Cam Schlittler was officially announced as a finalist for the American League Cy Young Award on Monday night as MLB Network revealed the finalists for all BBWAA end-of-year awards. Schlittler was the lone Yankee to finish in the top three for any of the honors.
The 25-year-old ace, who led the AL with a 1.95 ERA and 6.2 FanGraphs WAR, was named by the BBWAA alongside Dylan Cease of the Blue Jays and Parker Messick of the Guardians. The winner, along with the recipients of each league’s MVP, Rookie
of the Year, Manager of the Year, and the newly-created Reliever of the Year awards, will be announced next week on MLB Network. The Cy Young voting results in particular will be revealed on Wednesday, November 11th.
The NL Cy Young nominees are World Series champion Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers, Atlanta’s Chris Sale, and Phillies southpaw Cristopher Sánchez.
Seeing as 2026 was not a banner year for the Yankees’ position players, no Bombers were nominated for MVP. Presumptive winner and Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez, Rays star Junior Caminero, and the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. are up for the award on the AL side. There was some hope that Schlittler or slugger Ben Rice might have an outside shot at third, but no dice; they’ll instead eye a top-10 finish.
Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Cubs is likely to receive his first career MVP—Shohei Ohtani is nominated in the NL for the third straight year, while Brice Turang of the World Champion Brewers is also on the podium. The only year since 2021 that Ohtani hasn’t won an MVP is 2022, when Aaron Judge beat him out with 62 homers; this will almost surely be the second.
As for Rookie of the Year, New York was represented—albeit across town in Queens. Mets outfielder Carson Benge was nominated in the NL, along with JJ Wetherholt of the Cardinals and Sal Stewart of the Reds. The AL nominees are Messick, Tigers infielder Kevin McGonigle, and Red Sox starter Payton Tolle.
Unsprisingly, Aaron Boone was not given the nod as a Manager of the Year finalist, but two of his division rivals were. Kevin Cash, who led the Rays to the World Series, was nominated alongside interim-turned-full-time Red Sox skipper Chad Tracy and upstart White Sox manager Will Venable. Yankee icon Don Mattingly was nominated on the NL side for his interim work in Philadelphia. He is up for consideration alongside Braves first-year manager Walt Weiss and the Brewers’ Pat Murphy (who is eyeing a MoY three-peat).
The Reliever of the Year finalists are unsurprisingly all closers: Bryan Baker, Cade Smith, and Louis Varland in the AL; and Jhoan Duran, Trevor Megill, and Mason Miller in the NL. Note that this a brand-new honor that the BBWAA decided to start giving out, and it is fully separate from the Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman Reliever of the Year awards, which are given by MLB itself alongside the Hank Aaron Awards, the Edgar Martinez Awards, the Comeback Players of the Year, and the All-MLB Teams.
