Ryan Garcia
Almost every projection system and pitcher ranking had the Yankees with one clear and defined ace in Max Fried, who has certainly earned the title.
Cam Schlittler was viewed as a burgeoning pitcher in this game, but he had not done enough to earn that same title that is handed out to the top 10-15 pitchers in the game.
With another dominant start under his belt, it might be time for the baseball world to start recognizing Schlittler as an ace in a game where you rarely see this combination of velocity and command.
This is a power pitcher with all of the secondary skills needed to optimize that elite-level repertoire, and with his rapid and sudden ascent to stardom, you might be looking at a new no. 1 on the Yankees.
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Why The Yankees’ Best Pitcher Might Be Cam Schlittler
Since making his MLB debut, Cam Schlittler has the third-best ERA in MLB (2.43) which only trails Paul Skenes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto among qualified starters.
It’s not just the high-90s fastballs or the nasty cutters that make the right-hander so impressive, it’s his ability to make adjustments and improve exponentially without much of an adjustment period.
He developed a sinker fairly quickly upon reaching the Major Leagues, a pitch that has held batters to a .224 AVG with a .282 SLG% through his first seven starts of 2026.
Tweaks have been made to his cutter to make it a firmer pitch with more ride, and it’s become virtually unhittable with an opponent SLG% at .094.
Even his power four-seamer, which was already very effective last season, added over an inch of vertical movement from 2025 to 2026 in order to make it a more dynamic weapon at the top of the zone.
The improvements he’s made since being called up from Triple-A have gelled to form baseball’s most valuable pitcher so far at 2.0 WAR on FanGraphs, and it looks sustainable.
I’m not saying he’s a true talent sub-2.00 ERA pitcher, but Schlittler has the elite strike-throwing abilities to pair with top-of-the-line pitch quality, allowing him to just overpower opponents throughout a start.
This is the kind of profile that Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom had at the peak of their powers, and while I don’t project those kinds of outcomes for Cam Schlittler, it isn’t exactly an easy combination of traits to find.
Among pitchers inside the top 10 in Stuff+ this season, only Jacob deGrom (114) has a better Location+ than Cam Schlittler does (113).
Cam Schlittler has recorded the 7th most FanGraphs WAR (3.3) in MLB since making his Major League debut last July and is inside the top-10 in ERA, FIP, xFIP, and K-BB%.
I’ll concede that Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes, Cristopher Sanchez, Garrett Crochet, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are inarguably better pitchers than Schlittler at the moment.
Chris Sale’s brilliance since becoming an Atlanta Brave earns him a spot on this list too even if the injuries make you question how many innings he can provide in any given season.
Zack Wheeler will hold onto being better because his fastball velocity was closer to his pre-surgery days than expected, so I’ll respect what has been the best pitcher in baseball since 2020.
Outside of them, I’m not sure anyone can definitely get the nod over Cam Schlittler, and lot of projection systems are starting to paint similar pictures.
Projecting ERA can be difficult due to how noisy of a stat it can be, but projecting FIP can be a bit more simple since it’s more sticky on a year-to-year basis.
Cam Schlittler is projected to produce an utterly-elite FIP this season on ZiPS, trailing just Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes who are the consensus top-2 pitchers in baseball.
Over-indexing a 21-start sample size can lead you to some short-sighted conclusions, but there are data points that would stabilize by this point in his career, and they all indicate that this is an ace pitcher.
The Yankees have a special pitcher in their rotation, someone who might be even better than Max Fried (who is very good) when just a few years ago he had a backend starter projection at-best.
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