ERA — factor in?

Ideally, there would be a pitcher who encapsulates all of these qualities, and that’s how you get unanimous winners. But, as Mike Petriello incisively outlined for MLB.com in September, there were no Justin Verlanders or Sandy Alcantaras in this race.

There were the workhorses: Logan Webb, Zac Gallen and Zack Wheeler; the strikeout artist, Spencer Strider; and the ERA leader, Blake Snell. A tier below, Kodai Senga and Justin Steele were deservedly in the conversation with lower ERAs than all but Snell but ultimately fell short by throwing fewer innings than the aforementioned five.

Once I received my voting assignment around the end of August, I dreaded the day when I would have to turn my ballot. When it came time to select my top five, though, it was an easier decision than I expected, thanks to Snell’s strong finish and a philosophy behind my thought process.

You can find the final results and all 30 ballots via the BBWAA, but here’s how I voted:

1. Blake Snell

2. Logan Webb

3. Spencer Strider

4. Zac Gallen

5. Zack Wheeler

Absent a runaway winner, I wanted to reward the pitchers who excelled in their facets of the game.

Snell led the National League with a 2.25 ERA, but he also walked the most batters — the first time that has ever happened — a failure of a pitcher’s most fundamental requirement that, for a time, I thought would disqualify him from the top spot on my ballot. His command issues prolonged his innings, shortened his outings and put more stress on the Padres’ bullpen, finishing 36 innings — or about six starts — behind Webb’s MLB-leading 216.

But Snell was so dominant in the innings he was in the game, it didn’t matter.

Surveying the Giants’ clubhouse, Snell was the most common answer I got for the filthiest pitcher they faced this season. Opposing hitters batted a paltry .180 against him, while only Strider (36.8%) struck them out at a higher rate than Snell (31.5%), allowing him to strand 86.7% of all those free base runners, the most in the league.

Snell was simply the best at the most important part of the game. His ERA was a full point lower than Webb’s (3.25) and he would have had to allow 33 earned runs over the 36 innings separating them in workload to even that gap.

Webb, on the other hand, was more reliable and arguably even more important to his team. The Giants’ piecemeal pitching doesn’t work without Webb taking the load off their overworked bullpen every fifth day. Officially, Webb finished fourth in the NL in ERA, while no other Giants pitchers even threw enough innings to qualify.

The only other pitcher who worked deep into games as often and effectively was Gerrit Cole, the runaway winner in the American League. Webb’s 24 quality starts (6+ IP, 3 or fewer ER) were tied with Cole and three more than runner-up in the NL (Wheeler), while he led all of baseball with 12 ultra-quality starts (7+ IP, 2 or fewer ER), three more than the next-closest in the NL (Gallen).

Those numbers aren’t reflected in his 11-13 record, thanks to receiving the least run support in the majors, but they weren’t overlooked by then-manager Gabe Kapler.

“I think what he’s done is probably the most challenging part of everything a pitcher does, which is to be durable and dependable, pitch deep into games and cover innings for a team,” Kapler said late in the season.

“I think innings is a huge factor in this. I don’t think Cy Young should be just about rate stats. I think it definitely has to include counting stats. And probably the most notable counting stat should  be innings because you’re covering those for your team, and that makes you valuable to your team.”

If there was one area where Webb fell short, he was very often good but rarely great.

As someone who observed nearly all of his 32 starts, Webb lacked the dominant performances that define a Cy Young season.

Meanwhile, Strider, the finest purveyor of swings and misses on either side of the Mississippi, is arguably the game’s most electric starting pitcher. On the all-time single-season leaderboard, Strider’s strikeout rate ranks right below two of the greatest pitching seasons in history, 2001 Randy Johnson and 1999 Pedro Martinez.

The two Hall of Famers, however, weren’t just elite at generating swings and misses; they also prevented runs. Strider finished with a 3.86 ERA, which would have been the highest mark for any Cy Young winner in history. He was, however, so much better than anyone else at missing bats in an era that values the strikeout above all else, that the ballot would have felt empty without him.

The most difficult, and least consequential, choice was how to rank Gallen and Wheeler, who easily beat out Steele and Senga for the final spots by throwing considerably more innings, in total, and taking down more impactful ones as their teams hunted down playoff spots in September.

Wheeler was the most valuable pitcher in the majors, according to FanGraphs WAR, but Gallen beat him out in innings pitched (210 vs. 192) and ERA (3.47 vs. 3.61).

And ultimately, the Cy Young is a results-based award, not a predictor of future performance.

Webb, 26, placed second behind the Padres’ Blake Snell, who became the seventh pitcher in MLB history to win the honor in both leagues. The Diamondbacks’ Zac Gallen, the other finalist, finished third, followed by Braves strikeout artist Spencer Strider, Cubs breakout star Justin Steele, 2021 runner-up Zack Wheeler, Mets rookie Kodai Senga and 2021 winner Corbin Burnes.

While Webb led the majors in innings pitched, one of only five starters with 200 or more, Snell separated himself from the pack with his strong finish. Allowing two runs over his final six starts, Snell lowered his ERA to 2.25, a full point lower than Webb’s, giving him the upper hand despite throwing only 180 innings to Webb’s 216.

The highest finish for a Giants pitcher since Tim Lincecum won the award in 2009, Webb received 17 second-place votes and appeared on 25 of the 30 ballots, including one voter who placed Webb first. Snell took home 28 of the 30 first-place votes to earn the second Cy Young of his career, previously crowned the American League winner in 2018.

“I’m trying to enjoy this more than the first one I won,” Snell said, surrounded by about a dozen friends and family when he was announced as the winner on MLB Network. “It’s really special. It really hits me having my family around me, because that’s when I really notice what I’ve accomplished. Having them here and seeing the looks on their faces really made it special. … In 2018, I was a kid. I thought I was going to win 40 of them. I thought I was invincible. I thought winning the Cy Young was just what I was going to do every year.”

The 30-year-old left-hander from Seattle, who is in line for a big payday as a free agent this winter, overcame the highest walk rate in the majors — the first time a pitcher has led the league in ERA and walks — by stranding 86.7% of the runners who reached base against him, the highest percentage of any pitcher, and limiting those who swung the bat to a .180 batting average, 19 points lower than the next-closest starter. He struck out 234 batters, second only to Strider.

Improving on his 11th-place finish from last season, Webb excelled in much different fashion, using pinpoint command of his sinker-slider-changeup combination to generate the highest ground-ball percentage in the majors while walking fewer batters than all but two qualified starters. One of only three Giants pitchers to even cross 100 innings, Webb’s durability and reliability every fifth day took on even more importance for a team that frequently relied on openers and bullpen games.

Only Gerrit Cole, the unanimous winner in the American League, recorded as many quality starts as Webb (24), and no pitcher in the majors matched Webb’s 12 ultra-quality starts, defined by going at least seven innings while allowing two or fewer runs.

It didn’t take long for the five-year, $90 million contract extension Webb signed in April to look like a good investment.

However, it will take more than Webb to lead the Giants back to the postseason.

Despite his stellar season, Webb finished with a record of 11-13, becoming the first starting pitcher ever to finish first or second in the Cy Young voting with a losing record. The Giants went only 15-18 in his starts, the product of a lineup that provided him the least run support in the majors.

NL Cy Young results

Shortstop Aeverson Arteaga and center fielder Grant McCray, the Giants’ No. 7 and No. 12 prospects according to MLB Pipeline, will be available for any team willing to select them in the Dec. 6 draft and keep them on their major-league roster all of next season, a move the Giants pulled off with Blake Sabol in 2023.

The Giants instead added a trio of pitchers — RHP Trevor McDonald, LHP Erik Miller and RHP Kai-Wei Teng — to the 40-man roster ahead of the deadline, which president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi explained was more a reflection on the state of baseball under the current rules than their feelings toward the younger position player prospects.

“Having capable reinforcements and capable reinforcements who can provide length is as important as it’s ever been,” Zaidi said, citing the 13-pitcher limit on 26-man rosters, the 15-day minimum for pitchers upon being optioned to the minor leagues and the limit of five options per season. “Unfortunately on the flip side, it’s a little bit harder now to carry younger position players who may be a year-plus away from the big leagues.”

Arteaga, 20, and McCray, 22, are considered two of the best athletes in the system and plus defenders, two traits that lend themselves to the possibility of a team drafting and stashing them as a pinch-runner/defensive replacement. But neither has played above High-A, where Arteaga hit .235 with 17 home runs and McCray hit .255 with 14 homers — and 52 stolen bases — in 2023.

“Some of our highly regarded position players who we felt were a little bit further away, that was a tough decision for us,” Zaidi said. “But some of it boils down to 40-man roster functionality and the demands that we have getting through the season, making sure we have enough pitching in particular to get through times when things become a real crunch.”

Zaidi said adding Miller, 25, and Teng, 24, were “slam-dunk decisions.” While injuries prevented McDonald, 22, from advancing beyond High-A last season, Zaidi said all three pitchers have a chance to take down major-league innings next season.

Miller, a Stanford graduate acquired from Philadelphia for Yunior Marte last winter, posted a 2.54 ERA over 54 relief appearances between Double-A Richmond and Triple-A Sacramento. Teng, a non-roster invitee in 2021, made 28 starts between Richmond and Sacramento last season, going 7-8 with a 4.42 ERA.

Bringing the Giants’ one player shy of a full 40-man roster, the trio of pitchers will be expected to contribute next season in the same way as Sean Hjelle, Keaton Winn and Tristan Beck in 2023, taxiing between Sacramento and San Francisco depending on roster needs.

“Having those guys available to go up and down, even though that can be tough for an individual player,” Zaidi said, “the way the rules are now, you absolutely need that.”

Bryan Price, the first pitching coach Melvin ever worked with, will take over the position from Andrew Bailey, whom the organization would have liked to have back but has been pursuing jobs closer to his family on the East Coast, while Garvin Alston was promoted from Triple-A pitching coach to replace Craig Albernaz as the bullpen coach.

The new hires bring Melvin’s staff to 11, with Price joining third base coach Matt Williams and bench coach Ryan Christenson as newcomers to the organization who have history with Melvin.

“It really worked out exactly how we wanted,” Melvin said. “Farhan was so supportive of bringing in some guys that were important to me, but the continuity … and being able to promote from within and have guys come from the outside, too, it’s really worked out well for us. We feel really good about where we’re positioned right now.”

The job is a homecoming for Price, 61, who was born in San Francisco and attended Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley and Cal, as well as a reunion with Melvin, a fellow Berkeley alumnus who kept him on when he was hired for his first managerial gig in Seattle in 2003 and spent six seasons with him as his pitching coach, earning Baseball America’s Coach of the Year honor in 2007.

“Bryan was really my first coach,” Melvin said. “In Seattle, my first year managing in ’03, Bryan was my guy. Then I went over to Arizona with him and he went on to do some other great things, managing and so forth.”

Ever since, Melvin has been trying to lure Price back onto his staff.

“Bryan’s name up as a candidate when we were both in Oakland,” Zaidi said, “so I know that it’s been a long pursuit for Bob.”

Melvin convinced Price to join his staff in San Diego as a senior adviser, but he figured his uniformed days were behind him. Until Melvin called with the opportunity to put on the jersey of his hometown Giants.

“I don’t know that there was another job on a major-league staff that he would have taken other than this one,” Melvin said, echoing his own message from when he was introduced last month. “Similar to myself and some other guys, you hope at some point in time, you end up in the dugout of the San Francisco Giants. That was the allure to him.”

Price has 15 years of experience as a pitching coach between the Mariners, Diamondbacks, Reds and Phillies, in addition to a five-year tenure as Cincinnati’s manager from 2014-2018. With Williams (the Nationals’ manager from 2014-2015), he also gives him two coaches with prior major-league managerial experience on his staff.

As a four-time All-Star third baseman, Williams has history with the Giants but even more extensive experience with Melvin, who has hired him in Oakland, San Diego and now San Francisco.

“This might be like my sixth or seventh team with Matt, so we have some history together,” Melvin said. “But the Giant flavor, a fan favorite when he played here, he’s always considered himself a Giant, this was an easy one.”

Alston, 51, also arrives with major-league experience on his résumé, having spent the 2018 season as the Twins’ pitching coach prior to taking the same role with the River Cats. He earned a sterling reputation within the organization for his work grooming San Francisco’s young hurlers the past three seasons, and now, he’ll oversee their transition to the majors, with the Giants counting on contributions from Kyle Harrison, Tristan Beck, Keaton Winn and a host of other homegrown arms who have passed through Alston’s hands.

The Giants went in a similar direction when they appointed Pat Burrell as hitting coach. Like Alston and their young pitchers, Burrell has worked with nearly every young position player in the organization while roving between minor-league affiliates the past three seasons.

Despite finishing last season as one of the worst offensive groups in the majors, Zaidi said “we have a lot of confidence and belief” in Justin Viele and Pedro Guerrero, who will return to their roles as co- and assistant hitting coaches.

“I just think Pat’s gonna have a different dynamic that they’re excited about, that our players are excited about,” Zaidi said. “I’ve been really impressed with his ability to connect with players, not just be a hitting mechanics guru but also understand the psychological part of the game, the cheerleading aspect of the game, respecting how hard hitting is.

“I think for Pat to bring that wealth of experience and connections and relationships he has with our young players, I think it’s just going to be a boost to our hitting group. … A little bit of a different dynamic can only help us after some of the struggles last year.”

Of the 11 coaches on Melvin’s staff, six were in the dugout last season: Mark Hallberg, who is moving from third to first base coach, assistant pitching coach J.P. Martinez, Viele, Guerrero and assistants Alyssa Nakken and Taira Uematsu.

The other members of former manager Gabe Kapler’s staff who have either taken jobs elsewhere or will not be staying on are Bailey, Albernaz, director of pitching Brian Bannister, first base coach Antoan Richardson, bench coach Kai Correa, assistant hitting coach Dustin Lind and quality control coach Nick Ortiz.

Bailey interviewed this week to be Aaron Boone’s bench coach in the Bronx, according to the New York Post, and is a candidate for other pitching coach positions on the East Coast. Albernaz, who worked closely with Patrick Bailey, departed for a promotion on Stephen Vogt’s new staff in Cleveland as the major-league field coordinator.

Similarly, Bannister, who played a big role in the Giants’ edge in pitching development, left in September for a job with the White Sox, and Zaidi said they don’t have “definitive plans” to fill the position but will spread the responsibilities between Price, Martinez and Clay Rapada and Justin Lehr, two influential members of their pitching development group.

As for the others who won’t be back?

Well, two areas the Giants are seeking to improve this offseason are defense and base running.

Richardson, as the first base and outfield coach, had a hand in both. Correa earned plaudits for his work with Thairo Estrada, J.D. Davis and even Brandon Crawford, but ultimately was responsible for an infield unit that made the most errors in the majors last season.

Giants 2024 Coaching Staff

• Bench Coach – Ryan Christenson
• Third Base Coach – Matt Williams
• First Base Coach – Mark Hallberg
• Pitching Coach – Bryan Price
• Assistant Pitching Coach – J.P. Martinez
• Bullpen Coach – Garvin Alston
• Hitting Coach – Justin Viele
• Hitting Coach – Pat Burrell
• Assistant Hitting Coach – Pedro Guerrero
• Assistant Coach – Alyssa Nakken
• Assistant Coach – Taira Uematsu

Matt Williams, a star third baseman for the Roger Craig/Dusty Baker-led teams of the late-80s and early-90s, will serve as third base coach, reprising the role he held on Melvins’s staff in San Diego the past two seasons. Pat Burrell, a member of the 2010 World Series team, will bring his brusk style and familiarity with the Giants’ young core of position players as the hitting coach.

Another Melvin disciple, Ryan Christenson, will follow him from San Diego as his bench coach.

The staff, which will be rounded out in the coming weeks, also includes a number of holdovers from the 13-person contingent under Gabe Kapler.

While Kapler was fired, the 13-person staff he assembled was considered a strength within the organization, as evidenced by a half dozen of them sticking around.

One well-liked and respected member of that staff who will not be returning, however, is Craig Albernaz, the catching and bullpen coach, who on Friday was announced as Stephen Vogt’s major-league field coordinator on his new staff in Cleveland.

Director of pitching Brian Bannister already departed for the White Sox, and pitching coach Andrew Bailey is expected to pursue opportunities closer to his family on the East Coast, but there will be some stability in the Giants’ pitching department, with assistant pitching coach J.P. Martinez sticking around for his fourth season.

With Williams taking over as third base coach, Mark Hallberg will move across the diamond and take over duties in the first base coaches’ box, supplanting Antoan Richardson. Considered a rising star within the game, Hallberg interviewed for the Giants’ managerial post, as did Alyssa Nakken, who will also stay on board for her fifth season as an assistant coach.

Like Nakken, Taira Uematsu’s time in the organization dated back to Bruce Bochy’s days, and will also stay on in his third season on the major-league coaching staff.

The Giants hope that Burrell, who has worked extensively with their young hitters as a roving minor-league coach the past four seasons, can serve as an antidote for an offense that ranked near the bottom of the majors for the second half of last season. Their abysmal performance suggested a shakeup could be on the way, but Justin Viele and Pedro Guerrero will both return in the same roles.

Burrell, 47, and Viele will serve as co-hitting coaches, with Guerrero as an assistant.

A four-time All-Star with the Giants, Williams, 57, was immediately speculated to be a candidate to follow Melvin to San Francisco. Before serving as his third base coach the past two years with the Padres, he worked under him for two years in Oakland, following a managerial career that took him from the Washington Nationals (winning manager of the year in 2014) to Korea, where he managed against a presumed Giants’ free-agent target, Kiwoom Heroes center fielder Jung-hoo Lee.

Christenson, 49, was the associate manager under Melvin last season in San Diego after serving as his bench coach in 2022 and for their final four years in Oakland. Before joining Melvin’s staff in Oakland, he spent five years managing affiliates in their minor-league system.

The longtime San Francisco Giants shortstop received multiple standing ovations in an emotional sendoff from Oracle Park on the last day of the season in October, when Giants fans said goodbye to their shortstop for the last 13 years.

But Crawford said after that game that he would take his time to make a decision on his future and discuss it with his family.

And on Tuesday, his agent, Joel Wolfe, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Crawford has been getting interest from clubs and is listening to offers as he weighs his future.

“He’s been with the Giants his whole life, literally, so it’s hard for him to imagine life anywhere else, but he’s listening,” Wolfe said at the general manager’s meetings. “Several teams have called and asked if he’d consider going somewhere.”

It might not be easy for Crawford to find a guaranteed major league contract, however. He’ll turn 37 in January and is coming off an injury-plagued season in which he hit just .194 with a .597 OPS and seven home runs in 93 games. The year before, he hit just .231 with a .652 OPS.

But he’s known as a leader in the clubhouse and could be a valuable asset to a young team looking for a veteran infielder.

The Giants are expected to turn his position over to Marco Luciano, the 22-year-old super prospect who saw his first 14 games of big league action this year.

Crawford, who was born in Mountain View, will reportedly take his time before making a decision.

He watched his four children throw out ceremonial first pitches in the final game of the season, then told reporters it was a “dream come true” playing his entire career for the Giants.

“Pretending to be Giants players in the backyard, growing up coming to games, the dream was always to play for the Giants, not necessarily to win a couple of World Series and be here for 13 years,” he said.

Thirteen All-Star Games, seven Gold Gloves, more than 400 wins and 255 saves.

All from three guys who grew up within 20 minutes of one another.

“I was always proud to say, ‘Yeah, we’re from San Jose,'” Dave Righetti said recently. “Nobody knew where that was. There was no Sharks. There was no Silicon Valley.”

Righetti is the most San Jose of them all. Born here, still lives here.

Mark Langston was born in San Diego, came here at age 5.

Dave Stieb, born in Santa Ana, arrived as a high school freshman.

Their story is more than 60 years in the making, This story, almost 30. Righetti pitched it to me in 1994. You’re seeing it now because tonight Stieb, the pride of Oak Grove High School, will be inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame where plaques of Righetti (Pioneer High) and Langston (Buchser High) already hang in the concourse of SAP Center.

Back in their day, there was no social media, no Max Preps, no travel ball teams. But Langston knew of Stieb and Righetti.

“Those guys were legends,” said Langston, 63. “I didn’t know them, but I knew all about them. They were guys I always looked up to.”

Because of the age difference — Stieb is 66, Righetti 65 this month — Langston never played against them. In fact, there is only one known meeting between any of them. It was in a CCS playoff game between Righetti’s Pioneer team and Stieb’s Oak Grove team.

Stieb’s team won 2-1.

“Stieb threw out my brother at the plate from centerfield,” Righetti said. “He threw a  rocket.”

Stieb remembers. “I threw a bullet.”

The next year Righetti and Stieb were teammates at San Jose City College. Langston was headed there too until San Jose State offered him a scholarship. Imagine those three on the same pitching staff. It never would have happened, because Stieb and Righetti had moved on after one year. Langston was still in high school.

And, besides, one of them wasn’t a pitcher. Funny, but Stieb, the second-winningest pitcher of the 1980s — only Jack Morris won more games in the decade — didn’t throw a pitch in high school. Or in college until his third year.

Stieb was an outfielder. He was a college All-American his junior year, hitting .394 with 12 home runs and 48 RBI in 51 games for Southern Illinois University,

He still wonders what might have been had he not become a pitcher. He might have been like Shohei Ohtani, in the lineup every day, on the mound every fifth day. It’s a notion that Langston, who follows Ohtani closely as an Angels broadcaster, does not rush to dispel.

“I’ll always wonder,” Stieb said, wistfully. “But the way things turned out, I don’t really have any regrets. I can’t say I would have hit as I advanced up through the minors.”

Pitching found Stieb, not the other way around. Injuries had put the Southern Illinois staff in crisis. Stieb agreed to help out of the bullpen. He was pitching in relief one day against Eastern Illinois. Two Toronto Blue Jays scouts were in attendance, checking out the shortstop from the other team. They liked what they saw from Stieb the pitcher.

Stieb was drafted by the Blue Jays in 1978 and was in the majors within a year.

Righetti followed a month later, a September 1979 callup by the Yankees.

Langston arrived in 1984 and went 17-10 for a Seattle Mariners team that finished 14 games under .500. He also led the league in strikeouts, the first of three times. In a rookie class that included Roger Clemens and Kirby Puckett, Langston finished second. His teammate and roommate Alvin Davis won it with 27 homers and 116 RBI. (Oh, the aforementioned seven Gold Gloves; those all belong to Langston.)

Righetti won Rookie of the Year in 1981, led the league in saves once, and would have made many more All-Star teams under today’s rules. (Back then, there were no honorary selections. If you weren’t available to play in the game because of injury or otherwise, then you weren’t selected as an All-Star.)

Stieb won an ERA title, led the league in complete games and shutouts and twice led the league in innings pitched. (Fiery Dave also led the league in hit batsmen five times.)

By the end, they all had pitched no-hitters. That’s a sentence Langston does dispute.

“They had no-hitters,” he said, referring to Stieb and Righetti. “Mine was combined. You can’t put me in there with them. Those two were legit.”

In 1990, in his first game with the Angels — against his old team, the Seattle Mariners — Langston pitched seven hitless innings. Because spring training had been reduced to three weeks as a result of a labor lockout,  Langston hadn’t gone more than four innings in a game. The decision to come out after seven innings was left to him.

“I had nothing left,” he said. “I couldn’t have gone another two innings.”

Righetti got his no-hitter on July 4, 1983, a Yankee doodle dandy on a 94-degree day in the Bronx against the hated Red Sox, no less. He struck out Wade Boggs to end it. Boggs struck out 36 times that year in 685 trips to the plate.

Stieb got his in 1990, finally. Four times he had gone into the ninth inning with a no-hitter. The fourth time was the charm.

Of the 13 All-Star Game appearances among the three of them, Stieb had seven. Langston four. Righetti’s two came back to back, 1986 and 1987. The latter was in Oakland, so close to home, and Righetti wanted all three of them to make it. Stieb, an All-Star in three of the four previous seasons, was the one who didn’t.

“I was coming off my worst season,” he said.

None of them remember pitching against the other in the majors, which makes sense in one case. Righetti became a reliever in 1984, the year Langston reached the majors.

Langston pitched 16 years, almost exclusively in the American League. Ten of those seasons overlapped with Stieb’s career, but never a day that either can recall.

There was a night, though. After a game in Seattle, Langston invited Stieb to his home.

“He was a guitar guy,” Langston said. “We played guitars.”

“He had a nice little studio, lots of guitars,” Stieb recalled.

Langston remembers a night out with Righetti in the Bay Area. Righetti remembers a night out with Stieb in college; they went to see Andre the Giant at the Cow Palace.

But the three of them together? Never happened.

It won’t happen tonight either. Langston spends his offseasons in Tennessee. Righetti has a previous commitment.

But it’s OK. The three boys who grew up here, grew up to dominate major league pitching in the 1980s, will be hanging together on the concourse walls at SAP Center for the rest of time.

“Anything that happens in your hometown is so special,” Langston said, who was enshrined in 2018. “That night was very, very special for me. I’m sure it will be for Dave too.”

EVENT IS SOLD OUT

No tickets remain for the induction of the greatest class in the Hall’s 26-year history. In addition to Stieb, Patrick Marleau, Chris Wondolowski and Lorrie Fair are being inducted. The selection committee waived its five-year waiting period for Wondolowski and Marleau following their retirement as players in 2021 and 2022, respectively, because of their deep roots in the area.

Bochy, who last week completed a remarkable feat by winning a World Series in his first year managing a Texas Rangers team that lost 94 games in 2022, went on KNBR-AM’s “Murph and Mac” radio show on Tuesday and revealed why he needed to retire after managing the San Francisco Giants for the last time in 2019.

He needed to rest, mentally and physically, he said.

“I’m still recovering from all the work I had done,” he said. “I’m a little bit like Frankenstein. Once I retired in San Francisco, I had back surgery and a couple hips and a knee replaced. That was the biggest thing I had to do to be able to come back.”

In San Francisco, Bochy won three World Series titles to go with 1,052 regular season wins and a .500 winning percentage over 13 years managing the Giants from 2007 through ‘19.

He told “Murph and Mac” that he wasn’t sure if he’d ever manage again.

“I didn’t know if I’d be able to come back, I didn’t,” he said. “I took three years off. I never called anybody. But just watching the game, you just have a deeper appreciation for the game and the things you missed.”

It wasn’t until he managed Team France in the World Baseball Classic last year that the 68-year-old said he finally realized he wanted to manage again.

“I got in that dugout and that’s when it hit me,” he said. “I said, ‘man, I miss this.’”

He never stopped watching baseball at home.

“I was watching all the Giants games,” he said. “As time went on, I started missing it more and more. You’d think it’d be the other way, you get used to it and think, ‘OK I’m good.’

“The first year I was fine, the second year it built up and the third year I really had a craving to get back in. And it couldn’t have worked out better when (Rangers general manager) Chris Young, who had pitched for me, gave me a call.”

Bochy inherited a Rangers team loaded with talent and an opening day payroll of $194 million. But the Rangers had underperformed the last two years, losing a combined 196 games.

By turning the Rangers around and winning his fourth World Series title, Bochy became just the sixth manager ever to win four.

Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel each have seven World Series wins as managers, Connie Mack has five and Walter Alston, Joe Torre and Bochy have four.

Bochy, whose 2,093 career wins rank No. 10 all-time, said he’s been overwhelmed by the love and support from folks with ties to the Giants.

“That’s a big part of my life there in San Francisco,” he said. “We had a place there. My son, he still works there. It just blows me away the support that I have from San Francisco because you’re always a little leery, you know?

“You make a change, and then they go, ‘well, wait a minute, we thought you retired, and now you’re going to another club.’ Or, ‘hey, you’re cheating on us,’ or something. You know what I mean? But that was not the case. A big piece of my life, a big piece of my heart is there in San Francisco, and those are memories I’ll never forget.”

Major League Baseball announced finalists for each league’s Cy Young Award, as well as MVP, manager of the year and rookie of the year. All three of the candidates for the National League’s top pitching award are in the West division: San Diego’s Blake Snell and Arizona’s Zac Gallen are the other finalists.

The winner will be announced Nov. 15.

Webb, a 26-year-old Rocklin native, led MLB with 216 innings pitched and recorded the first two complete-game performances of his career, including a 2-1 complete-game win over the Padres on Sept. 25 in his final start.

His strikeout-to-walk ratio (6.28) led the National League, demonstrating the control he showed to keep the Giants in the wild-card hunt before they eventually fell off the pace in September, leading to the ouster of manager Gabe Kapler. He was one of just two traditional starting pitchers at times for the Giants as they worked through injuries, as only he, Alex Cobb and Sean Manaea crossed the 100-inning mark, and Manaea only started 10 games.

Webb’s earned-run average of 3.25 this season ranked fifth in the NL (as did his 3.16 FIP). Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young, led the league at 2.25.

No Giants pitcher has won the Cy Young Award since Tim Lincecum went back-to-back in 2008 and 2009. The only winner in franchise history before that was Mike McCormick in 1967. San Francisco’s last major individual award was Buster Posey’s MVP season in 2012.

The GIants haven’t had a top-three finisher in the Cy Young since Lincecum won his second straight in 2009.
Madison Bumgarner was fourth in 2014 and 2016 (and sixth in 2015). Matt Cain was sixth in 2011-12, and Kevin Gausman and Rodon were sixth in 2021-22, respectively.

When the Giants brought Cobb on board before the 2022 season, it wasn’t hard to imagine the club option as a potential exit ramp on a deal with a then-34-year-old four years removed from his last 100-inning season. But Cobb has proven that he is firmly in the fast lane, making his rate a bargain, even with the news that he will miss at least the first month of next season recovering from hip surgery.

In 56 starts the past two seasons (only three fewer than the 59 he made over the course of his previous four-year, $57 million contract between the Orioles and Angels), Cobb has posted a 3.80 ERA and an even better 3.41 FIP (fielding independent pitching). His reliable presence was all the more important last season, when he and Logan Webb were the only Giants pitchers to make at least 20 starts or throw 150 innings.

Cobb’s banner 2023 included the first All-Star selection of his career and a close flirtation with history, coming one out shy of a no-hitter while throwing 131 pitches in September. But in many of those starts, especially in the second half, Cobb battled discomfort in his landing hip, an impingement, doctors told him.

He was in top form before its effects began to wear on him, taking a 2.91 ERA into the All-Star break.

Told initially the issue would resolve itself without surgical intervention, Cobb underwent an operation last week with a six-month recovery timetable. That places his return to pitching around the beginning of May, without accounting for the typical six-week build-up that he will miss during spring training.

In the meantime, while Zaidi has said the Giants aren’t looking to add starting pitching depth, they could be active at the top of the market.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Orix Buffaloes ace whom they confirmed on Sunday they will be posting, is an intriguing option — one the Giants are keen on, Zaidi confirmed with his trip to Japan last month to watch him pitch.

After Webb and Cobb, the Giants currently have Anthony DeSclafani, who will be back after season-ending ankle surgery, and Ross Stripling, who picked up his player option for 2024, as well as a trio of young starters — Kyle Harrison, Tristan Beck and Keaton Winn — who should figure into their rotation plans for next season.