Leandre: Top 30 starting pitchers entering 2024, 20-11
Part 2 of ranking the top 30 MLB starting pitchers entering the 2024 season.
This installment of ranking the top 30 starters in MLB entering 2024 may include some unexpected faces.
Moreover, perhaps a team or two you wouldn’t expect to feature one of the 20-best starters in the league.
To recap on Nos. 30 to 21:
30. Logan Gilbert, RHP, Seattle Mariners
29. Freddy Peralta, RHP, Milwaukee Brewers
28. Aaron Nola, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies
27. Tanner Bibee, RHP, Cleveland Guardians
26. Carlos Rodón, LHP, New York Yankees
25. Shane Bieber, RHP, Cleveland Guardians
24. Bobby Miller, RHP, Los Angeles Dodgers
23. Jesús Luzardo, LHP, Miami Marlins
22. Jordan Montgomery, LHP, Free Agent
21. Corbin Burnes, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
To read my reasoning for these rankings, be sure to look back to Part 1.
For now, let’s get into Part 2, starting with No. 20.
20. LHP Cole Ragans — Kansas City Royals
The 26-year-old southpaw burst onto the scene after a midseason trade sending him to the Royals for left-handed reliever Aroldis Chapman.
After 17 subpar relief outings in Arlington, Ragans made 12 starts in Kansas City and was just about the most dominant lefty in the game from July onward.
Among starters who posted 50-plus innings after July 1, Ragans ranked eighth in ERA (2.64), second in FIP (2.49) and tied for 14th in strikeout-to-walk rate (21.7).
Perhaps ranking him 20th after 12 starts is overly ambitious but his proficiency at limiting hard contact, mixed with his great K-BB numbers and a pitcher-friendly ballpark in Kauffman, there’s a tremendous opportunity for Ragans to break into the top 10 after potentially an All-Star campaign for an up-and-coming Royals squad.
19. RHP Luis Castillo — Seattle Mariners
Castillo marks the second Mariner to crack the top 30 after yet another sparkling campaign in his first full year in Seattle.
From a peripheral standpoint, he took a sizeable step back. However, he remained a top-flight strikeout artist while returning to form as the workhorse he blossomed into as a Red in 2021.
Last season, he was 10th in K-BB% among qualifiers, 12th in ERA, fifth in average fastball velocity, seventh in innings and was one of only nine pitchers to make 33 or more starts.
Volume has become such a lost art in today’s game and Castillo remains one of the best in that regard.
18. LHP Framber Valdez — Houston Astros
Valdez is arguably my favorite pitcher in the game, so admittedly his ranking may be slightly biased.
However, his resume is still tremendous.
Among qualifiers, he ranked 15th in ERA, 14th in FIP and tied for 12th in fWAR. He also threw a no-hitter against the Guardians, becoming the first Astros starter to throw a complete-game no-hitter since Justin Verlander in 2019.
Also, if not for Logan Webb’s obsession with keeping the ball on the ground, Valdez would’ve been the game’s best in doing so.
17. RHP George Kirby — Seattle Mariners
I know you all are probably getting sick of seeing Mariners listed, but their pitching staff is a deep one.
Kirby, in my opinion, has the potential to win multiple Cy Youngs — barring injury — in his career; he’s just *that* good.
Last year, his numbers were pretty similar to Valdez’, but remained comfortably better than him across the ERA/FIP/xFIP run prevention metrics.
For me, all he has to do to cement himself as a top-10 arm in the game next year is get that strikeout rate to 25% or better. If he can do that without drastically inflating his walk numbers, he might win the Cy Young as soon as 2024 or 2025.
16. RHP Kodai Senga — New York Mets
I thought Senga was going to be a stud in his inaugural season in the States, but I was shocked at just how much of one he was.
After a fairly pedestrian April, the now 31-year-old Japanese phenom obliterated opposing offenses to the tune of a 2.76 ERA, 3.31 FIP and 10.9 K/9 — all in the top 10 after May 1.
What holds him back on this list is the walk numbers. While not staggering, and not bad enough to hamper his run prevention, it was still the third-highest among 43 qualified starters in 2023.
15. RHP Kyle Bradish — Baltimore Orioles
Let’s get weird, shall we?
The meteoric rise of the young Bradish may surprise some (ranking-wise) but it won’t when we dive deeper into the numbers.
In his first full season as an MLB starter, the 27-year-old ranked fourth in the majors in ERA, 10th in FIP and xFIP, seventh in grounder rate and tied for ninth in barrel rate.
Similar to Bibee in Part 1, the pedigree that comes with doing it for more than one season is — perhaps unfairly — keeping Bradish from ranking higher. However, he’s on the fast track to superstardom in a tremendous baseball market in Baltimore.
And now, he gets to work underneath a former Cy Young winner in Burnes as he navigates through the tough AL East once again.
14. RHP Zac Gallen — Arizona Diamondbacks
It’s hard to believe Gallen has only been an All-Star once in his career, to be honest.
Despite that, he’s still placed top-10 in NL Cy Young three times.
Though his ERA dipped nearly a full run from his career-best mark in 2022, he posted a career-best 34 starts and 210 innings while ranking sixth in total punchouts in 2023.
He and right-hander Merrill Kelly have quietly become one of the best one-two rotational punches in baseball despite making a run to a World Series berth. While I don’t think Gallen will ever take home a Cy Young Award, I think he’s going to continue living around the podium.
13. LHP Blake Snell — Free Agent
I’m not sure how well this ranking will be taken given that Snell just won NL Cy Young and led the majors with a 2.25 ERA.
However, everything that made Snell so deadly in 2023 is exactly what scares me about him going forward.
For starters, the walk rate is absurd: 13.3% (1.7% lead on Charlie Morton for the worst mark among qualifiers). On top of that, he had by far the highest left-on-base percentage in the league at 86.7%.
His constantly putting runners on base for free puts a greater stress on him to rack up punchouts and though he’s still exemplary there, it’s hard to imagine he will be forever.
Anywho, he ranked 13th in FIP and xFIP, as well as 23rd in SIERA a season ago despite winning his second Cy Young Award.
12. RHP Zach Eflin — Tampa Bay Rays
Surprise!!!!
Eflin ranking 12th almost feels like the meme “I bet you weren’t expecting to see Luol Deng in these comments” because, given his inconsistencies in Philadelphia, I think a lot of people forgot about him after he got to Tampa Bay.
After Baseball X stopped pointing and laughing at the Rays for him being their largest free-agent contract ever given out, he quickly backed up that decision by being lethal in 2023.
Among qualifiers, he was third in SIERA and xFIP, fourth in FIP, 17th in ERA and fourth in K-BB rate.
He was a freak in 2023 and silenced the naysayers on the contract Erik Neander shelled out to him last winter.
Given the class of arms ahead of him, despite how highly he ranked among qualifiers, it’s pretty impressive how high a riser Eflin was in 2023. Tampa Bay did it again!
11. LHP Tarik Skubal — Detroit Tigers
A-N-I-M-A-L
In a similar fashion to Ragans to jump-start this portion of the top 30, perhaps it’s unfair to those behind him to rank Skubal at 11 based on 80.1 innings of work.
However, he was also a freak in 2022.
What afforded Skubal the ability to jump to 11 with a limited sample is the meteoric rise in punchouts while also dropping his walk rate by over 2.2%. His 28.4 K-BB% ranked second among all pitchers with at least 80 innings last season.
With the same minimum requirements, he ranked first in SIERA, FIP and xFIP, fifth in ERA and third in strikeout rate.
The lack of sheer volume is honestly one of the only reasons this Southpaw isn’t bordering on my top five.
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