Jacob Misiorowski and Cam Schlittler Both Won Unanimous Cy Youngs: What It Means 19 Days From a Lockout
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America handed out the Cy Young Awards on Wednesday night and did not split a single vote.
Jacob Misiorowski took all 30 first-place ballots in the National League. Cam Schlittler took all 30 in the American League. Both finished with 210 points. Both are in their first full major league season. Both made less than $810,000 doing it.
What Misiorowski Did
The Brewers right-hander is 24. Milwaukee drafted him in the second round in 2022 out of Crowder College, a junior college in Neosho, Missouri, and gave him a $2.35 million bonus.
In 2026 he went 16-5 with a 1.80 ERA over 30 starts and 174 2/3 innings, with 252 strikeouts and a 0.80 WHIP. He led all major league starters in ERA, strikeouts, WHIP, strikeouts per nine and opponent batting average, which was .157. His 232 ERA+ is the best in a full season since Pedro Martinez posted a 291 in 2000.
His fastball averaged 100.6 mph. He threw more than 1,000 pitches at 100 or better.
Then he started Game 5 of the World Series on Oct. 28 and threw five-plus scoreless innings in a 4-1 win over Tampa Bay that gave Milwaukee the first championship in franchise history.
Pat Murphy, who won his third straight National League Manager of the Year on Tuesday, was not interested in declaring him finished. “He’s not a finished product, by any stretch,” Murphy said. “It’s a joy to watch it.”
Christian Yelich put it another way. “He’s come a long way since last year when he was a kid with a lot of ability and a lot of natural talent.”
What Schlittler Did
The Yankees right-hander is 25, a seventh-round pick in 2022 out of Northeastern who signed for $205,000.
He went 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA over 33 starts and 193 2/3 innings, with 239 strikeouts, 49 walks and a 0.919 WHIP. He led the American League in ERA and in ERA+, where his 215 is a Yankees franchise record. Ron Guidry’s 208 in 1978 was the previous mark. He allowed one run or fewer in 21 of his 33 starts.
His 1.95 ERA is the third-lowest by a qualified starter in Yankees history, behind Spud Chandler in 1943 and Guidry in 1978. He is the seventh Yankee to win the award and the first since Gerrit Cole in 2023.
“Cam had as dominant a season as a starting pitcher can have from start to finish,” Aaron Boone said in a statement. “He’s shown an astonishing amount of growth since we drafted him, and his success is no accident.”
What It Means 19 Days From a Lockout
Here is the number that should follow these two around all winter. Misiorowski made $788,300 this season. Schlittler made $801,000. Combined, the two best pitchers in baseball were paid $1,589,300 to go 30-11 with 491 strikeouts. Neither had an ERA above 1.95.
Neither can reach free agency until 2032. Misiorowski has one more pre-arbitration year. Schlittler is not arbitration eligible until 2029.
The collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1, and owners are reportedly pushing for a salary cap and a floor. The Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond reported this week that there is essentially no chance of a deal by then and that the league would lock players out immediately. Diamond also reported that MLB is preparing for the possibility the players’ association responds with a disclaimer of interest, dissolving itself as a union to open the door to antitrust litigation. The 2021-22 lockout ran 99 days. This one is expected to be worse.
Whatever the owners’ case for cost control turns out to be, it is hard to argue in the same month that the sport’s two most dominant pitchers were paid a combined $1.59 million between them, and that a team with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball won the World Series behind one of them.
The system already holds down the pay of the best pitchers in the game. A cap would mostly tell everybody else to get in line.
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.
