In the 22 seasons since Eric Gagne won the 2003 National League Cy Young Award, voters have essentially shunned relievers.
Only one bullpen arm from 2009-25 even finished in the top three in either league. Emmanuel Clase did so in 2024, earning a third-place finish in the AL voting after a 47-save season with a 0.61 ERA, to give you a sense of the impossibly high bar relievers are facing in the Cy Young race due to their lack of volume relative to starters.
For a reliever to actually win? It’s going to take something not just historic, but otherworldly.
Enter Padres closer Mason Miller. No pitcher in baseball -- starter or reliever -- has been as dominant as the flamethrowing righty this year.
True, Miller’s scoreless streak ending (thanks in part to a disputed fair-foul call) does put a bit of a dent in his Cy Young case. The flamethrowing righty threw 34 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings dating back to August 2025, the eighth-longest streak by a reliever in the Expansion Era (since 1961).
He has a 1.17 ERA after Wednesday's appearance, which obviously looks less impressive than 0.00. But don’t count him out just yet.
It’s going to be tough, but Miller still has a chance to become the 10th reliever to win a Cy Young. Here’s how voters could be swayed. (All stats below are through Wednesday.)
1. A perfect 50-save season
Though Miller allowed a pair of runs against the Cubs on Monday, he’s yet to blow a save this season while recording an MLB-leading 10 saves.
Leading the Majors in saves would be a nice feather in Miller’s cap. Six of the last seven relievers to win Cy Young honors did that. Reaching 50 saves, which no one has done since Edwin Díaz in 2018, would also boost his case.
The real prize, though, would be a flawless 50-save season, which is exactly what Gagne did in 2003: 55-for-55 in save chances, part of a streak of 84 consecutive conversions spanning 2002-04.
Gagne is the only pitcher since saves became an official stat in 1969 to post a 100% conversion rate in a 50-save season. Three others have done so in a season with at least 40 saves, and each finished among the top five in his league’s Cy Young voting.
100% conversion rate in a season with 40+ saves
Since saves became an official stat in 1969
- Zack Britton, 2016 Orioles: 47-for-47 (fourth in AL Cy Young)
- Jose Valverde, 2011 Tigers: 49-for-49 (fifth place in AL Cy Young)
- Brad Lidge, 2008 Phillies: 41-for-41 (fourth place in NL Cy Young)
- Eric Gagne, 2003 Dodgers: 55-for-55 (won NL Cy Young)
Miller could secure a top-five finish for himself with a perfect 40-save season. If he goes even further than that and joins Gagne as the only pitchers to record a 100% conversion rate in a 50-save campaign, it’s going to be difficult for voters to leave him out of the top three.
2. Historic dominance (and a bit of help from his teammates)
Of course, Gagne didn’t win only because of his saves streak. It was part of a larger package that made voters break precedent. He finished 2003 with a 1.20 ERA, a 0.69 WHIP, a 0.86 FIP and a 44.8% strikeout rate.
Miller is tracking in similar territory -- and then some. His FIP and strikeout rate in particular tell the story of a pitcher who may be even harder to hit than Gagne was.
FIP, or fielding independent pitching, focuses solely on the events a pitcher has the most control over -- strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches and home runs. The stat is represented on the same scale as ERA.
Miller this season has recorded a negative FIP (-0.07) while striking out 29 of the 54 batters he’s faced (53.7% K-rate). He has a chance to post the best FIP and K-rate for any pitcher in a with at least 50 innings pitched single AL/NL season.
Miller could also get a narrative boost with voters if the Padres continue to keep pace with the high-powered Dodgers in the NL West. Although its offense has struggled this year, San Diego is just a half-game behind Los Angeles for first place. Miller has been a big reason why.
3. An NL starting pitcher field that lacks a clear frontrunner
Like many elite relievers before him, here's where Miller might run into trouble. It's possible he could accomplish all of the above -- a perfect 40- or even 50-save season, plus a record FIP and K-rate -- with an ERA close to Gagne's 1.20 mark in 2003 and still not win.
As our first Cy Young staff poll of 2026 shows, there are plenty of strong contenders from the NL starting pitcher ranks, including '25 winner Paul Skenes, Mets rookie Nolan McLean and Dodgers two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani.
That said, Miller could benefit from a muddled field, one in which no starter separates himself as the obvious choice by season's end, leaving voters to reward the pitcher who was the best on a per-inning basis.
That's what happened in 2003, to an extent. Jason Schmidt (second place) and Mark Prior (third place) were both excellent that year, but voters still placed a lot of value in pitcher wins back then. Neither pitcher reached the 20-win plateau or did enough elsewhere to differentiate himself from the other, which gave voters more leeway to go with the history-making closer instead.
In any case, Miller can't control what happens with the rest of the field. All he can do is keep building his case and hope that makes it impossible for voters to ignore him.