Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski rolls to unanimous selection in NL Cy Young race

Jacob Misiorowski didn't just win the National League Cy Young Award on Wednesday night. He swept all 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America, becoming the first pitcher in Milwaukee franchise history to earn a unanimous selection. The 24-year-old right-hander finished 16-5 with a major-league-best 1.80 ERA across 30 starts, striking out 252 batters in just 174 2/3 innings. His 37.9 percent strikeout rate led all of baseball, as did his 0.80 WHIP, .157 opponent batting average, and 12.98 strikeouts per nine innings. He also paced the majors in FIP at 2.17 and posted an ERA+ of 232, the 13th-highest mark by a qualifier in MLB history.

What makes the season feel like a rupture rather than a mere peak is the fastball. Misiorowski averaged 100.6 mph on his four-seamer, and he hit 105.5 mph in June — the fastest pitch recorded in the Statcast era. Yet he still managed a complete-game shutout under 100 pitches, a so-called Maddux, proving he isn't purely a max-effort reliever masquerading as a starter. The Brewers went 22-8 in his starts, and he added a 1.89 ERA in four postseason outings as Milwaukee captured its first World Series title. Voters submitted ballots before October, but the playoff dominance only reinforced the regular-season case.

The unanimous vote masks a quiet debate that has followed Misiorowski all year: whether a starter who averages under six innings per outing — 5.8, to be exact — deserves the sport's highest pitching honor over workhorses like Cristopher Sánchez and Chris Sale. Only three qualified pitchers topped 200 innings in 2026, and the league-wide shift toward high-leverage bullpen usage means the 200-inning benchmark may never return. Misiorowski's 6.4 WAR ranked third in the NL behind Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo, yet the writers valued peak dominance over accumulated volume. The precedent matters: Corbin Burnes won in 2021 with 167 innings, and Rollie Fingers took both the Cy Young and MVP in the strike-shortened 1981 season with just 78 innings. Innings thresholds move with the game.

Misiorowski now enters 2027 as the early favorite to repeat, a feat last accomplished in the NL by Jacob deGrom in 2018-19. The Yankees' Cam Schlittler also won unanimously in the American League, marking the first time since 1905 that both leagues produced unanimous Cy Young winners in the same year. For Milwaukee, the award is the fourth in franchise history — joining Fingers, Pete Vuckovich, and Burnes — but the first that felt inevitable from Opening Day. The only remaining question is whether the arm that throws 105 mph can survive the workload required to chase a second trophy.