We're now less than three weeks from the end of the 2026 Major League Baseball season and some of the individual awards races (hello, National League MVP) appear to be over. One that might not be over is the American League Cy Young, though a clear frontrunner has emerged as the likely runner-up falters. Yankees right-hander Cam Schlittler debuted a little over one year ago and now the path looks clear for him to take home the hardware in just his second big-league season.
Blue Jays righty Dylan Cease still has a shot, though. It is very clearly a two-man race. To boot, here are the odds for the top four, via DraftKings: Before we dive into the two main contenders, we should point out that this race is a good illustration of how the paradigm has shifted on pitching awards.
If we went back to, say, 1975, he'd be the leader in this race. Instead, he's an afterthought. I've been predicting all season that, at some point, the Yankees were going to throw Schlittler on the injured list with some mysterious malady to avoid overworking him.
After all, between the majors, minors and playoffs last season, he worked 164 innings, his most ever in a single calendar year. He's up to 30 starts and 178 ⅔ innings. The Yankees surely have designs on making the World Series and it seems it's all systems go with Schlittler.
With that heavy workload, he's been excellent. He's 13-6 with a 2.01 ERA (209 ERA+) to lead the AL. He has a sparkling 0.92 WHIP and has struck out 220 against only 42 walks.
The rate stats are incredible and he's racking up the counting stats. This is a very well-rounded case. Sure enough, he leads AL pitchers with 6.7 WAR.
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