Cam Schlittler won the American League Cy Young Award on Wednesday, beating Toronto ace Dylan Cease in the BBWAA vote. The New York Yankees right-hander took the award on November 11, 2026, with Cease second and Cleveland’s Parker Messick third, in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America that was completed before the postseason, Sportsnet reported. MLB marked the announcement on Instagram minutes after the winner was named on MLB Network.
Cam Schlittler Cy Young Season, By The Numbers
The case was built on run prevention at a level the American League rarely sees. Schlittler finished 2026 with a 1.95 ERA, the lowest among qualified AL pitchers and the most fWAR (6.2) of any pitcher in the league. He struck out 239 batters against 49 walks in 193 and two thirds innings, posted a 0.92 WHIP, held hitters to a .182 batting average and won 14 games. His ERA was the third lowest in Yankees franchise history since the statistic became official in 1913, behind only Spud Chandler’s 1.64 in 1943 and Ron Guidry’s 1.74 in 1978, and his 239 strikeouts tied for the fourth most ever by a Yankees pitcher in one season.
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Schlittler, 25, did it in his first full major league season, emerging as the Yankees’ ace while Gerrit Cole worked his way back from Tommy John surgery. A seventh-round pick out of Northeastern in 2022 who debuted on July 9, 2025, he had already announced himself the previous October with eight scoreless innings and 12 strikeouts against Boston in a Wild Card elimination game, the first start of its kind in postseason history. This season he set a career high with 13 strikeouts against Cincinnati on June 19 and broke the franchise record for starts allowing one run or fewer. His manager called the race early. “He’s the best pitcher in the league,” Aaron Boone said in September, and Schlittler himself kept the award talk at arm’s length: “Pushing that to the side and focusing on these last three weeks. If I go out there and do my job and put this team in position to win, that opportunity might be there.”
Dylan Cease Finishes Second In First Blue Jays Season
Cease’s runner-up finish is still the headline for Toronto. In his first season with the Blue Jays, the 30-year-old went 11-6 with a 2.40 ERA and a career-high 239 strikeouts in 169 innings over 29 starts, striking out 12.7 batters per nine innings with a 2.56 FIP and 5.5 bWAR. He carried multiple no-hit bids deep into games, made his first All-Star team, and was picked by Blue Jays manager John Schneider, who ran the American League squad, to start the Midsummer Classic. Schlittler, who was also selected and chose not to pitch in the game, saluted the choice at the time: “Congrats to Dylan. He’s been great this year. He deserves that.”
The two aces posted the same strikeout total, and the vote turned on the gaps around it: Schlittler worked 24 and two thirds more innings with 29 fewer walks, and he finished the season at full strength while Cease laboured down the stretch, his fastball velocity diminished before a shoulder injury put him on the injured list in late September. It is Cease’s second runner-up finish, after he placed second with the Chicago White Sox in 2022, and the best finish by a Blue Jay since Robbie Ray won the award in 2021. He joins Ray, Hyun Jin Ryu, Alek Manoah and Kevin Gausman as Toronto finalists since 2020, and he did it in year one of the seven-year, $210-million contract he signed with the Blue Jays last off-season, which makes the season a down payment rather than a one-off.
Seventh Yankee To Win, And A Rookie In Third
Schlittler is the seventh Yankees pitcher to win a Cy Young, joining Bob Turley (1958), Whitey Ford (1961), Sparky Lyle (1977), Ron Guidry (1978), Roger Clemens (2001) and Gerrit Cole (2023), and the first since Cole, the teammate whose advice he leaned on all season. “Gerrit has been really helpful,” Schlittler said this year. “I’ve had some really good conversations with him.” Messick’s third place caps a rookie season of 186 and a third innings and a 2.56 ERA for Cleveland, a top-three finish that also earns the Guardians a Prospect Promotion Incentive draft pick.
2026 Cy Young Award Winners: Unanimous In Both Leagues
The night made history beyond the American League. Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski took the National League award unanimously as well, and the Baseball Writers’ Association of America confirmed this is only the third time both leagues’ Cy Young winners have been unanimous in the same year, after Denny McLain and Bob Gibson in 1968 and Justin Verlander and Sandy Alcantara in 2022. Misiorowski, 24, went 16-5 with a majors-best 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts in 174 and two thirds innings for the World Series champion Brewers, finishing ahead of Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez and Atlanta’s Chris Sale. He is the fourth Brewer to win the award, after Rollie Fingers in 1981, Pete Vuckovich in 1982 and Corbin Burnes in 2021, and one of only three pitchers since 2000 to win the Cy Young and the World Series in the same year, after Randy Johnson in 2001 and Verlander in 2022. Like Schlittler, he was drafted in 2022, debuted in the summer of 2025 and won the award in his first full season.
For Toronto, the result confirms what the season already showed: the Blue Jays bought a genuine ace last winter, and in a normal year his season wins this award. The 2026 race was not a normal year. Awards week closes on Thursday, November 12, when the BBWAA announces the MVPs, and Cease heads into 2027 as the centre of Toronto’s rotation with six seasons left on his deal and a Cy Young case that has now twice come up one spot short.
