Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski and the New York Yankees' Cam Schlittler were unanimous Cy Young Award winners Wednesday night after delivering dominant performances in their first full seasons in the major leagues.
Misiorowski won the National League award after helping the Brewers win their first World Series title while setting a new standard for velocity by a starting pitcher. Schlittler was the AL winner, becoming the second Yankees pitcher in four years to receive the award.
The right-handers made their respective MLB debuts in the summer of 2025.
The Baseball Writers Association of America, which votes on the awards, said this is the third time the Cy Young winners in both leagues were unanimous. The other years were 2022, when Houston’s Justin Verlander won in the AL and Miami’s Sandy Alcantara in the NL, and 1968, when Detroit's Denny McLain won in the AL and St. Louis’ Bob Gibson in the NL.
Toronto’s Louis Varland won the AL reliever of the year award, while San Diego’s Mason Miller was a unanimous selection for the NL version. This marks the first year that the BBWAA voted on a reliever of the year.
Misiorowski becomes the fourth Brewer to win a Cy Young Award. The others were Rollie Fingers (1981), Pete Vuckovich (1982) and Corbin Burnes (2021). Fingers also won the MVP award in 1981, when the Brewers still played in the American League.
The 24-year-old right-hander posted a 1.80 ERA, struck out 252 batters and limited hitters to a .157 batting average to lead the major leagues in all three categories. The only other pitchers since 1950 to lead the majors in ERA, strikeouts and opponents’ batting average were Sandy Koufax in 1965, J.R. Richard in 1979 and Mike Scott in 1986.
That .157 batting average was the lowest since 1900 for any AL or NL pitcher with 100 or more innings. Misiorowski also owned an 0.80 WHIP (walks and hits allowed per innings pitched) that represented the lowest in a full regular season for pitchers with at least 150 innings since Pedro Martinez had an 0.73 for Boston in 2000.
Misiorowski went 16-5 during the regular season while throwing 1,115 pitches of 100 mph or more for the highest total since tracking started in 2008, shattering the prior mark of 673 by Jordan Hicks in 2018.
He followed that up by going 2-0 with an 0.84 ERA during Milwaukee’s 4-1 World Series triumph over the Tampa Bay Rays. Misiorowski threw 5 2/3 shutout innings during Milwaukee’s 4-1 Game 5 win that clinched the Brewers’ first title in franchise history.
Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sánchez finished second and Atlanta’s Chris Sale was third in the NL Cy Young Award voting. Sánchez was 18-7 with a 2.91 ERA and 231 strikeouts in 207 innings. Sale, who won the Cy Young Award in 2024, went 14-9 with a 2.16 ERA and 200 strikeouts in 162 2/3 innings.
Schlittler won the AL Cy Young Award three years after the Yankees' Gerrit Cole received it. Tarik Skubal won the last two AL Cy Young Awards while pitching for Detroit. Cole had been the first Yankee to win the award since Roger Clemens in 2001.
“Cam had as dominant a season as a starting pitcher can have from start to finish,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said in a statement. "He’s shown an astonishing amount of growth since we drafted him, and his success is no accident. Cam has a tireless appetite for hard work and refinement that has allowed his talents to truly flourish. This Cy Young is richly deserved. Cam was the most dominant pitcher in our league and continues to grow into a foundational player for this franchise.”
Schlittler, 25, went 14-6 with an AL-leading 1.95 ERA that ranked third in Yankees’ history, behind Spud Chandler (1.64 in 1943) and Ron Guidry (1.74 in 1978). Schlittler’s 239 strikeouts tied for second in the AL with Toronto’s Dylan Cease, behind the 248 from Cleveland’s Gavin Williams.
Cease finished secon in the AL voting after going 11-6 with a 2.40 ERA. Cleveland’s Parker Messick finished third after going 12-9 with a 2.56 ERA and 193 strikeouts in 186 1/3 innings.
This was the second runner-up finish for Cease, who also placed second while pitching for the Chicago White Sox in 2022.
Varland won the reliever of the year award after going 5-6 with a 1.27 ERA, 35 saves and 97 strikeouts in 78 innings. Cleveland's Cade Smith finished second in the voting, and Tampa Bay's Bryan Baker was third.
Miller was 5-2 with a 1.67 ERA, 38 saves and 129 strikeouts in 70 innings for San Diego. Philadelphia’s Jhoan Duran finished second in the NL voting and Milwaukee’s Trevor Megill was third.
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski celebrates the end of the fourth inning of Game 5 of baseball's World Series, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla., between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
FILE - New York Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler looks on during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox in Chicago, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has issued a warning to Democrats over their planned probes into the Trump administration, going as far as claiming that such investigations — a standard oversight function of Congress — may amount to “blatant criminality.”
White House counsel Will Scharf issued the warning in a letter dated Monday to Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Garcia most likely would chair the powerful panel in the new Democratic-controlled Congress that is seated in January. Garcia warned Trump officials to “lawyer up” as his party was on the way to stunning victories in last week's midterm election.
In response, Scharf wrote that “threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service, or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into blatant criminality." The letter’s existence was first reported by Punchbowl News.
It's just the latest shot across the bow as the White House prepares to square off against newly empowered Democrats in the House and Senate next year, a showdown with major implications for congressional authority and the balance of power between the branches of government.
Outside the Capitol on Wednesday, Garcia told reporters that “Donald Trump is clearly hiding something” and that Democrats “are not going to be threatened or intimidated.”
“The truth is that he needs to understand that Congress is a coequal branch of government,” Garcia said.
He doubled down on his “lawyer up” post after the election, saying the White House was “thin-skinned” and couldn't “take any sort of heat.”
“If you have abused the American public, you should lawyer up," Garcia said. “If you're a corporate CEO and you're ripping off the American people, you should lawyer up.”
Democrats are preparing a vast oversight agenda to look at how Trump and his family have become wealthier since he returned to office. The Republican president and his White House have long denied any wrongdoing.
Garcia also wants to look at the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Other targets include Trump’s White House ballroom and other construction projects, as well as the Trump family’s role in mineral deals and Trump’s crypto dealings with special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Kentucky Republican James Comer, the current chair of the Oversight Committee who conducted a wide-ranging investigation of former President Joe Biden and his family, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he had not yet read the letter from the White House, but stressed that the panel is "very independent.”
“Regardless of who is in the White House, there's always going to be a strong desire for the Oversight Committee to be a check and balance on the executive branch, regardless of the political scenario," Comer said.
He said he thought Garcia's “lawyer up” comments were in “bad taste” but Democrats "won the election and it's going to be his committee. So if he gets out of line, I would assume that his members will try to rein him in.”
Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a CNN interview that aired Sunday that “there could be” a crime to investigate if rhetoric from Democrats turned threatening. He appeared to strike a more conciliatory tone during an appearance in Missouri this week, saying “Congress has oversight authority. It always has, it always will. The Department of Justice, the federal government, works with Congress to address questions they have — whether it’s through subpoenas or letters — so we’re not going to stop working with Congress.”
“Nothing I’ve said this weekend, or in the past, should suggest otherwise,” he added.
Still, Justice Department officials elsewhere were pushing back. Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Texas, wrote to Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday, telling him to preserve all records relevant to his investigations.
Blumenthal is poised to chair a powerful Senate investigative committee in January. Reitz called Blumenthal’s efforts an “intent to deprive citizens of their core constitutional rights,” pointing to his October letter to people who donated to the new White House ballroom.
In response, Blumenthal said he “will not be intimidated.”
“The Trump administration is so afraid of transparency and oversight that they are weaponizing the Department of Justice to baselessly target Congress in direct violation of the Constitution," he said in a statement.
Outgoing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Trump critic, said he hopes Democrats don't squander their new powers on “stupid things.”
“I hope they have real hearings about real things, not another Russia-gate,” he said, referring to a previous congressional inquiry into ties between Trump's first presidential campaign in 2016 and Russia. Trump repeatedly denounced that investigation as a “hoax.”
“I think there is some real corruption there around the fringes,” Massie said about Trump and some of those around the president. Massie lost his primary election to a Trump-backed GOP challenger.
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., who is expected to be the next House Ethics Committee chairman, said he would not back down from any investigations because of warnings from the White House.
“If they're trying to intimidate, at least for me, it’s not going to get me,” said DeSaulnier, who was a Republican before he switched to the Democratic Party in 2000. “I don’t work for a mafia, a mob organization.”
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker and AP video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.
FILE - Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington on Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., speaks outside of the Capitol about articles of impeachment he introduced against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
The U.S. Capitol is photographed Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
New members of the 120th Congress gather for the first day of new member orientation at the Capitol, Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
Attorney General Todd Blanche stand in the door of Air Force One was Marine One lands with President Donald Trump aboard, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Friday, Oct. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen))
President Donald Trump, followed by Dana White, UFC president and CEO, arrives to speak in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
