My Top 10: Starting Pitchers
By: Max Greenfield

Once again, the 2019 season proved that starting pitching is very important. The 2 teams in the world series had 4 of the 10 best starting pitchers in all of baseball. All 4 were big reasons why those teams made it as far as they did and now the importance of starting pitching may be climbing again. Even in the age of bullpening and openers, dominant starting pitching is still the biggest contributor to winning a championship. The 2019 World Series winners, the Washington Nationals, lived and died by their starting rotation and they had arguably the best in baseball. My top 10 starting pitchers are chosen off previous track record, true talent, and where they are going forward. Note these are all my opinion and you can and should form your own.
1. Max Scherzer
2. Jacob DeGrom
3. Gerrit Cole
4. Chris Sale
5. Justin Verlander
6. Stephen Strasburg
7. Luis Severino
8. Walker Buehler
9. Shane Bieber
10. Clayton Kershaw
Max Scherzer
The 3-time Cy Young award winner takes the top spot on this list for the 2nd straight year. Scherzer is about as dominant as they come in baseball. Since 2017, Max Scherzer ranks 1st in fWAR, 2nd in ERA, 2nd in FIP, 4th in xFIP, 1st in strikeouts, 2nd in K%, and 2nd in SIERA (all amongst qualifiers). Scherzer’s strength comes from having so many different put away pitches. Every pitch but his changeup registered a positive value according to FanGraph’s run value indicator. Scherzer’s best pitch was his slider, with an xwOBA of .170 against it. Since 2012, the Nationals ace has had only 2 seasons with a SIERA over 3 and 1 season with a WAR under 5. He’s been remarkably consistent and will likely still be dominant as he ages. After winning a well-deserved World Series title, Scherzer has done everything there is to do in baseball. Now, he pitches to cement his legacy as one of the greatest pitchers the game has ever seen.
Jacob DeGrom
Looking poised to retake his NL Cy Young award, DeGrom lands at the number 2 spot for the 2nd straight year. Some might have him as the best pitcher in baseball and there’s a legitimate argument for DeGrom. Since 2018, DeGrom leads baseball in fWAR, ERA, and FIP (amongst qualifiers). He’s 4th in SIERA and 2nd in xFIP among qualifiers during that same time period. The Mets ace arsenal that is also top notch. While he throws his slider more than his changeup, his changeup had an xFIP of .90 which is significantly lower than his slider’s xFIP value. His LRP/1000 (Location runs prevented) was tops in all of baseball meaning he had the best command out of any pitcher in baseball. There’s a good argument for DeGrom but he isn’t as good as Scherzer in the advanced metrics which holds him back from being number 1. As DeGrom ages though, he could overtake Scherzer.
Gerrit Cole
The biggest name on the free agent market is about to get himself paid. Gerrit Cole is coming off a dominant 2019. Cole ranked first among all qualified pitchers in baseball in SIERA, xFIP, xFIP-, K%, ERA+, and fWAR. He set the record for consecutive starts with 10+ strikeouts. Simply put, Gerrit Cole was the best pitcher in 2019. Both his curveball slider had xwOBA’s under .250 against him. Cole is 29 and will be 30 midway through the next year, but there’s no signs he will slow down. Cole was open to the analytics and information that made him a better pitcher. With the likelihood high that he leaves Houston high, he can point to Charlie Morton as a way to prove that leaving Houston won’t have an impact on how good he is. Cole has improved his SIERA each of the last 4 seasons and he could get even better in the future. His peak is now and how often is a legitimate number #1 on the market?
Chris Sale
There is a case for Chris Sale to be number 1 on this list. He has the lowest SIERA among qualifiers since 2017. He’s also had the highest K% in baseball since 2017 as well. Even in 2019, what appeared to be a down year for Sale wasn’t as bad of a year as people thought. Sale had a 19.5% HR/FB ratio which is well above league average. He also has a 66.7% LOB%. His ERA ballooned to 4.40 because of this but his SIERA was exactly 3. That was the 3rd highest value of his career. Sale should rebound next year because of this. His 35.6 K% was still well above his league average. Sale was just punished by the juiced ball and a lot of bad luck. Sale’s slider is still an elite pitch and Sale is still an elite pitcher. Chris Sale might even be the best candidate for the Cy young next year. An award he has never won.
Justin Verlander
Justin Verlander struck out 300 batters for the first time in his career at age 36. Verlander has defied age for now and he is in contention for another Cy Young award in 2019. Verlander’s 2.95 SIERA was the 2nd lowest of his career only to last year. It’s a testament to how he changed the way he pitched since he arrived in Houston (Or a sign that Houston’s pitching department is better than anyone else’s). Verlander had an above average HR/FB ratio of 16% but he had an above average LOB% of 88%. There’s nothing that points to major regression and nothing that points to him under performing. Verlander has about 1 or 2 years left of this level or slightly worse of performance in him. He’ll be the anchor of Houston’s staff as they continue to be the dominant force in the American League.
Stephen Strasburg
The World Series MVP, like Gerrit Cole, is about to get paid a lot of money. He opted out of the remaining 4-year 100-million-dollar deal that was on his contract and is now a free agent. The former number 1 overall pick has quietly been worth everything the Nationals hoped he would be. A career 3.17 ERA over 1400+ innings is excellent. His FIP and xFIP are 2.96 and 2.95 respectively. His career SIERA is 3.04 which was 4th best this decade (min 1000 IP). So how did he fly under the radar for so long by the casual fan? When Strasburg arrived, he was thought to be the next great pitcher of this generation and while he’s been that, injuries have gotten in the way. Now, after a brilliant postseason run in which he had a 1.98 and 2.46 SIERA in 36 innings, Strasburg has been getting the recognition he deserves. He will be 32 next year and that’ll hold him back from a long-term deal, but he will still get a 5+ year deal well over 150 million dollars, and he’ll deserve every penny of it.
Luis Severino
This one is going to be shocking that I still have Luis Severino in here. Especially when I didn’t include somebody like Corey Kluber, who also missed the entire year and had been better than Luis Severino in his career up until this year. I put Severino in here because I project him to be a top 10 pitcher in baseball next year and even work his way into the top 5. From 2017 to 2018 season, Severino ranked in the top 10 in the following categories: K%, SIERA, xFIP-, and fWAR. This is including the entire 2nd half of the 2018 season where he was reportedly tipping his pitches. Severino at his peak is the season Max Scherzer just had. An ERA close to 2.5, a K rate over 30%, and over a 7-win season. This would put him in contention for the Cy young on any given year. Another measure that makes me feel more confident in this statement is Severino’s 2.56 pCRA in 2018 (Predictive CRA). That’s why he’s still in my top 10, because out of any pitcher who missed a significant amount of time in 2019, he should be the best going forward.
Walker Buehler
Speaking of projections, Walker Buehler takes the 8th spot on this list. Buehler is coming off a great follow up to dominant rookie campaign. He had a 76 xFIP- with a 29% k rate in 2019, improving his numbers from his 2018 debut. His SIERA fell to 3.5 but his pCRA was 3.04. Over the last 2 years, Buehler is 10th in SIERA and finished 8th in pCRA in 2019. Buehler has an arsenal of weapons and uses all of them well. Buehler only had one pitch that had an xwOBA of over .300 and that was his sinker (min 200 pitches). The pitch he threw the least of his main pitches. Both his slider and his curveball have whiff rates over 34% and that’s a big key to his success. Buehler like Severino, will be 26 before the end of the next season. Also, like Severino, he could be a high production candidate in the future.
Shane Bieber
Shane “Not Justin” Bieber emerged onto the scene in 2019 as one of the best young pitchers in baseball. Bieber had a 4.55 ERA in just over in 100 innings in 2018 but his FIP, xFIP, and SIERA were all in between 3.2–3.45. The potential was high with Bieber and he lived up to this past year. The 2019 All-Star Game MVP had a 3.28 ERA in 214 innings with a k rate just over 30%. This was a 6% increase from the previous year and while keeping his walk rate to just under 5%, this was the largest reason for Biebers improved success. Less people were putting the ball in play and he was getting less unlucky. Bieber’s slider and curveball both had xwOBA’s under .250 against him. His curveball had a whiff rate of 48.7% in 2019. Almost half the time he threw it, he would get hitters to swing through it. Bieber leads an Indians staff that is loaded with talent. All 4 of the Bieber, Kluber, Carrasco, Clevinger rotation could be in the top 10 and you’d have a case. But for me, Bieber is the representative of that group.
Clayton Kershaw
The greatest pitcher of this generation is no longer what he once was. The former ace of the Dodgers is still one of the best pitchers in baseball however and can still be great once again. In a year of the juiced ball, Kershaw was plagued by that in 2019. His 18.5% HR/FB ratio is double that of his career. Kershaw’s k rate continues to fall but was still 26.8% which was still good enough to be in the top 20 in baseball. His SIERA was the exact same as his teammates Hyun-Jin Ryu’s which was good enough for the top 15 in all of baseball. Kershaw stilled show flashes of brilliance with an outstanding July. In that month Kershaw had a 35% k rate, a 1.89 FIP and 2.89 xFIP. Opponents had a .208 wOBA against Kershaw that month. Doing that consistently is probably not likely but still possible for Kershaw. Coming off back to back 3-win seasons, Kershaw is capable of much more. Don’t be surprised if he is once again a top 5 pitcher in baseball. His postseason resume means nothing to me, and it should mean nothing to anyone. He is the greatest pitcher this generation has ever seen, and we should be thankful we were able to watch it.
There are a lot of great pitchers in baseball right now. There are about 15–18 guys who could all be considered for the top 10 and would have a good case. You can hear me discuss my list on the Stats and Stones show airing every Thursday at 5 PM on the Stones Radio Networks. All data was found on FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, Six-Man Rotation, Alex Chamberlain’s database, or Baseball Reference. Follow me on twitter, @GreenfieldMax18
