Cam Schlittler Leads MLB in ERA but Ranks 2nd in Pitching WAR

Schlittler owns the league's best ERA at 1.95, barely ahead of Jacob Misiorowski, but trails Cristopher Sanchez in overall pitching WAR by nearly a full win—leaving his claim to 'best pitcher' dependent on which metric you weight.

Published: September 14, 2026 · Figures as of September 14, 2026

Asked: Is Cam Schlittler the best pitcher in baseball now?

Leads MLB in ERA, but ranks 2nd in pitching WAR

Cam Schlittler has the best ERA in baseball at 1.95 over 184⅔ innings (31 starts, 14-6, 228 strikeouts) — barely ahead of Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski at 1.95 as well (1.949 to 1.952, a gap of three thousandths). But the single number that best summarizes total value, pitching WAR, has him 2nd at 6.64, about a win behind Philadelphia's Cristopher Sanchez at 7.62. So "the best pitcher in baseball" depends on which measure you weight, and on the two most complete ones he's either #1 or a clear #2, not an outright, unanimous #1.

Where he stacks up across the qualified starters (min. 151 IP):

Confidence: High that he belongs in the small group at the top of the league (top 5 on every rate stat above, top 3 on three of them). Medium on "the outright best," because WAR — the measure that folds in all of it — has Sanchez ahead, and the gap isn't trivial (nearly a full win).

One thing worth flagging before calling this the new normal. DataBaller's own read on his process is more cautious than the ERA suggests. His batting-average-on-balls-in-play allowed over his last eight starts is .206, against an established two-year level of .261 — a gap of almost two standard deviations, which is close to the largest displacement the model's sustainability score recognizes (it reads 0.00 on a 0-1 scale, right at the floor). The companion forecast, built off the same reversion logic, projects his run-prevention rate declining by about 3.6 runs of production per 100 batters faced the rest of the season, essentially because his recent allowed-production rate (21.1 per 100 BF) sits well below his own deep established level (35.9). That's a lean, not a certainty — the model's own backtested predictive power on pitchers is a rank correlation of about 0.27, useful for ordering who trends up or down but far from decisive — and it says nothing about his innings workload holding up, only that some of the shine on the ERA is process he isn't likely to keep replicating at this rate.

Put together: on the numbers in front of us right now, Schlittler is unambiguously in the tightest group of two or three pitchers in the sport, and he owns the headline stat (ERA). Whether he's THE best turns on whether you weight ERA or total value (WAR), and DataBaller's own model thinks some regression toward his career level is coming.