When speaking about a New York Yankees franchise with more than a century of storied history and 27 World Series championships, claiming that somebody might be having the greatest single pitching season the team have ever seen is quite the claim. Yet with September approaching, Cam Schlittler has put himself into that conversation.
After throwing 5.1 more scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox on Friday – a team he has frankly owned, to the tune of a 0.56 ERA and 0.90 WHIP in five career starts – Schlittler has now made 28 starts this season, compiling a 12-6 record, 2.09 ERA and 0.97 WHIP across 163.2 innings. He has allowed only 117 hits while striking out 201 batters, becoming only the fourth Yankees pitcher to reach 200 strikeouts in a season before turning 26. His ERA leads the American League, while he ranks second in innings pitched and WHIP and third in AL strikeouts.
Those numbers are among the best in the game, and Schlittler is well and truly in the 2026 American League Cy Young Award conversation. But they also compare favourably with almost anything a Yankees pitcher has produced – ever.
Schlittler’s Missed (Barrels)
If Ron Guidry’s 1978 campaign is the greatest pitching season in Yankees history, and the standard against which Schlittler should be measured, then it should be noted that Schlittler’s 2026 season is in that ballpark. Guidry pitched to a 25-3 record with a 1.74 ERA, 248 strikeouts and nine shutouts in a then-more-normal 273.2 innings, winning the American League Cy Young Award unanimously, while his 9.6 bWAR remains one of the highest totals by an AL pitcher of the divisional era.
Schlittler cannot match Guidry’s workload, and nobody in modern baseball can. Complete games and 270-inning seasons belong to a different era. What he can do, and is doing, is remain surprisingly close in the categories that translate between generations. His 2.09 ERA is only 0.35 higher than Guidry’s, while his strikeout rate is considerably greater: Schlittler has 201 in 163.2 innings, already more than four-fifths of Guidry’s total in barely three-fifths of the innings.
Elsewhere, while Lefty Gomez won the pitching Triple Crown in 1934 (going 26-5 with a 2.33 ERA and 158 strikeouts), Schlittler already has 43 more strikeouts and a lower ERA. Whitey Ford’s Cy Young-winning 1961 season produced a 25-4 record and 3.21 ERA. Catfish Hunter went 23-14 with a 2.58 ERA in 1975. All three threw vastly more innings than Schlittler will be permitted to accumulate. But on a prorated basis, he compares extremely well with each.
There is also Gerrit Cole’s 2023 season to consider, in which Schlittler’s current teammate and forebear went 15-4 with a 2.63 ERA, 165 ERA+ and 222 strikeouts in 209 innings while winning the AL Cy Young Award. Schlittler, though, needs only 21 more strikeouts to equal Cole’s total, and has an ERA more than half a run lower.
Among relievers, one name stands above all, and Mariano Rivera’s 1999 season is more difficult to compare because of his role. Rivera recorded 45 saves with a 1.83 ERA and .176 opponents’ batting average before adding 12.1 scoreless postseason innings. The oh-God-please-no factor is far harder to quantify, yet was totally present, in a way likely not yet felt in Schlittler. Yet even here, Schlittler’s .197 opponent’s average and sub-1.00 WHIP belong in similar territory for preventing baserunners, despite having to navigate opposing line-ups several times per appearance.
Still Improving, Somehow
What makes Schlittler’s season particularly excellent is that he is still getting better. Over his last seven starts, he has a 1.77 ERA with 56 strikeouts in 40.2 innings, and has now allowed just one earned run across his last three outings, with Friday’s performance lowered his season ERA from 2.16 to 2.09. Schlittler’s unusually heavily reliance on three different fastballs – four-seamer, two-seamer and cutter – has more recently incorporated a curveball capable of approaching 90mph, giving hitters another problem to solve alongside a four-seamer that averaged 99mph against Boston on Friday.
The Cy Young race is not over, but the door on the competition is closing. In MLB.com’s most recent voter poll, Schlittler received 25 first-place votes, comfortably the most of any American League pitcher. And with that award all but locked up, attention can turn to the place in history of this historic seaspn.
Guidry’s 1978 remains the target, and probably remains untouchable when workload, results and historical context are considered together. But Schlittler still has roughly a month in which to strengthen his argument. Another five or six starts at his present level could leave him around 190 innings, comfortably beyond 220 strikeouts and with an ERA close to 2.00. If he gets there, you might be able to claim that Cam Schlittler has had the best pitching season in Yankees history.
Cam Schlittler may be Having the Best Season in Yankees History