MILWAUKEE - In barely 17 months in the big leagues, Jacob Misiorowski has gone from flamethrower to finished product in the eyes of the voters.
On Wednesday, the Brewers’ 6-foot-7 right-hander was named the unanimous National League Cy Young Award winner, becoming the 17th NL pitcher to take the honor by a unanimous vote from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He followed the Pirates’ Paul Skenes, who did it last year.
Misiorowski didn’t leave much room for debate. He paced all NL starters - and all Major League starters - in ERA at 1.80, strikeouts with 252, walks plus hits per inning pitched at 0.80, strikeouts per nine innings at 12.98 and opponents’ average at .157.
That last number made him the toughest starting pitcher to hit in any full season on record. He also led the Majors in fielding independent pitching at 2.17, adjusted ERA at 232 and Statcast’s expected metrics across the board.
And then there was the velocity. Misiorowski reached 105.5 mph, the hardest any starter has thrown since pitch tracking began in 1988. Maybe ever.
Brewers captain Christian Yelich summed up the transformation last month: “He’s come a long way,” Brewers captain Christian Yelich said last month. “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.
Anybody could see [from] looking at the radar gun what he can do. I think he’s come a long way in learning himself as a pitcher, and he’s still learning, I think, in a lot of ways.
“But he’s matured a bit. He’s gotten to know himself a lot.
He’s gotten confident. And he continues to get better, which is kind of crazy from the stuff he’s done.”
At 24, Misiorowski has already joined a short list. He’s the seventh pitcher to win a Cy Young in either league in his second season, alongside the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (2026, only 30 minutes or so ahead of Misiorowski), Skenes (2025), the Giants’ Tim Lincecum (2008), the Royals’ Bret Saberhagen (1985), the Mets’ Dwight Gooden (1985) and the Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela (1981).
Valenzuela was technically a rookie, but he had a taste of the majors the year before. No pitcher has won a Cy Young in his true first season.
He also became the fourth Brewers pitcher to win the award, joining 2021 NL winner Corbin Burnes, 1982 AL winner Pete Vuckovich and 1981 AL winner Rollie Fingers, who also won the AL MVP that season.
The season itself gave voters plenty to chew on, even if the ballots were due before the first pitch of the postseason. Misiorowski’s year had already been packed with milestones by then.
He opened the season against the White Sox and set a Brewers record for an Opening Day start with 11 strikeouts, part of a day when Milwaukee pitchers piled up 20 strikeouts. In May, he went 5-0 with a 0.23 ERA and came within one pitch of an immaculate inning against Aaron Judge and the Yankees.
On June 13, he nearly authored a perfect game, finishing one Kyle Schwarber single short in a 27-batter, 15-strikeout gem. He made his second All-Star team in as many big-league seasons in July.
Then came Aug. 15, when he beat the Dodgers on the day the Brewers clinched MLB’s best record for good, and Sept. 15, when he beat the Pirates as Milwaukee wrapped up the NL Central for the fourth straight year.
By season’s end, the challenge was no longer whether Misiorowski could dominate. It was how high the bar could still go.
“It’s the way the young man has become stronger, more certain of himself,” Murphy said. “It’s a joy to watch it.
He’s not a finished product, by any stretch. But he’s really jumped a lot of hurdles.”
Yelich put it another way.
“That’s Major League Baseball,” Yelich said. “You’ve got to always continue to try to better yourself and make progress, no matter how much success or lack thereof that you’ve had. You always have to improve, and he’s done a great job of doing that.”
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