Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal Lead MLB.com's 1st Cy Young Award Poll for 2026 Season
One month into the 2026 MLB season, the Cy Young frontrunners are the same pitchers who won the award last year.
In a poll of 39 experts conducted by MLB.com's Jason Foster, Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal were overwhelmingly the No. 1 candidates for their respective league's Cy Young award this season.
Both received 27 first-place votes, with Skenes being ranked ahead of Nolan McLean, who has been about the only bright spot for the New York Mets, and Shohei Ohtan in the NL race.
Skubal topped the American League list, with surprise star Jose Soriano of the Los Angeles Angels in second with six first-place votes.
The other AL pitchers who received at least one first-place vote include the New York Yankees' duo of Cam Schlittler and Max Fried, along with Dylan Cease of the Toronto Blue Jays.
McLean was listed in second place in the NL race, despite being the only one in the top five who received just one first-place vote.
Ohtani's five first-place votes were the second-most among NL starters. The four-time MVP is back to being a full-time pitcher, in addition to his regular duties as DH for the Los Angeles Dodgers, for the first time since the 2023 season.
It turns out Ohtani remains incredibly good on the mound. His ERA is currently at 0.60 with 34 strikeouts in 30 innings over five starts. He has pitched exactly six innings in each outing so far this season.
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Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Ohtani's teammate in Los Angeles, is fifth on the NL Cy Young board and received two first-place votes. He is behind Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves in fourth place.
Ohtani, McLean and Tyler Glasnow are all tied for the NL lead in fWAR at 1.3 among qualified NL pitchers.
One humorous part about Skenes leading the NL poll is he isn't technically qualified for the ERA leaderboard at this point because of his disastrous first start of the season against the Mets.
MLB rules require a pitcher to have at least one inning pitched per team game to qualify for the ERA title. The Pirates have played 30 games entering Wednesday, but Skenes is only at 29 innings because he only recorded two outs on March 26 in an 11-7 loss to the Mets.
Skenes' ERA has dropped by more than 65 points since then, as he has allowed just three earned runs in 28.1 innings over his last five starts.
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Even though Skubal has a commanding lead in the early MLB.com voting, Schlittler seems poised to end the season as the best pitcher in the AL if he keeps up his current pace.
Schlittler's fWAR total of 2.0 is tied for the best among all players in MLB, including position players, with Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros. He has a 1.51 ERA with 49 strikeouts in 41.2 innings.
The Yankees right-hander leads MLB in FIP (1.52), walks per nine innings (1.30) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (8.17). No other starter in MLB has a strikeout-to-walk ratio better than 6.33.
Skubal has been rather pedestrian to start the season, at least compared to his own high standards. He's on pace to have his worst ERA (2.72) since 2022, and most hits allowed per nine innings (7.4) and fewest strikeouts per nine innings (9.4) since 2022.
Those are numbers that 99 percent of all pitchers in MLB would love to achieve, but Skubal looking merely superhuman instead of a Greek God who could conquer worlds with the snap of a finger does open the door for someone to potentially take the Cy Young from him.
