Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Schlittler Defy the Odds to Win Cy Young Awards

Not even the smartest minds in baseball could see a future Cy Young Award winner in their midst. It was the 2022 MLB draft. Two lanky righthanders from small programs, Crowder College in Missouri and Northeastern University, sat idly by as teams rushed to draft polished pitchers from big-time programs or high schoolers who already were blessed (and cursed) to have elite major league velocity as a teen.

Jacob Misiorowski waited through 62 picks, 28 of them pitchers, before the Brewers took him in the second round. Cam Schlittler waited through 219 picks, 113 of them pitchers, before the Yankees selected him in the seventh round.

Just four years later, Misiorowski, 24, and Schlittler, 25, once bypassed many times over, are Cy Young Award winners who are making the old-school, country-hardball, four-seam fastball cool again. At a time when four-seamers bottomed out in the 19 seasons of pitch tracking, down to 30.7%, Misiorowski and Schlittler ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in MLB in strikeouts via the four-seamer, with 166 and 126, respectively.

Misiorowski struck out more batters with his four-seamer than any pitcher since Gerrit Cole in 2019. Schlittler allowed a .163 batting average on 1,352 four-seamers, the lowest average in the pitch tracking era for anyone who leaned on the pitch so much.

It’s only the fourth time both Cy Young Award winners were no older than 25, joining Zack Greinke, 25, and Tim Lincecum, 25, in 2009; Bret Saberhagen, 21, and Dwight Gooden, 20, in 1985; and Denny McLain, 25, and Tom Seaver, 24, in 1969. Only Saberhagen and Gooden were also drafted in the same year (1982) the way Miz and Schlittler were.

Why did so many teams miss such elite arms so many times over? How did Misiorowski and Schlittler develop into stars so quickly? Their stories should convince you more than ever that baseball is more art than science, and that the metrics and rankings attached to prospects are guidelines, not gospel.

Entering the 2022 draft, Baseball America ranked the three best pitchers as high schoolers Brock Porter, Dylan Lesko and Brandon Barriera. None have thrown a pitch in the majors yet. (MLB.com had the same three.) The next three were Kumar Rocker of Vanderbilt, high schooler Robby Snelling and Gabriel Hughes of Gonzaga. Those three are 10–28 combined in the majors.

Teams took 14 pitchers in the first round. They have combined for 1.3 WAR. Four of them have not yet reached the majors.

Meanwhile, the Brewers were debating when they should grab Misiorowski. They knew teams had questions about his command and mechanics. Some teams looked at Misiorowski as a reliever. MLB.com ranked Misiorowski 78th among draft prospects.

“I think we were holding our breath with the hope that he would get there,” says Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold. “I heard there were teams right behind us that were on him. But there were a lot of people who thought he was a reliever. There were some risks in his profile, but our guys really stuck their necks out on this one.”

Brewers area scouting supervisor Drew Anderson and area scout Riley Bandelow had seen Misiorowski improve over the years and knew more was in store. As a 165-pound high school pitcher who threw 91–95 mph and, by his own admission, might hit “six or seven batters” in a game, Misiorowski went undrafted before enrolling at Crowder. By the fall of 2020 he was 190 pounds and hitting 98 mph. Then he hit 100 mph before the draft.

Midway through the second round, a team — Misiorowski won’t say who — called his agent and said it was prepared to pick him. But the team backed out and made another selection. Misiorowski was prepared to enroll at LSU, where he could have joined Paul Skenes.

Then the Brewers called.

“If anybody else calls,” a Brewers official told him, “don’t pick up the phone.”

He did as instructed. The Brewers took him with the 63rd pick. To keep him from LSU, Milwaukee signed him to a bonus of $2.35 million — $1,218,500 above slot. To afford such an overpay, the Brewers signed their first-round pick and their next six picks all under slot. It was money well portioned.

Meanwhile, Schlittler kept waiting. In one service he was not among the top 500 eligible players in the draft. At Northeastern he was 5–8 with a 3.44 ERA. He was throwing about 90 mph. Matt Hyde, the Yankees’ Northeast scout, and Damon Oppenheimer, their director of scouting, liked what they saw in Schlittler. Oppenheimer saw him in the fall of 2020 while in New England to see his son play hockey. Hyde and Oppenheimer saw a tall pitcher with the frame to add weight. They liked his arm stroke. It was easy to imagine there was more in there.

The Yankees took him in the seventh round. They sent him to the Florida Complex League. He began adding weight and velocity. In the spring of 2023, Schlittler was throwing in the low 90s. By the next season, his velocity had taken a huge leap forward, as seen here:

Cam Schlittler average four-seam fastball velocity

Year	MPH
2023 (minors)	90.0
2024 (minors)	95.0
2025 (minors)	96.9
2025 (MLB)	98.0
2026 (MLB)	98.0

Last year and in 2024 it was Tarik Skubal, a ninth-round pick, confounding the experts to win a Cy Young Award. But this is doubly extraordinary. Four years after they watched teams pass on them pick after pick, Misiorowski and Schlittler are Cy Young Award winners and the state of the art in pitching today.

Tonight, as well as the 2022 draft, forever links them. Each just completed their first full season. They made their debuts just 27 days apart in 2025. It’s easy to imagine they will contend for more Cy Young Awards and many more wins. Saberhagen won another Cy and retired with 167 career victories. Gooden did not win another Cy but had two more top five finishes and won 194 games. Misiorowski and Schlittler are testaments to the timeless power of a great fastball, as well as the still mysterious art of player development.

Add us as a preferred source on Google