When he left Northeastern, Cam Schlittler‘s fastball barely touched 88 mph. Four years later, he lifted the American League Cy Young Award trophy — unanimously.

In the voting announced on November 11, Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski (24) took the National League award and the New York Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (25) took the American League award, each receiving all 30 first-place votes. It is only the third time both leagues produced a unanimous winner in the same year, after Denny McLain and Bob Gibson in 1968 and Justin Verlander and Sandy Alcantara in 2022. By age, they are the youngest Cy Young duo since 1985, when a 20-year-old Dwight Gooden and a 21-year-old Bret Saberhagen won.

Velocity, built

Schlittler was a seventh-round pick in the 2022 draft. After he joined the Yankees, the club’s pitching department rebuilt his mechanics and his pitch mix from the ground up. The work was led by Sam Briend, who came to the Yankees after serving as director of pitching at Driveline, the data-driven training lab. As Schlittler filled out his 6-foot-6 frame, the velocity climbed with him.

The velocity built that way showed up in the numbers. His season: 33 starts, a 14-6 record, a league-best 1.95 ERA and 193⅔ innings. Among Yankees pitchers who qualified for the ERA title, only Spud Chandler (1.64 in 1943) and Ron Guidry (1.74 in 1978) ever finished lower.

On the winners’ conference call, Schlittler said the game is changing, and changing in the right direction — and that what made him happiest was making every start, all year, without getting hurt.

Velocity itself

Misiorowski’s starting point was not so different. In high school his fastball also sat in the upper 80s, and Brewers scouts projected he might one day pass 100 mph. He passed 105.

Of the 35 hardest pitches thrown in the majors this season, 28 came out of Misiorowski’s hand, between 104 and 105.5 mph. And it was not just a show. He went 16-5 with a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts, leading the majors in two of the seven major pitching categories. In Game 5 of the World Series, he was the winning pitcher in the game that clinched Milwaukee’s first title — the first pitcher since Sandy Koufax in 1963 to win a Series clincher after a regular season of 250-plus strikeouts and a sub-2.00 ERA. “It happened really quick,” Misiorowski said. “It’s been a crazy year and a half. But it’s been fun.”

From the veterans’ award to the young arms’ award

Not long ago, this award belonged to veterans: Robbie Ray at 30, Justin Verlander at 39, Gerrit Cole at 32, Chris Sale at 35 won it across the previous five seasons. Paul Skenes began to crack that pattern by winning at 23 last year. This year, both leagues went to pitchers in their mid-20s.

Both men debuted in the summer of 2025. In their first full seasons, both reached the top — unanimously. One is proof that velocity can be built. The other is velocity itself. The methods are opposites; the conclusion is the same. The pitchers’ era is getting younger again.

Source: USA TODAY (United States), Gabe Lacques, November 11, 2026 · AP (United States), November 11, 2026

Photo: Jeffrey Hyde, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons (taken in 2025)