Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers and Cam Schlittler of the New York Yankees were named Cy Young Award winners on Wednesday, each by a unanimous vote of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Misiorowski took the National League honour and Schlittler the American League honour after dominant seasons that were the first full major league campaigns for both pitchers. The pair made their major league debuts in the summer of 2025, and each won the award in his second season in the majors. The announcement came a week after Misiorowski helped Milwaukee win its first World Series title.
Misiorowski’s Cy Young Award season by the numbers
Misiorowski, 24, went 16-5 with a 1.80 ERA, 252 strikeouts and a .157 opponents’ batting average, leading the major leagues in all three categories. The only other pitchers since 1950 to lead the majors in ERA, strikeouts and opponents’ average were Sandy Koufax in 1965, J.R. Richard in 1979 and Mike Scott in 1986. His .157 average was the lowest since 1900 for a pitcher with at least 100 innings, and his 0.80 WHIP was the lowest in a full season for a pitcher with at least 150 innings since Pedro Martinez posted 0.73 for Boston in 2000. Those numbers made Misiorowski the clear Cy Young Award winner in the National League.
Misiorowski threw 1,115 pitches at 100 mph or more, the most since pitch tracking began in 2008, and his 105.5 mph fastball to the Chicago Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong on June 26 was the fastest pitch ever thrown by a starting pitcher in the tracking era. He went 2-0 with a 0.84 ERA in the World Series as Milwaukee beat the Tampa Bay Rays in five games, throwing 5 2/3 shutout innings in the Game 5 win that clinched the title. He is the fourth Brewer to win the Cy Young Award, after Rollie Fingers in 1981, Pete Vuckovich in 1982 and Corbin Burnes in 2021, and the first Brewer to win it by a unanimous vote.
Schlittler’s Cy Young Award win follows Cole
Schlittler, 25, went 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA that led the American League and ranked third in Yankees history, behind Spud Chandler’s 1.64 in 1943 and Ron Guidry’s 1.74 in 1978. He struck out 239 batters in 193 2/3 innings and posted a 0.919 WHIP. He is the seventh Yankee to win the Cy Young Award and the second in four years, after Gerrit Cole in 2023. Cole had been the first Yankee to win it since Roger Clemens in 2001, and Tarik Skubal of Detroit won the previous two American League awards.
Toronto’s Dylan Cease finished second in the Cy Young Award voting in the American League after going 11-6 with a 2.40 ERA, and Cleveland’s Parker Messick was third after going 12-9 with a 2.56 ERA and 193 strikeouts. In the National League, Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez was second after going 18-7 with a 2.91 ERA and 231 strikeouts, and Atlanta’s Chris Sale, the 2024 winner, was third at 14-9 with a 2.16 ERA. Voting took place before the postseason, and both winners received all 30 first-place votes in their leagues.
A rare pair of unanimous Cy Young Award winners
This was the third time both winners were unanimous picks, after Justin Verlander and Sandy Alcantara in 2022 and Denny McLain and Bob Gibson in 1968. Misiorowski is 24 and Schlittler is 25, making this the fourth time both winners were 25 or younger, according to Sportradar. The other such seasons were 1969, 1985 and 2009. Toronto’s Louis Varland won the inaugural American League Reliever of the Year award and San Diego’s Mason Miller won the National League version, while the Most Valuable Player awards were due to be announced on Thursday.
Both pitchers said the Cy Young Award had not been their main aim at the start of the season. Schlittler said his goal had been to stay healthy, be consistent and make all his starts, and he was glad to have lived up to the expectations he set in spring training. Misiorowski said it was exciting to look at the young pitchers winning awards, with Paul Skenes having won the National League award in 2025 in his second season, and he said the youth coming up in the major leagues would be fun to watch for years to come.