We close a bit of a circle with this post, as I was fortunate to write Cam Schlittler’s season preview post all the way back in March. This was how good(ish) FanGraphs thought he would be:
Of course Cam ended the year with a 1.95 ERA, 2.56 FIP, 31 percent strikeout rate, 6.4 percent walk rate, and 6.2 fWAR. It is hard to think in recent seasons of a player so dramatically outplaying their Depth Chart projections, so much so that said player went from a projected third-ish pitcher in a rotation to the likely
Cy Young winner. That was Cam Schlittler’s 2026, and its why he’s not just the Yankees’ MVP, but he’ll likely get his share of AL MVP votes overall.
This is the ninth-most-valuable season, by fWAR, for the Yankees since 1920, along with the third-lowest ERA and fifth-lowest FIP. Perhaps more to the point is the per-inning effectiveness of Cam; nobody throws 270 innings anymore:
When you adjust for the fact that Cam has to play under the constraints of baseball in 2026, you can make a good argument he just put up the second-best pitching season in the history of the organization. Gator in ‘78 has always been the gold standard for pitching in pinstripes, but he has some company atop the best single-seasons we’ve ever seen from a Yankee hurler.
We need to take a moment and acknowledge Ben Rice, who for so many stretches of the season, including the disastrous ALDS loss to the Rays, was the only batter who seemed interested in doing damage. In a year with so little Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, those 41 home runs and a 149 wRC+ proved that Rice isn’t just a Major League regular but a new foundation for the franchise moving forward. He is comfortably the runner up in this race, the Robin to Cam’s Batman as the Massachusetts boys virtually dragged the Yankees themselves into the AL playoff picture.
Ben was of particular import because of how weak the lineup was otherwise, whereas Cam was the first among an excellent group, a starting rotation that was the best in baseball and a bullpen unit that was the second best. Still, having such a good season that you rocket yourself past name brands like Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodón gets you the hardware.
So what comes next for the Yankees’ MVP?
There will be the formal stuff, the MLB Awards will be announced and he will likely be consecrated as the deserved Cy Young winner. There was some rumbling down the stretch that Schlittler should get serious MVP consideration, with both Junior Caminero and Yordan Alvarez having holes in their cases, and Bobby Witt Jr. toiling away in personal excellence and seeming anonymity in Kansas City. I think Cam will fall just a bit short in that race, but the fact we can discuss it at all speaks to the quality of his season.
Headed into 2027 Schlittler is the unquestioned ace of the staff, a staff that should once again be a strength of the ball club — his youth also makes me perhaps irrationally optimistic he can “ramp up” in a shortened Spring Training faster than some of the veterans in the rotation. I worry that we’re going to develop a little bit of Aaron Judge-ness with him — we saw such a peak, it is quite unlikely he ever has a sub-2.00 ERA season again. A 2.50 ERA would be a notable step back from what Cam did this year, and yet would have him be fifth in all of baseball this year, he was that good.
The biggest question mark we have is how Cam can adjust with a full offseason. The defining feature of his 2026 was how he was able to adjust from start to start, after that strange four-homer start against Detroit to close June he allowed just six long balls over the remaining 15 outings of the regular season. He walked five Boston batters in August, then seven total in his last five starts. He had those same Red Sox geared up for his fastball-heavy approach to open the Wild Card Series, and then dropped curveballs on Boston’s lineup and watched them flail around.
These kind of adjustments, the education of an ace on the fly, are what makes me so grateful to have had this season from Cam, and so excited to see where he goes. With his combination of age, stuff, approach and attitude, the sky’s the limit for the AL’s best pitcher, and the Yankees’ MVP.
