Blue Jays Dylan Cease Emerging as Way Too Early AL Award Winner
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It is definitely much too early in the season to be talking about end-of-year accolades, but with the way Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Dylan Cease is performing this year, it is really hard not to mention a Cy Young.
Right now, Cease isn't just outperforming pitchers in the American League, but the National League as well, putting himself in conversations as the best pitcher in baseball right now after his outing on Wednesday, where he threw seven innings and struck out nine while only allowing a single run.
This is his first season in his seven-year deal with the Jays, and he is proving to be the best acquisition the team could have made this offseason regarding the starting rotation.
Cease Amongst Other Top AL Pitchers
When thinking of the American League and the Cy Young in recent years, the first name that comes to mind is Tarik Skubal, who has taken home the honors for the last two seasons, but there could be a new name announced in 2026.
Amongst pitchers in this league who have made nine starts, Cease is plastered at the top of the stat sheet as he leads the league in strikeouts, and is only second in the majors, trailing only one pitcher from the NL as the only two players in the majors with at least 70 on the season.
On top of Cease's 75 K's on the year (AL high), he has a 1.18 WHIP, while holding opponents to a .214 batting average as his ERA is at 2.41.
Dylan Cease loves this exact pitch in this exact spot to a lefty.
— Keegan Matheson (@KeeganMatheson) May 13, 2026
Spotting 98 there is foolish. No one's hitting that. #BlueJays pic.twitter.com/F7vIcfzEW7
Thankfully, Cease's start wasn't wasted in his latest outing as the Jays took down the Tampa Bay Rays in an extra-inning showdown to ensure the masterful seven-inning start turned into a W for the Blue Jays.
After the win against the Rays, Cease logged his third consecutive start with at least seven innings pitched. In those three starts, he has 26 strikeouts, but only four earned runs. This was the arm that the Jays were begging for last season, and they finally have it.
In 2026, the fewest strikeouts he has recorded were against the Boston Red Sox last month, as Cease only logged five retired batters, a start that others would seemingly dream of.
With injuries continually stacking up, Cease has been an arm that the team can count on, and he is making his case that this could be the best year of his career. With his ability to retire batters while keeping runs off the board, Cease could dethrone Skubal as the Cy Young victor.
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Maddy Dickens resides in Loveland, Colorado. She grew up with two older brothers, where their lives revolved around sports. She earned a master's degree in business management from Tarleton State University while simultaneously playing basketball and competing in rodeo at the collegiate level. She successfully parlayed a reserve national championship into a professional rodeo career and now stays involved in upper-level athletics by writing for On SI on several different MLB teams' pages, along with some NCAA sites.