Last night Cade Cavalli twirled yet another gem. As the season has gone on, Cavalli is reaching another level. That is so encouraging to see given the fact we have had plenty of pitchers regress as the season goes along in the past. With how Cavalli has been pitching lately, he has put himself into down-ballot Cy Young consideration.
Obviously he is not going to win the award, Jacob Misiorowski and Cristopher Sanchez are fighting for that honor. However, with how he is performing, he should be in the top 10.
Even former Nats play-by-play announcer Bob Carpenter remarked that Cavalli should be in consideration.
For the season, Cavalli has put together an impressive resume. In 142.2 innings, Cavalli has an 11-5 record with a 3.22 ERA and 162 strikeouts. Those strikeout numbers are highly impressive in particular. He is tied for 5th in the NL in strikeouts and tied for 9th in all of baseball. Cavalli’s swing and miss stuff is undeniable, and that is such an important part of modern pitching.
In terms of fWAR, Cavalli istied for 8th in the NL among qualified starters. These numbers, along with a very strong ERA suggest at least a top 10 finish in Cy Young voting. For a guy in his first full MLB season, that is wildly impressive. I had high expectations for Cavalli entering the season, but he is shattering even those.
He is not going to win the Cy Young, but over his last 10 starts, Cavalli has pitched like a Cy Young. In that time he has a 2.12 ERA with 73 strikeouts to just 13 walks in 59.1 innings. The most impressive number for me is that he has 8 straight quality starts. That shows an ability to go deep into games, not just dominate for shorter spurts.
For Cavalli to go from a Cy Young outsider to someone who can truly challenge for the award next year, he will need to keep that up. In the first three months of the season, Cavalli was mostly effective, but he tended to only go about 5 innings. He also had these starts where the pitch count got out of control, and he had to leave in the third or fourth inning. Cavalli has not had one of those since the Pirates start in the beginning of July.
Lately, he has been an absolute rock at the top of the Nats rotation and dare I say an ace. That ace crown is one that many fans do not give out easily, and understandably so. The likes of Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg have worn that crown in the past. Cavalli might not be there yet, but it is time to have a conversation. In this 10 start stretch, he has undeniably been an ace.
For a guy whose career looked to be on the ropes just 18 months ago, this has been such a terrific story. It goes to show that you should never bet against elite stuff and an elite mentality. He was struggling to get on the mound at that time, and now the numbers firmly point to a top 10 Cy Young finish.
Just to put his resume in one place, Cavalli is 5th in the NL in strikeouts, 9th in ERA, tied for 8th in WAR, 8th in FIP and 9th in innings. That points to a top 10 Cy Young finish, a truly remarkable accomplishment for the 28 year old.
For a minute, I also want to dive into how Cavalli has had so much success. He has a fastball that averages around 97 MPH, but his best pitches are his breaking balls. Cavalli has exceptional power and break on his curveball and sweeper. Both pitches get whiffs at over a 30% clip and grade out as elite on stuff models.
What makes those pitches so unique is the velocity he gets on them. Both the curveball and the sweeper average 86 MPH, but have been closer to 87 the past couple months. That power, combined with how much movement he can get on the pitches makes him so devastating. He has also started featuring a cutter, which helps bridge the gap between his breaking balls and his fastball, making everything even better.
The Nats pitching coaches have not had a ton of success stories this season, but Cavalli is certainly one of them. Adding the sweeper has helped him out a ton against right handed hitters, who he really struggled against last year. In 2025, righties hit .381 against him but that number has dropped to .222 this season. The midseason addition of the cutter has also proven to be a wise move.
It makes me want to see what this staff can do with more talented arms, especially a guy like Connelly Early. Cavalli has excelled this season, and is getting better by the start. That is something all Nats fans love to see. We have not had a Nats pitcher on a Cy Young ballot in a while, but that should change this year with the rise of Cade Cavalli.
