Bill Madden: The 20-something stars are taking over MLB's award races this season

Bill Madden, New York Daily News on Sep 19, 2026

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — In the absence of Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, the mysterious power outages of Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Cal Raleigh, and the injuries to Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet, baseball’s postseason awards are coming into focus by ushering in a new wave of 20-something superstars.

Going into the weekend the teams with the best records in each league were the small market Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays, both of which with leading candidates for baseball’s postseason hardware who are still years away from their prime.

For the Brewers, 24-year-old Jacob Misiorowski is the runaway leader for the NL Cy Young Award, at 15-5 and leading the majors in ERA (1.89), strikeouts (243), WHIP (0.812) and strikeouts per nine innings (13.1) — while the Rays, in their bid to salt away the AL East, have gotten a late boost from their 23-year old third baseman Junior Caminero, who took over the AL home run lead last week and was neck and neck with Houston’s Yordan Alvarez in RBIs and total bases.

On the surface, Alvarez, who leads the AL in OPS and batting (.311), would appear to have the overall statistical edge on Caminero for the MVP. But the fact that Alvarez is a DH and Caminero, who’s missed only one game while adding superior defense at third base for a team that is likely to win the division also bodes well for him. This is one race that figures to go down to the last day, with the deciding factor possibly being whether the Astros win the AL West.

As for the AL Cy Young Award, Cam Schlittler, the Yankees’ 25-year-old sophomore, has zoomed ahead of the Blue Jays’ Dylan Cease with a season for the ages, including a major league-leading 1.95 ERA and 0.904 WHIP and the most starts in Yankee history allowing one or fewer runs (21). His 1.14 ERA for 16 road starts is also the lowest in American League history.

Over in the National League, with Ohtani shackled with knee and bicep injuries that have prevented him from pitching since July 3, effectively ending his chances for a fourth straight MVP, the Cubs’ 24-year-old Pete Crow-Armstrong has stepped up with a phenomenal breakthrough season. Going into the weekend, Crow-Armstrong, who’s played every game, was leading the majors in slugging, OPS and total bases and was second behind Kyle Schwarber in the NL in homers with 44 and third in RBIs with 105. On Aug. 29 he hit three homers in a game and with his 44th homer on Sept. 17 surpassed Hall of Famer Billy Williams as the most by a left-handed hitter in Cubs history.

Sorry, but we’re again unable to refrain from reminding that Crow-Armstrong was the Mets’ 2020 first-round draft pick who, the next season, they traded to the Cubs for two months of rental free agent Javy Baez.

When it comes to the Rookies of the Year, I realize in this lost season for the Mets there’s been a lot of buzz for Nolan McLean and Carson Benge, but neither are going to win the NL award. That would have to be Cincinnati’s unsung Sal Stewart, who even if nobody probably had him on their Rookie of the Year bingo card at the start of the season, happens to be leading all NL rookies in homers (32) and RBIs (110) and has played every day. An equally strong favorite for the AL Rookie of the Year is Cleveland lefty Parker Messick, a second-round draft pick out of Florida State three years ago, who leads all AL rookies in wins (12), ERA (2.57), strikeouts (186) and WHIP (1.04).