Phillies' Cristopher Sanchez is overwhelming favorite for 2026 NL Cy Young

Phillies' Cristopher Sanchez is overwhelming favorite for 2026 NL Cy Young originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The Philadelphia Phillies are 27-27 in the regular season, which is well behind where they wanted to be at Memorial Day. But there has been a lot of positive momentum this May.

And if there were one player to embody the May positivity, it would be Cristopher Sanchez, who has been arguably the best player in baseball this month.

ESPN's Bradford Doolittle, in sharing the updated rankings for the end-of-season awards, Sanchez received the recognition Phillies fans have been hoping to see, as the beloved lefty is the overwhelming favorite for the NL Cy Young award.

Cristopher Sanchez is overwhelming NL Cy Young favorite

"Front-runner: Cristopher Sanchez, Philadelphia Phillies (150.3 AXE)," Doolittle writes. "... Sanchez finished second in the NL Cy Young race last season, and he has been much better so far in 2026."

This "AXE" metric combines WAR, win probability added, and various other statistics to form one number to better portray how a player has played.

For Sanchez, this 150.3 AXE mark is well ahead of the rest of the NL Cy Young pack, with Chase Burns of the Cincinnati Reds at 135.8, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers at 134.1, and Jacob Misiorowski at 133.5.

This season, Sanchez has 3.6 bWAR (most in MLB among pitchers), 1.62 ERA (best in NL), one shutout, 86 strikeouts in 72.1 innings pitched (most in MLB), and a 262 ERA+, which is the best among NL starters this season.

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What makes Sanchez's 2026 season so impressive is that he's not just a dominant pitcher, but he's been so dominant while facing more batters (296) than any other pitcher in baseball.

Phillies fans have seen so many of their ace's just miss out on Cy Young awards in recent seasons, with Zack Wheeler missing a few since 2021, and Sanchez in 2025 just losing out to Paul Skenes.

But this year looks like it might be different. Sanchez isn't just pitching well; he's pitching better than any other NL pitcher, and better than he has ever in his big league career. He's the overwhelming favorite for the NL Cy Young award right now, and deservedly so.

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