Yankees' Schlittler and Brewers' Misiorowski are unanimous Cy Young winners, a feat matched only twice before

The Baseball Writers' Association of America announced this week that New York Yankees right-hander Cam Schlittler and Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski were unanimous winners of the 2026 American League and National League Cy Young Awards, each pitcher appearing atop all 30 ballots cast by voters. It is only the third time in major league history that both leagues produced a unanimous Cy Young winner in the same season, following 1968 and 2022, according to the BBWAA's official vote breakdown.

The two announcements, made during a broadcast on MLB Network, closed out a season in which both pitchers posted sub-2.00 earned run averages — the lowest mark in each league among qualified starters.

Two unanimous ballots, a rare pairing

Schlittler received all 30 first-place votes for 210 points under the BBWAA's 7-4-3-2-1 scoring system, finishing comfortably ahead of Toronto's Dylan Cease (110 points, 22 second-place votes), Cleveland's Parker Messick (84 points) and Tampa Bay's Drew Rasmussen (72 points), according to the league's certified results page. It is the 14th unanimous Cy Young vote in American League history and the third for a Yankees pitcher, joining Ron Guidry in 1978 and Gerrit Cole in 2023.

Misiorowski also swept all 30 ballots for 210 points, with Philadelphia's Cristopher Sánchez (99 points, 17 second-place votes) edging Atlanta's Chris Sale (98 points) for runner-up, and Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto fourth with 63 points, per the National League vote tally. Sánchez finished second for the second consecutive year. Misiorowski's unanimous selection was the 17th in NL history and the second straight year an NL starter swept the ballot, after Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes in 2025.

The numbers behind the hardware

Schlittler, who made his major league debut in July 2025, went 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA over 33 starts and 193 2/3 innings, striking out 239 batters while holding opponents to a league-low .244 on-base percentage. He led all AL pitchers in wins above replacement, earned his first All-Star selection, and the Yankees went 21-12 in games he started.

Misiorowski's season was, if anything, more overpowering. The Brewers right-hander went 16-5 with a 1.80 ERA — the lowest among all qualified major league pitchers — across 30 starts and 174 2/3 innings, leading the sport with 252 strikeouts. Opponents hit just .157/.224/.246 against him in 665 plate appearances. Milwaukee went 22-8 in his regular-season starts, and he then won all four of his postseason starts as the Brewers captured the World Series.

A championship season, and an award streak extended

Misiorowski's Cy Young is the second in Brewers history after Corbin Burnes won in 2021, and it arrived weeks after Milwaukee's first World Series title. Brewers manager Pat Murphy, who guided that championship run, had marveled at his ace's consistency even on nights when his pure velocity wasn't at its peak.

For Schlittler, the vote validated a prediction Yankees manager Aaron Boone made publicly months before the ballots were counted, as recounted in MLB.com's finalist announcement in early November.

"He's going to win the Cy Young." — Aaron Boone, Yankees manager, on Cam Schlittler

That same MLB.com report noted Schlittler has carried the lowest ERA of any major league starter dating back to his July 2025 debut.

Runners-up, a crowded awards week, and what comes next

This week's ceremony also included the BBWAA's Relief Pitcher of the Year awards, given to Louis Varland in the American League and Mason Miller in the National League, rounding out a stretch of hardware that followed the Rookie of the Year announcements for Detroit's Kevin McGonigle and Cincinnati's Sal Stewart. It was Cease's second runner-up finish in a Cy Young vote, after also finishing second with the Chicago White Sox in 2022, while Messick had also been a finalist for the AL Rookie of the Year award that went to McGonigle. Sánchez's second straight runner-up finish in the National League leaves him still searching for his first Cy Young.

The BBWAA's award slate concludes this week with the announcement of the AL and NL Most Valuable Player, due to air on MLB Network. Houston's Yordan Alvarez enters as the favorite in the American League over Tampa Bay's Junior Caminero and Kansas City's Bobby Witt Jr., according to an Associated Press survey of the finalists, while the Chicago Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong — who hit .280 with 45 home runs and 41 stolen bases — is considered the front-runner in the National League ahead of Milwaukee's Brice Turang and Los Angeles' Shohei Ohtani. Both leagues' full vote breakdowns are published on the American League results page and the National League results page.