Where Jacob Misiorowski’s season ranks among historic Cy Young winners

Not even the rain or reduced velocity allowed the New York Mets to beat up on Milwaukee Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski.

Misiorowski, the NL Cy Young frontrunner, struck out six and only allowed two runs in an 8-2 romp on Thursday night. Although he failed to throw a pitch faster than 101 mph for only the second time this season, the two-time All-Star notched his 17th quality start in 25 attempts.

“I think you’ve got to recognize that he was on point without his best stuff,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “He was slipping and sliding on the mound with both feet, and he still sucked it up.”

Claiming that Misiorowski has had a dominant sophomore season is as big of an understatement as you’ll find around baseball. As of Aug. 28, the young righty is 14-5 with a 1.73 ERA and 222 strikeouts in 151 innings. Baseball-Reference values his bWAR at 5.6, with FanGraphs going slightly higher at 5.7 fWAR.

Misiorowski has been incredible, but where could his final numbers be among the greatest Cy Young seasons in league history? The data is fascinating. 

Jacob Misiorowski’s potential Cy Young numbers compared to the all-time greatest seasons

Strikeouts

Misiorowski currently averages 13.2 strikeouts per nine innings, which unsurprisingly leads all of baseball. For the sake of conversation, let’s say that Misiorowski makes four more starts, which puts him on pace to finish with roughly 280 punchouts. That would tie him with Denny McLain (1968, AL) for 20th all-time among Cy Young winners. 

There have been 23 instances where pitchers recorded at least 270 strikeouts in their Cy Young seasons. Justin Verlander did it most recently, racking up 300 strikeouts in 2019.

ERA

As of August 2026, there are 28 pitchers who had an ERA of 2.00 or lower during their Cy Young season. However, we’re omitting Rollie Fingers (1981, AL), Éric Gagné (2003, NL), Mark Davis (1989, NL), Willie Hernández (1984, AL), and Dennis Eckersley (1992, AL) from our list because they won the award as closers. Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer also failed to qualify for our analysis because they won theirs during the 2020 COVID season; Bieber threw 77.1 innings and Bauer pitched 73.

So that leaves us with 21 pitchers, and only seven pitchers won the Cy Young with an ERA of 1.73 or less.

That’s some damn good company. Gibson, Maddux, and Koufax are all in the Hall of Fame, and deGrom should follow when he’s eventually eligible. 

Wins Above Replacement

This is where things get unfortunate for Misiorowski, and it has nothing to do with the bWAR vs. fWAR debate. As of August 2026, 86 individual Cy Young-winning seasons featured at least 6.0 bWAR, and 68 recorded at least 7.0 bWAR. So unless he turns in one of the greatest Septembers we’ve ever seen, the Brewers’ ace will likely finish somewhere below 7.0 bWAR.

Based on the eye test alone, Misiorowski has certainly put together one of the more remarkable Cy Young finishes in recent memory. Personally, we’d put him with Pedro Martínez (2000, AL), Zack Greinke (2009, AL), and Jacob deGrom (2018-19) among what we believe are the most dominant Cy Young seasons in the 21st century. 

Where would you rank Misiorowski’s 2026 season on the all-time list if he wins the NL Cy Young Award? Let us know.

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