Dylan Cease has pushed his way into the AL Cy Young conversation, and the path is there for the Blue Jays right-hander to keep climbing if his recent surge holds.
That’s the big takeaway as July arrives: Toronto may still be fighting to get back into a postseason spot, but Cease has given the club one of the season’s loudest individual performances. His June was strong enough to get ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle to flag him as a pitcher worth watching in the Cy Young race.
“Cease has been one of the AL's most dominant starters, leading the league in strikeouts (128) while fanning a career-best 13.8 batters per nine innings,” Doolittle writes. "...
Things appear to be coming together for Cease in his first season with the Blue Jays, and he seems poised for a big second half. He'll be in the AL Cy Young mix."
Cease sits sixth on ESPN’s AL Cy Young tracker at the midpoint, trailing Louis Varland, Drew Rasmussen, Parker Messick, Davis Martin, and Cam Schlittler. Schlittler, the young Yankees right-hander, is still the favorite.
The numbers show why. Schlittler owns a 2.08 ERA and 3.5 bWAR, while Cease is at a 3.02 ERA and 2.5 bWAR. That gap keeps Schlittler out front for now, even after a rough stretch recently.
Still, Cease has momentum on his side. If he keeps missing bats at the same ridiculous rate and Schlittler keeps slipping, the race can tighten quickly in the second half of 2026.
The formula for Cease is pretty clear: keep the strikeouts coming, and start piling up more innings. He has 83.1 innings in 15 starts so far, while Schlittler has logged 104 innings across 18 starts. That workload gap is real, and Cease will need to close it if he wants to catch the current leader.
But the door is open. If Cease stays hot and Schlittler continues to falter, Cease has a legitimate shot at the AL Cy Young Award - as long as no other AL pitcher finishes the season on a similar tear.
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