The American League Cy Young race looked like a two-man fight for most of 2026, and now it feels like Cam Schlittler has seized control.
The Yankees right-hander turned in another statement outing against the New York Mets, carving through six shutout innings with eight strikeouts while allowing just one hit. That performance pushed his league-leading ERA down to 1.95 and made the argument even harder to ignore: Schlittler has the award in his hands with September winding down.
That won’t make him any more popular in Toronto. Schlittler has never exactly played the role of diplomat, and he’s the kind of pitcher who can get under people’s skin without trying very hard. But the numbers are the numbers, and they point straight toward him.
There’s a real case that Schlittler is putting together one of the best pitching seasons in Yankees history. He’s allowed one earned run or fewer in 23 of his 31 starts, and he leads the AL in WHIP at 0.904 and innings pitched at 184.2. His 6.0 fWAR is tied with Milwaukee Brewers phenom Jacob Misiorowski for the most among all pitchers.
He’s also become the face of a fastball-heavy style that’s taken over the sport over the last two years. Schlittler technically mixes five pitches, but 89% of his offerings are a cutter, four-seam fastball, or sinker. When the four-seam and sinker are sitting around 98 mph, that formula can do a lot of damage.
And yet Dylan Cease has made his own emphatic push.
The Blue Jays ace hit a career-high 236 strikeouts after fanning nine against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday, even while dealing with reduced fastball velocity and ongoing command issues for a second straight start. His last two outings also marked the first time in his eight-year MLB career that he’s gone back-to-back starts with an average fastball velocity below 95 mph.
Still, the deeper numbers remain outrageous. Cease leads the AL with a 2.48 FIP, his 12.77 K/9 trails only Misiorowski, and his 35.3% strikeout rate sits in the 99th percentile among qualified pitchers.
That’s what makes this such a clean debate. Cease may have been the more overpowering arm, but Schlittler has done the one thing a pitcher is paid to do better than anyone else in the league: keep runs off the board.
If the award were based only on strikeouts, the conversation might look different. But it isn’t.
Both pitchers have been excellent in 2026. Cease has been tremendous. Schlittler has just been better in the category that matters most, and doing it with a sub-2.00 ERA over this many innings should be enough to close the case.
If this is the first battle between the two AL East rivals for the Cy Young, it sure doesn’t feel like the last.
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