Brian Cashman called him a “godsend.” Aaron Boone called him the league’s best pitcher who “might be the MVP, too.”
Officially, Cam Schlittler now can be called a Cy Young Award winner.
Schlittler ran away with the voting for the top arm in the American League and on Wednesday won his first and the Yankees’ eighth Cy Young Award.
The flame-throwing righty earned all 30 first-place votes, beating Toronto’s Dylan Cease (who finished second) and Cleveland’s Parker Messick (third).
Capping off a historic season, Schlittler joins Gerrit Cole (2023), Roger Clemens (2001), Ron Guidry (1978), Sparky Lyle (1977), Whitey Ford (1961) and Bob Turley (1958) on the franchise’s list of Cy Young winners.
He is joins Guidry and Cole as the Bombers’ unanimous winners.
In his first full major league season, Schlittler posted the third-lowest ERA in franchise history (1.95, which led the AL), allowed one or zero runs in a majors-best 21 starts and took down the second-most innings (193 ⅔) in the league.
A rotation that included the $324 million Cole, the $218 million Max Fried and $162 million Carlos Rodón was anchored by a 25-year-old former seventh-round pick.
Schlittler was plucked out of Red Sox country in 2022 as a lanky, Northeastern starter who lived in the low-90s and ascended into one of the game’s brightest talents who relies on three fastballs that can touch triple-digits.
“He bought into everything that we were selling from strength and conditioning to pitch profile and he just turned himself into a beast with his work ethic and desire to be great,” Cashman said Tuesday. “And obviously he added velocity that exceeded probably any of our expectations. So he’s been a godsend because obviously without him or [Ben] Rice to help offset all the big veteran guys that we’ve been counting on. … He’s pitched to the top of our rotation and he deserves to win the Cy Young.”
Since debuting on July 9, 2025, Schlittler has essentially been the best pitcher in baseball, pitching to the majors’ top ERA (2.23) while tying with Sandy Alcantara and Christopher Sánchez for the majors’ most starts (47) and posting the third-best strikeout rate (30.3).
In his first brief season, in which he was a revelation but human (2.96 ERA), Schlittler primarily used a four-seamer that he threw past opposing hitters.
In his more godly follow-up campaign, Schlittler developed a cutter, relied more on his sinker and had a curveball in his back pocket, which he used notably to shut down the Red Sox in Game 1 of the wild-card series.
It will be curious to learn what he has in mind for his encore.
— Additional reporting by Greg Joyce in Las Vegas
