Amid all the anger, frustration and pitchforks around the swept-out-of-the-playoffs Yankees and their fanbase, there is the bright, shining and flame-throwing light that is Cam Schlittler.
There are no rings, but there probably will be hardware for the Yankees ace, whose dominance, from the start of the season through the end, likely will culminate with the American League Cy Young Award on Wednesday.
Schlittler, the favorite, is a finalist alongside Toronto’s Dylan Cease and Cleveland’s Parker Messick in a competition that Schlittler’s manager essentially declared over in September.
“He’s the best pitcher in the league,” Aaron Boone said then of Schlittler, who had emerged from obscurity to assert himself as one of the premier arms in the game.
Toward the end of the season — about when Cease began to slow down in September and then was placed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation — Schlittler’s competition transitioned from his peers to his baseball ancestors. Cease (2.40 ERA with 239 strikeouts in 169 innings) was excellent in his first season with the Blue Jays, and Messick (2.56 ERA in 32 starts and 186 ¹/₃ innings) was extraordinary while finishing as the runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year.
But neither hung with the best pitcher on a Yankees staff that included Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodón.
This season, Schlittler’s 1.95 ERA was the best in the American League — only trailing Jacob Misiorowski’s 1.80 mark in the majors — and the third lowest in franchise history, behind Spud Chandler’s 1.64 in 1943 and Ron Guidry’s 1.74 in 1978. He allowed one run or fewer in 21 starts, which led the majors and was a franchise record. His 239 strikeouts were tied with Jack Chesbro (1904) for fourth most by a Yankees pitcher ever, trailing Cole (257 in 2022 and 243 in 2021) and Guidry (248 in 1978). His 1.16 ERA in 17 road starts was the fifth lowest such mark in a season since 1913, behind Bob Gibson’s 0.81 ERA in 1968, Walter Johnson’s 1.06 ERA in 1913 and 1.13 ERA in 1918 and Greg Maddux’s 1.12 ERA in 1995.
The bigger the stakes, the better Schlittler has been. In Game 1 of the wild-card series against a team from his hometown and one he owns, the righty struck out 10 across 6 ¹/₃ scoreless innings in a win over the Red Sox. In his follow-up, he was let down by the defense behind him and allowed four runs — just two of which were earned — in 4 ¹/₃ innings in a loss to the Rays.
In four career postseason starts, he has pitched to a 1.44 ERA in 25 innings. For a Yankees team that has not figured out the cause of its consistent October disappointments, Schlittler has not been the problem.
“The personal stuff, whatever happens, that’s great,’’ Schlittler said after the Yankees were knocked out. “But at the end of the day, I’d rather win a championship.”
Nearly as remarkable as Schlittler’s first full season in the majors was his journey to the majors. A Walpole, Mass., kid who stayed home and played at Northeastern, where he did not strike out a batter per inning as a lanky, 6-foot-6 redshirt sophomore, and became overall pick No. 200 in the 2022 draft.
In his first minor league season, he threw a low-90s fastball, pitched to a 4.11 ERA in 14 games and later would look back at that pitcher and say he “sucked.”
Schlittler began to put on pounds and saw his velocity begin to spike. He became an interesting prospect in 2024, when he topped out at Double-A. He took off in 2025, when he forced his way to a debut in July, unveiled an assortment of triple-digit heat that did not need an offspeed pitch mixed in (although he since has developed a curveball) and simply has been the best pitcher in baseball since.
Beginning with his July 9, 2025, debut, the 25-year-old leads the majors in ERA (2.23), is tied for first in starts (47), ranks fourth in opponents’ batting average (.194) and sixth in WHIP (1.00). For a pitcher whose first 47 appearances were all starts, his ERA is the second best ever since 1913, trailing just Paul Skenes’ 1.95.
“You have a plan for every player that they do this, this and that, they can get better — Cam’s shown the ability to do that,” Boone said of Schlittler in October. “Whether it’s taking information, whether it’s coming out of the draft and getting physically stronger. All the things that have been put on his plate, he’s handled with relative ease and not been overwhelmed by any of it.
“You saw kind of a rapid, steady improvement through the minor leagues to what he is now, and he’s turned into an ace in the sport. That’s a credit to a lot of people, most of all Cam, though, for having that aptitude.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
