The NL Cy Young race stopped being a race the moment the September MLB.com expert panel handed Jacob Misiorowski every first-place vote. Cristopher Sánchez still owns the bulk numbers. That gap is the entire argument.
Misiorowski sits at 15-5 with a 1.89 ERA, 243 strikeouts, and a 219 ERA+ that leads the majors. He has thrown more than 1,000 pitches at 100-plus mph. Sánchez counters with 187.1 to 193.2 innings, a 2.79-to-2.93 ERA, and a 7.6 bWAR that tops every pitcher in baseball. Early in the year Sánchez ran a 50⅔ scoreless streak, the longest by a lefty in the live-ball era. Volume and durability still live on his ledger. Dominance and the Brewers’ division clinch live on Misiorowski’s.
Misiorowski’s Game-Score Machine Ends the Debate
I keep coming back to the consistency metric that actually separates them. Using a modified Bill James game score, Misiorowski is 24-4 against opposing starters. That Fibonacci win score of 40.57 is the best in the majors and echoes the splash seasons Dwight Gooden and Roger Clemens posted in the mid-80s. Sánchez sits at 18-13. Chris Sale, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Jesús Luzardo all trail that same measure. AXE still floats Sánchez near the top for stretches because innings and FIP reward the workhorse. Betting markets and the final expert poll do not. Misiorowski’s sub-2.00 ERA, .155 opponent average, and the simple fact that he is the ace of the NL’s best regular-season club make the ballot easier than the advanced indexes want to admit. Sánchez’s late fade, including nine runs across two September starts, sealed the ranking. The voters will take the wow factor and the team result.
Paul Skenes won it unanimously last November. This year the favorite’s down season just cleared the runway for the next phenom. Misiorowski is that phenom.
Boone Floated MVP. Judge Drew the Line.
Over in the American League the Cy Young is already settled. Cam Schlittler is unanimous in the same MLB.com poll after a 14-6, 1.95 ERA season with 184.2 innings, 228 strikeouts, and a 0.90 WHIP. He has allowed one run or fewer in 21 starts, a Yankees franchise mark. Dylan Cease can chase strikeouts; he cannot catch the ERA or the WHIP. Schlittler owns the award.
The MVP chatter is louder and thinner. After six scoreless innings against the Mets, Aaron Boone said the quiet part: “I think valuable is a good word. He might be the MVP, too.” Aaron Judge immediately drew the boundary that matters: “He’s definitely pitching like an MVP, but they’ve got a Cy Young Award for a reason: best pitcher in the game. He’s got my vote, definitely, for the Cy Young.” Schlittler himself shrugged it off with “I don’t know anything about that.” Yordan Alvarez still leads AL hitters in win probability added and championship probability added, sits on a 146.9 AXE, and keeps Houston in the West race even after a second-half zone-percentage drop. The last pitcher MVP was Clayton Kershaw in 2014. The last Yankees pitcher to win it was Spud Chandler in 1943. Those gaps exist for a reason. Schlittler’s value is real and enormous. It is still a Cy Young case first.
I am telling you the ballots will split cleanly. Misiorowski takes the NL hardware because the eye test, the game-score machine, and the Brewers’ standing all point the same direction. Sánchez’s innings and bWAR make him the clear runner-up and the better long-term bet for another run next year. Schlittler walks away with the AL Cy Young and zero MVP hardware. Alvarez’s championship leverage is the number that still decides the bigger prize. Two weeks of regular season remain, but the advanced indexes, the expert polls, and the market probabilities have already finished the argument.
