What Is the Cy Young Award? How the Vote Works and What It Takes to Win

The Cy Young Award goes to the best pitcher in each league, once a year. Thirty baseball writers per league pick it, each one ranking five pitchers, and the pitcher with the most points wins. On Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026, the Baseball Writers' Association of America gave it to Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers in the National League and Cam Schlittler of the Yankees in the American League. Both got all 30 first-place votes (BBWAA, BBWAA).

That's only the third year both winners were unanimous. The other two were 1968 and 2022.

What is the Cy Young Award? It's Major League Baseball's award for the best pitcher in the American League and the best pitcher in the National League. Members of the BBWAA vote on it, two writers from each MLB city, so 30 per league. Each writer ranks five pitchers, and the points go 7-4-3-2-1. Ballots are turned in before the postseason starts, so only the regular season counts (BBWAA voting FAQ).

01 Who Votes for the Cy Young

It's writers only. Players, managers and fans don't get a say. Each MLB city's BBWAA chapter recommends two writers, and the BBWAA's national secretary-treasurer approves them. Writers in AL cities vote on the AL award and writers in NL cities vote on the NL award. With 15 teams in each league, that's 30 ballots per award (BBWAA).

The BBWAA posts every individual ballot on its site, with each writer's name and outlet. You can go look at who Ken Rosenthal had fifth on his 2026 AL ballot if you want to (it was Sonny Gray).

The timing trips people up. Writers submit their ballots before the playoffs begin. Misiorowski threw 19 innings in four playoff starts, including the Brewers' World Series-clinching Game 5, per ESPN, and none of that went into his Cy Young. The award is a regular-season award, full stop. If you want the refresher on that part of the calendar, here's how the MLB playoffs work.

02 How the Points Work

Source: BBWAA voting FAQ

The most a pitcher can get is 210 points, which is 30 first-place votes times 7. Misiorowski and Schlittler both got exactly 210.

The big jump is from second to first. A first-place vote is worth 3 more points than a second, and every step below that is worth 1. So first-place votes usually decide it. Writers can't split a spot between two pitchers.

It hasn't always worked this way. Before 1970, each writer just named one pitcher. That changed after the 1969 AL vote ended in a tie, and Denny McLain and Mike Cuellar shared the award. From 1970 through 2009, writers ranked three pitchers on a 5-3-1 scale. The five-name ballot started with the 2010 season (BBWAA, BBWAA, MLB.com).

The MVP ballot is twice as long, 10 names deep with 14 points for first. I broke that one down in how MLB MVP voting works.

03 The 2026 Cy Young Results

Here's how the top of both votes finished, straight from the BBWAA's results pages.

Sources: BBWAA NL results, BBWAA AL results

The race behind the winners was more interesting than the race for first. Sánchez beat Sale for second by one point, 99 to 98. Sánchez had 17 second-place votes and Sale had 11, but Sale had more thirds. It's also the second straight year Sánchez finished second. The BBWAA says he's the fifth pitcher to finish second in back-to-back years.

And the stat lines, per Baseball-Reference:

Sources: Baseball-Reference Misiorowski, Baseball-Reference Schlittler, Baseball-Reference 2026 team pitching

Misiorowski led the majors in ERA, WHIP (0.80) and strikeouts. His 232 ERA+ is the best for a full season since Pedro Martínez put up a 291 in 2000 (Baseball-Reference), and his four-seam fastball averaged 100.6 mph (Baseball Savant). If WHIP is a new one for you, here's what WHIP means in baseball. He also started the game that clinched the Brewers' first World Series title, which, again, the voters didn't count.

A Yankees Note

My dad and I are both Yankees fans, so I'm going to point this out. Schlittler is the seventh Yankee to win the Cy Young, and the first since Gerrit Cole in 2023. He's also the third Yankee to win it unanimously, after Ron Guidry in 1978 and Cole in 2023 (BBWAA). ESPN noted that only Schlittler, Guidry and Whitey Ford were homegrown. And he was a seventh-round pick out of Northeastern in 2022.

Source: BBWAA

04 Who Was Cy Young?

The award is named after Denton True "Cy" Young, who pitched from 1890 to 1911 for the Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians and Boston Braves. He won 511 games. The Hall of Fame says that's almost 100 more than any other pitcher. He also still holds the records for innings pitched (7,356), games started (815) and complete games (749). He went into the Hall of Fame in 1937 and died on Nov. 4, 1955 (National Baseball Hall of Fame).

The award started the next year, in 1956. From 1956 through 1966 there was only one Cy Young for all of baseball. Since 1967 there's been one for each league (MLB.com). For the first three years, 1956 to 1958, nobody was allowed to win it twice (Baseball-Reference).

My dad Steve put Young's 511 wins first on his list of the unbreakable records in sports back in 2024, and I don't see anyone getting close. Misiorowski just had one of the best pitching seasons in years and won 16 games. At that pace, he'd need about 32 seasons to get to 511.

05 What It Takes to Win Now

This is the part I found most interesting. I took every Cy Young winner from 1956 through 2026, with their stat lines from Baseball-Reference, and averaged the starting pitchers by decade. I left out the nine relievers who won and the 2020 season, which was only 60 games.

My math from Baseball-Reference. The 1960s count includes 1969, when two AL pitchers shared it.

A few things stand out.

Wins don't decide it anymore. Every starter who won the Cy Young in the 1960s won at least 20 games. No Cy Young winner has done it since Justin Verlander went 21-6 in 2019. Paul Skenes won the NL award in 2025 with a 10-10 record, and Jacob deGrom won in 2018 at 10-9. Voters stopped treating the win column as the main measure a long time ago.

Innings dropped by more than 100. Winners in the 1970s averaged about 301 innings. From 2021 through 2026, it's 190. Schlittler threw 193 2/3. The lightest workload for any starting winner in the 1970s was Gaylord Perry's 260 2/3 in 1978, about 67 more innings.

Strikeouts held up even as innings fell. The 2021-26 winners averaged 228 strikeouts in 190 innings. The 1970s winners averaged 211 in 301.

The ERA column is the one that didn't move much. A Cy Young winner has always needed an ERA somewhere in the 2s or lower. Misiorowski and Schlittler both came in under 2.

06 Who Has Won the Most Cy Young Awards

Source: Baseball-Reference

Clemens won his seven with four teams: the Red Sox (1986, 1987, 1991), Blue Jays (1997, 1998), Yankees (2001) and Astros (2004). Maddux won four straight from 1992 to 1995, and Johnson did the same from 1999 to 2002. Tarik Skubal won back-to-back AL awards in 2024 and 2025 before Schlittler won it in 2026.

07 Every Unanimous Cy Young Winner

With the 2026 picks, there have been 31 unanimous Cy Young wins: 17 in the NL and 14 in the AL. The BBWAA counts Koufax's wins from the single-award era under the NL, since he pitched for the Dodgers.

Sources: BBWAA NL, BBWAA AL

The years both leagues went unanimous: 1968 (McLain and Gibson), 2022 (Verlander and Alcántara) and 2026. Unanimous has gotten a lot more common lately, too. Eight of the 31 have come since 2020.

08 Can a Reliever Win the Cy Young?

Yes, and nine have. But it hasn't happened since Éric Gagné saved 55 games for the Dodgers in 2003.

Source: Baseball-Reference

Mariano Rivera, the all-time saves leader with 652, never won one. I wrote about the cutter that made Rivera who he was.

That's part of why the BBWAA added its own Reliever of the Year award in 2026, the first new award it has created since 1983. It uses the same 7-4-3-2-1 ballot. Padres closer Mason Miller won the NL award unanimously, and Blue Jays closer Louis Varland won the AL award with 16 of 30 first-place votes (BBWAA, BBWAA). Miller also got 4 points in the NL Cy Young vote, so relievers can still show up on that ballot. I'd be surprised if one wins it again any time soon, now that they have their own trophy.

Don't mix this up with the Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera Reliever of the Year awards. Those are voted on by a panel of former relievers, and they're separate from the BBWAA's. In 2026, Miller won the Hoffman award and the Rays' Bryan Baker won the Rivera award, per ESPN.

09 Cy Young Award FAQ

Who votes for the Cy Young Award?

Members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Two writers from each MLB city vote, so 30 per league. AL-city writers vote on the AL award and NL-city writers vote on the NL award.

How are Cy Young points calculated?

Each writer ranks five pitchers. First place is worth 7 points, then 4, 3, 2 and 1. The pitcher with the most points wins. With 30 voters, a unanimous winner gets 210 points.

Do the playoffs count for the Cy Young?

No. Ballots are submitted before the postseason starts, so only regular-season performance counts.

Who won the Cy Young Award in 2026?

Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers won in the NL and Cam Schlittler of the New York Yankees won in the AL. Both were unanimous. The awards were announced on Nov. 11, 2026.

Who has won the most Cy Young Awards?

Roger Clemens, with seven. Randy Johnson is second with five, and Steve Carlton and Greg Maddux have four each.

How many unanimous Cy Young winners have there been?

There have been 31 unanimous wins through 2026, 17 in the National League and 14 in the American League. Sandy Koufax was the first, in 1963.

Can a relief pitcher win the Cy Young?

Yes. Nine relievers have won it, most recently Éric Gagné in 2003. Starting in 2026, the BBWAA also gives a separate Reliever of the Year award in each league.

Who was Cy Young?

A Hall of Fame pitcher who played from 1890 to 1911 and won 511 games, the most in MLB history. He died in 1955, and the award named after him started in 1956.