Cam Schlittler Is the Best Pitcher in the American League. Nobody Is Talking About Him.
Everybody wants to talk about Tarik Skubal trade rumors. Everybody wants to talk about Paul Skenes. Everybody wants to talk about Jacob Misiorowski’s 103 mph fastball. Meanwhile, the American League ERA leader is doing his thing quietly in the Bronx.
Cam Schlittler enters his final start before the All-Star break with a 2.01 ERA that leads the American League. He is second in WHIP (0.93), second in opponents’ batting average (.201), second in strikeouts (131), second in innings pitched (112.0), and tied for second in wins (9). His resume is essentially identical to whoever the Cy Young favorite is on any given day.
Yet the national conversation barely mentions him. Part of that is because Schlittler is a second-year pitcher without the prospect pedigree of a Skenes or the physical anomaly of a Misiorowski. He is a 6-foot-6 right-hander with a good fastball, a plus-plus slider, and a changeup that has developed into a legitimate weapon this year. He is not throwing 103. He is not the son of anybody famous. He just gets outs.
The Yankees paid attention to him early. Schlittler was a seventh-round pick in 2022. He worked his way through the minors slowly, made his big-league debut in 2024, and then absolutely exploded this season. His command has been the biggest jump. He is walking just 2.1 batters per nine innings while striking out over 10 per nine.
Aaron Boone has been managing Schlittler with a light touch. The Yankees are giving him full rest between starts. They are not overusing him in high-leverage innings. They understand that his ceiling as a Cy Young contender depends on him staying healthy and building up postseason viable innings.
The Yankees rotation as a whole has been the surprise story of the American League. Gerrit Cole is back from Tommy John surgery and pitching like a top-five starter. Luis Gil has taken another step forward. Marcus Stroman has been rejuvenated. And Schlittler leads the entire staff, which is a genuinely wild sentence to write.
New York is 52-39 and in first place in the AL East by 2.5 games. The lineup has been streaky. Aaron Judge is having a big year but not a historic year. Juan Soto is having a great year but not a peak Soto year. The reason the Yankees are winning games is the pitching, and Schlittler is the point of the spear.
The Cy Young voting will get interesting. Tarik Skubal has fallen off with his elbow injury. Corbin Burnes is having a solid year but not dominant. Framber Valdez has been strong but not elite. That leaves Schlittler as the clear front-runner heading into the All-Star break, and voters tend to reward season-long dominance more than late-summer surges.
Schlittler was named an All-Star, which he absolutely deserved. He should get significant time on the mound in Philadelphia. That national exposure will finally start putting a face and a story to the name for casual fans who have not been paying attention to Yankees games.
The Yankees need Schlittler to keep pitching like this if they want to hold off the Blue Jays and the Orioles in the AL East. His start-by-start production is the difference between finishing first and finishing third in what has become the toughest division in baseball. He has been perfect through 18 starts. Nine more like this in the second half and he wins the Cy Young going away.
Watch him. He is the best story the Yankees have this year, and he is the story nobody outside of New York is telling.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
