Not only was this year’s Cy Young voting a referendum on wins, it was part of the ongoing evolution of how starting pitchers are evaluated. Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays took the 2018 A.L. Cy Young Award, putting up the next-lowest E.R.A. in the majors after deGrom, at 1.89. He had the wins (a 21-5 record) but not the innings (180⅔ innings).

Snell’s innings total was the lowest for Cy Young Award-winning starting pitcher in a full season — partly because he missed two weeks in July with due to shoulder fatigue. The low number was likely a big reason Snell narrowly edged out Houston’s Justin Verlander: 169 to 154 in overall points and 17 to 13 in first-place votes. Verlander, who won the award in 2011, became the fourth pitcher to finish second in the balloting three times.

“It’s turning more into the quality of the work than what did you accomplish,” Snell said.

Snell, 25, did not record as many innings or strikeouts as the other A.L. finalists, Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians and Verlander, but he was the hardest starting pitcher to hit this season: Opponents posted a major league-worst .178 batting average against him.

Since the league adopted the designated hitter rule in 1973, only four qualified A.L. pitchers have posted an E.R.A. below 2.00: Ron Guidry (1978), Roger Clemens (1990), Pedro Martinez (2000), and Snell. Snell went 9-3 with a 1.94 E.R.A. over nearly 79 innings against playoff teams.

On a team that regularly employed the strategy of “bullpenning” — eschewing traditional roles for starting and relief pitchers to take advantage of matchups — Snell was the lone Rays’ pitcher to remain as a starter from beginning to end, which he said made the award that much sweeter. Others shifted roles, sustained bigger injuries or were traded away, but Snell logged by far the most innings and starts on his team.