Jacob Misiorowski Wins NL Cy Young Award

Opposing hitters managed a putrid .157/.224/.246 slash line against Misiorowski across 665 plate appearances. He went 16-5 and the Brew Crew were 22-8 overall in his starts. While it’s irrelevant to awards consideration, they also won all four times he took the ball in the playoffs. Misiorowski tossed 19 frames of four-run ball in October, capping the season with 5 2/3 scoreless in the Game 5 clincher in the World Series.

As is the case with Schlittler, Misiorowski was a midseason call-up in 2025 who wins the Cy Young in his first full season. The Brewers have him under club control for another five seasons. He’ll be in line for his second straight Opening Day start in 2027 and leads a rotation that also includes Logan Henderson, Robert Gasser, Kyle Harrison and hopefully a resurgent Quinn Priester.

Although Misiorowski won the Cy Young within his first three seasons, the award will not net the Brewers a draft pick. That only applies to top prospects who were on their teams’ rosters for 172+ days during their rookie seasons. Milwaukee didn’t call him up until June last year.

Misiorowski is the fourth player in franchise history to win the Cy Young. Corbin Burnes won the NL award in 2021. Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich went back to back as American League winners in 1981-82 before realignment.

Sánchez finishes as the runner-up for a second straight season. He lost to another unanimous winner, Paul Skenes, in 2025. Sánchez garnered 17 second-place votes after leading NL pitchers in Baseball Reference WAR (8.1). He was second in the NL behind Sandy Alcantara with 207 innings. Sánchez finished sixth in the league in ERA (2.91) and trailed only Misiorowski with 231 strikeouts.

The race for second place couldn’t have been much closer, as Sánchez edged out Sale by one point. Sale appeared in second on 11 ballots and was top three for all but three voters (while Sánchez placed fourth on fifth on seventh ballots). The 10-time All-Star and 2024 honoree lands in the top five in Cy Young balloting for the eighth time in his career. He fired 162 2/3 innings of 2.16 ERA ball with exactly 200 strikeouts. Sale had better rate statistics than Sánchez but not nearly as many innings, leaving voters with a difficult decision.

The three finalists were the only pitchers who appeared on all 30 ballots. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was in the top five for all but one voter and received the two second place votes that didn’t go to Sale or Sánchez. He finished in fourth place, while Jesús Luzardo completed the top five. NL Reliever of the Year Mason Miller and Arizona’s Eduardo Rodriguez received some fifth-place support.