Cup of Coffee: November 12, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

First off, I'd like to give a big hello everyone to those of you who subscribed to the newsletter via the sale which ended yesterday. I'm truly grateful to you for giving Cup of Coffee a shot and I promise that the money you've spent will be worth your while. At least as long as you like baseball, you can endure some politics, and you're accepting of a somewhat depressive middle aged guy who is currently fighting his midlife crisis to what he hopes will be a draw and who can't seem to stop trafficking in 1970s-90s nostalgia to help deal with it. If it helps, I hate that I do that too, but I think we have fun with it all the same.

Anyway, as of last night we have two new Cy Young winners. They should be a surprise to no one. And yes, I'd say that even if I didn't put their photos at the top of today's newsletter.

Let us begin.

The Daily Briefing

Cam Schlittler and Jacob Misiorwoski are your unanimous Cy Young Award-winners

There were no surprises whatsoever when it came to the Cy Young voting, the results of which were announced last night: the Yankees' Cam Schlittler is your American League winner and Jacob Misiorowski takes home the honors in the National League. Each were no-brainer choices by the time the regular season came to a close and each received all 30 of the available first-place votes, making them unanimous winners.

Following Schlittler in the AL were Dylan Cease of the Blue Jays, who received 22 of the 30 second place votes, Parker Messick of the Guardians who received seven, and Drew Rassmussen of the Rays who received one. Trailing Misiorowski were Cristopher Sánchez of the Phillies with 17 second-place votes, Chris Sale of Atlanta with 11, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers with two.

Schlittler, pitching in his first full big league season, went 14-6 with an AL-best 1.95 ERA (215 ERA+) over 193.2 innings across 33 starts. He struck out 239 batters and walked 49. That ERA was the lowest from a qualified Yankees starter since Ron Guidry finished with a 1.74 mark in his Cy Young Award-winning 1978 campaign. Schlittler was an ace and a stopper in every sense of those words, allowing either one or zero runs in a Major League-best 21 starts and allowing three runs or fewer in 29 starts, which was tied for the most in the Majors. When he took the ball there was very little drama and a light night's work was in store for the Yankees bullpen. And he was better on the road than he was at home, which really gives a team a boost.

Misiorowski is, bar none, the most electrifying pitcher in the game. He established himself as the hardest-throwing starter in baseball history, racking up dozens of triple-digit pitches per start. In a late June contest he topped out at 105.5 mph, shattering the record for the Statcast era with what was almost certainly the fastest pitch ever thrown by a starting pitcher in baseball history. In all he threw a staggering 1,115 pitches that registered above 100 mph in 2026.

Not that he was just a velocity machine. Misiorowski put it all together in his first full big league season, finishing as the major league leader in ERA (1.80; ERA+ 232), strikeouts (252), strikeout rate (37.9 percent), and opponents’ average (.157; a new record) over 174.2 innings. He joined Sandy Koufax (1965), J.R. Richard (1979) and Mike Scott (1986) as the only pitchers since 1950 to lead the Majors in ERA, strikeouts and opponents’ average in the same season.

There aren't many major awards whose outcome was more preordained than this year's Cy Young Awards. Congratulations to Cam Schlittler and Jacob Misiorowski.

Oh, hey, we have Reliever of the Year Awards too

I had totally forgotten this because it was announced over a year ago, but this season the BBWAA began handing out a Reliever of the Year Award alongside their other four traditional postseason awards. The Manager of the Year Award was the most-recently added one, but that was back in 1983, so they were probably do for a refresh.

The inaugural winners: Mason Miller of the San Diego Padres and Toronto Blue Jays closer Louis Varland.

Miller was a unanimous choice, with all 30 first-place votes. Following him was Jhoan Duran of the Phillies, Trevor Megill of the Brewers, and Miller's teammate Adrián Morejón. It was closer in the AL with Varland getting 16 of 30 first votes with Cade Smith of the Guardians getting seven and Bryan Baker of the Rays with six. The final first-place vote actually went to fifth-place finisher Josh Hader.

Miller's fastball is, on average, faster than even Misiorowski's. Sure, it may be easier to crank it up higher when you're only pitching one inning instead of five or six, but Miller's heater led the majors with an average velocity of 101.4 mph. As for the results of that heat: a 1.67 ERA (246 ERA+) in 66 appearances and a league-leading 38 saves with an average of 16.6 strikeouts per nine innings pitched. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Miller's dominance is that he did not allow an extra-base hit until July 17, which was his 39th appearance of the year.

Varland notched 35 saves for the Blue Jays while posting a microscopic 1.27 ERA (348 ERA+) in 71 appearances. While he didn't lead the league in saves he put in a lot of innings for a modern closer and was pretty much the most reliable relief pitcher in the American League all season long. That earned him a trip to the All-Star Game and it earned him the first-ever BBWAA Reliever of the Year Award for the American League.

Brad Ausmus hired as the Astros new manager

The Houston Astros announced yesterday that they have hired Yankees bench coach Brad Ausmus to be their new manager. Ausmus played ten of his eighteen big league seasons in Houston.

This is obviously not Ausmus' first managerial rodeo, though the first two were not the best rodeos ever. He managed the Detroit Tigers for four seasons (2014-17) and the Los Angeles Angels for a single season (2019). In Detroit he was in charge of what turned out to the waning years of the Justin Verlander-Miguel Cabrera era and anyone who takes a job with the Angels is basically doomed.

In Houston he's taking over a club that finished the 2026 regular season with an 81–81 record yet managed to sneak into the postseason despite a negative run differential due to the overall futility of the American League. And while owner Jim Crane has rejected the idea that the Astros need to rebuild, the present roster is not young by any stretch and their minor league system ranks near the bottom of the league by most evaluators. Crane has pretty much chased off all of the smart analytics folks who helped build and maintain the Astros dynasty and relies instead on ex-players like Jeff Bagwell for personnel decisions. It doesn't bode well for the team's future.

In the meantime, there is a chance that Ausmus will be able to ride Yordan Alvarez, Hunter Brown, Jeremy Peña and Josh Hader into the playoffs one more time but, absent those guys bucking traditional aging curves and/or a major infusion of talent this winter, the odds don't favor it. It's hard to see, then, how this isn't yet another dim-future managerial gig for the multi-time Handsomest Manager in Baseball.

MLB editorial workers unionize

Major League Baseball employs a LOT of editorial workers. They just unionized.

Specifically, 127 editorial employees at Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the arm of MLB that operates the league’s official website and social media channels, have organized under the Writers Guild of America East. This per a joint announcement from MLB and the guild yesterday morning:

Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) and the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) announced today that 127 of MLBAM’s Content Department employees producing and creating content in English, Spanish, and Japanese for MLB voted to unionize for the purpose of collective bargaining.

After a majority of the bargaining unit signed union cards, MLBAM and the WGAE swiftly reached an agreement for an independent election to certify union recognition. The American Arbitration Association administered the election and found a majority of the agreed upon Content bargaining unit voted in favor of unionizing with the Writers Guild of America East. 

MLB said, "Immediately upon being informed by the WGAE of their efforts to organize our Content staff, MLB worked cooperatively
and in good faith to identify the appropriate bargaining unit and to respect the rights of the affected employees to decide whether to unionize. We look forward to working with the WGAE as their new representative."

Tom Fontana, President of the Writers Guild of America East, said, “The Guild is excited to welcome more workers from the sports industry into the labor movement. The official MLB website and app produces quality content for baseball fans around the world, and this bargaining unit now has earned a seat at the table with Major League Baseball to negotiate a fair first union contract.”

Interestingly, the actual beat writers and columnists for MLB.com and the various team websites – the people whose work is the most front-and-center for fans like us – are NOT part of this union. Nothing in the union's or the league's statements explains why that is. Evan Drellich of The Athletic dropped this by way of explanation for that in his updated story late yesterday:

Team beat writers and national writers for MLB.com, the league’s bylined writers and columnists who author news stories and opinion pieces, decided not to join.

While the Writers Guild sought to represent those employees, they decided it was in their best interest to stay out of the union, according to people briefed on the process who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

That's pretty vague, especially from a group that includes a bunch of opinion writers, but I am told that there will soon be some independent reporting as to why the beat writers and columnists were not part of this effort. I have some theories as to why, but given that we'll actually have the facts soon, I'll just sit on those for now.

Whatever the case, it's always better for workers when they unionize. Especially when they are employed by businesses like Major League Baseball.

Tigers sign Emilio Pagán

This happened in the wee, wee hours yesterday (i.e. after 11pm Tuesday night when my old ass went to sleep) so it didn't make yesterday's newsletter, but the Detroit Tigers signed Emilio Pagán to a one-year deal worth $11 million. Pagán had recently declined a player option to make $10 million in Cincinnati.

Pagán has handled closing duties for the Reds for the past two seasons and in that time the ten-year veteran has posted a 3.07 ERA (140 ERA+) while notching 57 saves.

The Detroit bullpen was a total mess last year – it pretty much single-handedly kept them out of postseason contention – so it makes sense that they're acting fast to sign relief pitching talent. Which is why ,while it's quite possible that Pagán is the Tigers closer next season, it's no sure thing. Indeed, if Detroit is aggressive in upgrading their relief corps – which I think they should be – Pagán could easily end up as their righty setup guy.

Other Stuff

The tech lords are pretending to shift left

Silicon Valley's tech lords played a big part in getting Donald Trump elected and, to the extent any of them were on the fence during the campaign, they all fell in line with MAGAworld in January 2025. There was ass-kissing. There were huge donations to both official GOP campaign funds and Trump slush funds that made it look more like bribery than political support. There was substantive support of ICE and the broader authoritarian project via hundreds of millions in government contracts. And they were basically all-in with Republicans in the midterms, hoping that the MAGA right would continue to champion data center construction, unregulated AI, crypto schemes, and whatever else would continue to make the tech billionaires' bottom lines grow.

It's been said that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, and now that voters have punched the political right hard in the mouth, the tech lords' political convictions no longer seem to be so strong. Take Palantir CEO Alex Karp, for example, who gave gave an interview to Politico yesterday in which he voiced his heretofore unknown progressive bonafides. Karp:

“I’ve been a Democrat my whole life. I grew up in a far-left environment. I know more about being a progressive than almost anybody on the planet, and I absolutely believe Palantir—all of our products are essentially progressive.”

That's pretty big news considering Karp personally contributed roughly $2 million to Republican efforts during the first two years of Trump's second term, including $1 million to MAGA Inc. and $1 million to Trump's 2025 inauguration fund. Palantir, as a company, donated at least $10 million toward Trump’s White House ballroom project. Palantir also has a $30 million contract with ICE to support their police state/concentration camp initiatives. Work that has caused several Democratic lawmakers to vow to issue subpoenas and deeply investigate Palantir and other tech companies. When someone's words and deeds fail to match up, believe the deeds.

I get that a lot of businesses and super wealthy people play both sides of the aisle, lacking any true convictions and supporting whoever it is who happens to be in power. For as long as there has been money in politics the political parties have basically accepted this. And rather than go after those who have worked against the best interests of Americans in an effort to curry favor with the people in charge, minority parties have simply chosen to forget all of that so that they can wet their beaks when they return to power.

It is my hope, though I suspect it is a vain one, that Democrats don't back off their promises to hold Silicon Valley's feet to the fire once they take control of Congress in January. That may go against decades of precedent, but tech made their position vis-a-vis democracy, corruption, human rights, and the environment pretty goddamn clear these past few years. And no matter how many tech CEOs try to follow Karp's disingenuous lead in making themselves sound politically reasonable, Democrats have to understand and accept that that's total bullshit. Big Tech has made it clear whose side they are on and it's a 100% certainty that, to the extent it tries to play nice with Democrats going forward, they will immediately – and with a great degree of enthusiasm – flip back to the side of authoritarianism the moment the political winds shift once again.

"Combat the Cold"

I've mentioned before that the military drone manufacturer Anduril has set up shop in Columbus, Ohio. They've built a big weapons manufacturing plant south of town, a few short miles from where I live, and the company's CEO, the douche-tastic Palmer Luckey, has moved quickly to integrate himself and his company into Columbus' power structure over the past couple of years. As everyone familiar with Columbus knows, the best way to do that is to get in tight with Ohio State University athletics which is a fast track to being tight with state and local power brokers.

To help do that, Anduril became "An Official Sponsor of Ohio State Athletics." If you visit Ohio Stadium you can see their logo in several places. Anduril has even come up with a slogan specific to their connection to OSU athletics: "Defend the 'Shoe," which refers to "The Horseshoe" which is the nickname of Ohio Stadium where the Buckeye football team plays. There's a lot connected with Ohio State sports which is kind of unsettling, but the idea of a literal defense contractor saying "Defend the 'Shoe" causes me to think of literal missiles being fired at opposing team busses. You know, totally normal shit.

Anyway, they have now moved into Ohio State-Anduril merch. Like this bomber jacket:

In addition to that "Defend the 'Shoe" ribbon beneath the American flag, on the page where you can purchase this jacket appears the phrase "Combat the Cold." I just love living in a world where absolutely everything is war.

I graduated from Ohio State 31 years ago. Since then the place has rarely done anything but embarrass me, but this is probably a new low. I simply cannot wait for the quarterly "hey, would you like to donate money to your dear alma mater?" phone call. Apologies in advance to the poor kid who gets my number in his auto-dialer. Sometimes I just have to vent.

Dad's got jokes

My mom has been dealing with some health and mobility issues of late and she has a pretty severe benign tremor in her hands that makes doing a number of things pretty difficult. To help out, I ordered her a pair of travel-style active wear pants so she doesn't have to deal with buttoning jeans and so she can be more comfortable without going full-pajamas and sweat pants mode, which is not something she wants to do.

After getting her a pair that was too big, I ordered a new pair for her that arrived yesterday. And folks, my dad has jokes:

Being in the sandwich generation is not easy. But I feel like it would be a little easier if, between my parents and my kids, I didn't have wise-asses on both sides of me.

Have a great day everyone.