The blossoming of an ace starting pitcher is one of the most exciting developments in baseball — for a team, for an organization and for its fanbase. And it’s exciting precisely because it’s so rare and so precarious. The number of aces in baseball has diminished over time, while the number of teases has proliferated.
In Nolan McLean and Cam Schlittler, both the Mets and Yankees have young right-handers who look outstanding in the present and have enormously bright futures. Schlittler has made 23 big-league starts, not including last year’s postseason, with a 2.28 ERA. McLean’s 17th career start was Thursday, and his ERA is 2.51. McLean is 24, Schlittler 25.
When was the last time both teams in New York could be this excited about a young pitcher on the roster?
The last debate between fanbases about homegrown aces was in 2018, when Jacob deGrom’s leveling up to a sub-2.00 ERA left all challengers, including Luis Severino, behind. Before that, nobody was losing their voice shouting about Jon Niese vs. Ivan Nova or Phil Hughes vs. Mike Pelfrey. You might have to go back to the last century, just after the strike, when Andy Pettitte was breaking in over in the Bronx and Generation K was debuting in Queens.
So let’s jump-start the debate now. Which pitcher would you rather have going forward: McLean or Schlittler?
To get to the bottom of this, we talked with a handful of people across the sport, granting them the anonymity to talk candidly about which pitcher they would prefer. And we checked in with someone who has seen both pitchers up close: reliever Luke Weaver, who was teammates with Schlittler last season and with McLean this season.
“It’s kind of like a Michael Jordan-LeBron thing,” Weaver said. “I’m not saying they’re them. But they both bring a different dynamic to the game, even though they play the same position. … They are two incredibly talented young pitchers who attack hitters with a similarly relentless pursuit, but with a very different arsenal.”
One American League scout said of Nolan McLean: “I would take Nolan over every pitcher outside of a handful, if it’s that many.” (Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
In the end, we had four votes for Schlittler and three for McLean — though we should point out how close everyone says it is.
“I will make it a 0.1 fraction to Nolan,” said Weaver, holding his index finger and thumb as close as possible. “It’s a 0.1 fraction only because I respect what Cam has and what his future holds.”
Here’s the reasoning behind those picks.
Schlittler has done more at the major-league level so far
Schlittler already has the kind of defining start that pitchers might wait years for: a dominant performance in a winner-take-all playoff game. In the deciding Game 3 of last season’s Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox, Schlittler tossed eight shutout innings with a dozen strikeouts. (By GameScore, only Roger Clemens has pitched better in a playoff game for the Yankees in the divisional era.)
While several people we talked to pointed to McLean’s mound presence and his success pitching in a pennant race for the Mets last season, his team’s late-season collapse prevented him from getting the ball for a Game 1 road start against the Los Angeles Dodgers. So Schlittler has done it on a bigger stage.
“What Cam did in the playoffs caught everyone’s attention,” said an American League executive. “To follow that up with what he’s doing so far is taking it to another level.”
Indeed, Schlittler enters Friday’s start against the Mets with an AL-leading 1.35 ERA. His 2.4 wins above replacement (according to FanGraphs) lead all MLB pitchers and trail only Bobby Witt Jr. among players in 2026.
McLean’s movement is on another level
When watching a McLean start, it doesn’t take long to understand what makes him good: The ball moves in a way it doesn’t for most pitchers.
“The stuff is unreal,” said one AL scout, “and the diversity of the mix helps.”
Nolan McLean, 84mph Sweeper (22″ of break) and 97mph Two Seamer (18″ of run), Individual Pitches + Overlay.
40 inches of horizontal movement difference. pic.twitter.com/1FCdDBQGld
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 4, 2026
McLean throws six different pitches at least 8 percent of the time.
“I’ve never seen a ball move the way Nolan makes the ball move,” Weaver said.
“I am going to gush about McLean whenever he comes up,” the AL scout said. “I am taking him, and this isn’t a slight over Cam because I would take Nolan over every pitcher outside of a handful, if it’s that many.”
Schlittler’s fastball is a separator
McLean’s movement is all well and good, but sometimes a pitcher needs to be able to win by rearing back and firing his fastball in the strike zone. And that’s what Schlittler can do.
“It’s a close call,” one National League scout said, “but Schlittler because of the fastball.”
Schlittler throws a fastball — a four-seamer, a two-seam sinker or his cutter — 91 percent of the time. (McLean is at 62 percent this year for his three fastballs, a jump from 49 percent in 2025.) Nobody in baseball gets more value from their fastball than Schlittler does with his.
“He overpowers with heaters,” said the AL exec. “With his height and release point, the ball is on batters in a way that’s uncomfortable and uncommon.”
Achieving this level of success with his fastball gives Schlittler room to adapt his repertoire more moving forward.
“He’s done a great job with his three-fastball mix, which is unique. To get the cutter breaking that well at that speed, it makes it very difficult for hitters,” Weaver said. “But there is some room for him to add more.”
McLean’s athleticism gives him a higher ceiling
A different AL scout took McLean because of his athleticism; McLean was not only a two-way player with big-time power as a hitter at Oklahoma State, but he was on scholarship as a quarterback for the Cowboys’ football team.
“I just feel like McLean has a tick more upside,” the scout said.
The first AL scout also pointed out McLean’s relative inexperience as a pitcher. It wasn’t until the middle of the 2024 season that McLean ditched hitting, so he hasn’t been focusing exclusively on pitching for even two full years.
“His athleticism and aptitude further set him apart. He pitches to spots, sets up hitters and just knows what he is doing,” the scout said. “It’s as if he’s been doing this for a decade and it’s only been a couple years seriously pitching.”
Schlittler’s profile is easier to trust
Given that McLean’s repertoire is unique, Schlittler more closely aligns with a blueprint people have seen succeed, and for a while. So a second AL executive wondered whether McLean’s focus on spin could make him more vulnerable to injury down the line. That’s, of course, the complicating factor with any evaluation of young pitchers.
“Tell me which one gets hurt first,” the NL scout said as his initial answer.
That debate about deGrom and Severino? It didn’t last much longer. DeGrom won consecutive Cy Young awards, albeit with the Mets losing more often than they won behind him, and Severino’s Yankees tenure was undercut by injuries. Pettitte became a Yankees legend, Generation K a Mets albatross.
McLean and Schlittler missed matching up this weekend by a day. The hope is that there are plenty more opportunities to revisit this conversation over the years to come.