Cam Schlittler on the MVP: Aaron Judge Doesn’t Want to Get Ahead of Himself

The more time passes, the clearer it becomes that Cam Schlittler deserves the Cy Young Award in the American League. In my opinion, he should finish ahead of Dylan Cease.

Unless he has a major slump in the next two weeks.

But Aaron Boone wants to take it a step further: in his view, his pitcher might very well deserve to win the MVP award.

Even Austin Wells echoed his manager's sentiments.

Let's be clear: these guys aren't required to be right—they're just singing the praises of an important member of their organization.

No one is asking them to be objective.

But despite all that, Aaron Judge (who was also asked about the subject) saw fit to defend the value of the MVP title by saying that the pitcher was pitching like an MVP, but…

…that pitchers, for their part, have the Cy Young Award for a reason. And in his view, that's the honor he deserves to win.

We've seen pitchers win the Cy Young before, but they were on a whole different level than Schlittler in 2026.

So we can agree that Judge is probably right. But is every truth worth telling? Especially in New York…

We suspect that Yordan Alvarez, a formidable hitter, has a better chance of winning the MVP than Schlittler. The Astros slugger hits just as well as Judge when he's healthy.

But after criticizing his manager for pulling him (even though it was planned) in his first game, Judge saw fit to say that Schlittler might not deserve the MVP.

No. 99, who hasn't been making much of an impact since his return, might have been better off keeping his opinions to himself on this one.

He shouldn't start making headlines for the wrong reasons—whether he's right or wrong.

Created by humans, assisted by AI.