2019 Positional Power Rankings: Starting Rotation (No. 1-15)
Last week, we covered most of the position players as part of our positional power rankings. Earlier today, Meg Rowley covered right fielders, before Kiley McDaniel took you through the 16th-through-30th ranked rotations. Now, we get to the good stuff.
The American League comes out firing on the top 15 list with the first three entrants made up of the reigning kings of the West and Central, as well as this year’s projected East champion. The Senior Circuit takes over from there, with seven of the next nine rotations, including two from the East and three from the Central divisions. Those staffs have been the talk of the offseason, as the top four in the NL East are all contenders to win the division while all five NL Central clubs could carve out a realistic scenario that finds them atop the group and headed to the playoffs.
The ever-dwindling workloads of starters are made clear as just six pitchers are projected for 200-plus innings; meanwhile, six clubs have just one (or fewer) arms tabbed for even 180 frames. The No. 2 ranked team doesn’t get anyone to 175, yet their depth is on display with six guys who could capably put up 100-plus innings. On the other end, some teams made this list purely on the strength of their top five, so any injuries could be catastrophic to their season outlook.
It’s probably a safe bet that at least one of the arms on here with a sub-70 inning projection ends up delivering 130-plus in a breakout campaign, but without a crystal ball to identify which injuries will create such a path, it’s hard to know exactly who that will be right now. My guesses would include Domingo German, Seth Lugo, Jordan Lyles, and Jerad Eickhoff. Last year’s were Walker Buehler, Jack Flaherty, and Zach Eflin, which perhaps means that I should include prospects Forrest Whitley and Alex Reyes, but they almost feel too easy.
Who is your favorite breakout pitcher on these 15 teams, and which is your favorite team in the 11-15 range to break the top 5?
FYI: There was a formatting issue with a part of the Phillies profile. It has been updated.
This isn’t moving the needle, but Kilome is out for the season (TJS).
Kilome is out for the year. Had TJ in October.
“Tanaka’s elbow has seemingly been hanging by a thread for years now.” He had a 10% tear that was allowed to heal. His elbow has been fine ever since. It is time to retire this narrative.
At least look at your tables before you write.
“Wow! The Cubs are running an average age of 32 years old with their top five and don’t have a single other pitcher projected for more than nine innings. “
I bet you anything he read the K/9 column. Still funny, though.
No, it was 9 IP for everyone outside of the top 5 until update yesterday well after I’d turned in my copy. Kinda funny that he’d assume I just didn’t know how to read as opposed to thinking perhaps something had changed
I’m particularly interested in the Cubs, Phillies, and Rockies rotations here. The projections are pretty conservative on the Phillies and Cubs–who have starters with shorter track records–and pretty bullish on the Cubs, whose starters are pretty much all trending the wrong way.
For the Phillies, I think we may be underrating Velazquez a bit. His stuff is just fantastic, and he pitched like a mid-rotation guy last year. If you look at his major league performance, the big outlier was 2017, not 2018. I think there’s a chance we haven’t seen the best of him yet.
For the Cubs, I think Paul is right that the key is Darvish. If his problems last year were because of injury and he’s healthy now, he’s almost certainly their best pitcher. I am pretty skeptical about Quintana, though. He’s been going the wrong way now for two years, and everyone keeps waiting for him to snap out of it and start suppressing home runs again. The projections can’t believe he could possibly drop over half his value in one year, but maybe this is who he is now.
The biggest issue on Velasquez is the potential that organization runs out of patience with him. He really needs to get out to a good start this year and at least outpitch Eflin or I think there’s a solid chance they trade for a starter and he gets pushed to the bullpen.
“The projections are pretty conservative on the Phillies and Cubs–who have starters with shorter track records”
I am guessing you meant to say conservative on the Phillies and *Rockies* here? I, for one, am kind of surprised by how low Colorado ranks in these projections, given that their rotation was a huge component of the Rockies making the playoffs the past two seasons.
Yep, sorry. Phillies and Rockies.
I think it’s also underrating Pivetta some. I do think the hype is not fully warranted, but he never had awful HR rates in the minors, so maybe he can keep it at or below last year’s 1.32 rate. But the rest is almost entirely BABIP-driven, thanks to the Phillies awful infield the last two years.
I think VV is headed for the pen and we see Drew Anderson or Eickhoff taking his place in the rotation early in the season
Then again, people seem to be forgetting that Darvish posted those mediocre numbers last year before he got hurt.
Both New York’s have so much boom bust potential.
Kilome had Tommy John surgery he’s done for the year, and its a damn shame because he would be a much better next man up than Santiago, Flexen and Lockett. The Mets are stubbornly keeping Lugo in the pen and saying he won’t make any starts, which is silly because I think he’d be the teams fourth best starter, imo.
I’m not high on Matz he hasn’t been all that good since 2016 and is a five inning pitcher with homerun issues and has seen his walk rate go up. That all said, I thought Wheeler should move to the bullpen a year ago and he broke out big time last year, so hopefully I’ll be wrong again.
Vargas is bad and has a terrible fastball and threw it more often than he has before last year for some reason. The Mets have terrible rotation depth and should have signed Gio.
The top three in the rotation is great so I agree with the rankings,
I wouldn’t count out a 5+ WAR season out of Taillon. He’ll be the best starter in the NL Central this year. Love seeing the Buccos, at least, with the best projected rotation in the division that’ll be cutthroat this year.
Give me the Cards’ rotation over the Cub or Yankees anyday.
He doesn’t speak for all of us! I swear!
So basically:
Tier 1 – Indians
Tier 2 – Yanks, Astros, Nats, Red Sox, Mets, Dodgers
Tier 3 – Rays, Bucs, Cubs, Cards, Phils, Rockies, Twins, Dbacks
That’s about right, I’d say. The Rays, with their conspicuous lack of starters in their starting rotation, really aren’t that different than the D-Backs.
Indians big issue is the huge dropoff after the top 5. Not sure what the plan is if someone gets hurt and/or underperforms. And if that happens to more than one starter????
Most people would consider having the best quintet in the major leagues an adequate place to start. Fangraphs begs to differ, however.
since the start of the 2015 season, Syndergaard has loggest just 518 IP. What a shame he is so Charmin soft.
Yikes, people still say Charmin soft unironically?
Only when referring to Dwight Howard
Am I missing something? Isn’t Charmin legit? I tend to be disappointed when I try to save money on Scott or Cottonelle, but Charmin is reliable even if it’s not amazing. The Khris Davis of toilet papers.
People still say “yikes” unironically?
Yikes.
This is a wfan take bro
Did Kilome just set the modern record for fastest return from Tommy John surgery?
Nah, I just Ron Burgundy’d it and used the chart without looking him up. I didn’t know he was out.
The Red Sox are undervalued here. When your #5 is Eduardo Rodriquez with 27 starts, above average for #5’s, along with a 3.65 FIP the rotation is in good shape. Innings are losing importance as managers and teams change their approach. Tampa Bay had two, count’em 2, pitchers throw over 100 innings last year. Toronto had no qualifiers and Baltimore had 1. Innings pitched is becoming as important as wins.
Not really, unless you are saying their rotation is better than the Indians, these projects say they are basically tied for the 2nd best rotation in baseball. A few tenths of a WAR difference doesn’t mean much.
Yeah dude, they are the 5th best rotation (tied for second essentially). The author and the fancy computer algorithm agree with you. Not sure what you’re arguing? The Indians have 5 guys who slot in between a 1-3 starter on any other rotation. That should trump the Red Sox with a guy whose not too bad as a #5.
The negativity surrounding the Indians’ rotation, given the projections here, is baffling and does not reflect well on the people making this roundup. If you read the commentary but did not know the numbers, you would think that they were predicting a #10 finish for the rotation.
Less egregious is the #2 ranking for the Yankees. I frankly would be shocked if their starters are in the top 5 by season’s end.
The Yankees are also strikingly likely to finish behind the Red Sox, but not according to the people running this place….
Now they have Trout until forever. The Angels should make a serious effort to be on this list year in and year out so we might actually see the GOAT playing in November.
It would really help if there were some kind of good starting pitcher right now who they could like give some money to and have him play for their team. Like a mercenary? There’s gotta be a better name for it than that. A person who is free to choose a team to play for who offers him an appealing amount of money.
A free player? Free… free something.
Ranking the Yankee’s rotation as number 2 in baseball, hampered as they already are by injury, with the near certainty of multiple members being unavailable due to further physical limitation in the coming season, is strange.
Even more to the point, their starting pitching talent is not in the top 7 or 8. I think they are going to get hammered by the fates AND the hitters.
They’re predicting low innings totals for all of the Yankees starters, so they’re accounting for the missed time.
They were the fourth-best team at NOT getting hammered last year, then they swapped in James Paxton for an underperforming Sonny Gray. I can’t imagine why they should get so much worse.
The projections are greatly underestimating the Cardinals’ rotation:
Yeah, a regression for Mikolas is likely, but given his good peripherals and excellent WHIP, it shouldn’t be by that much. Expect an ERA in the low 3’s.
Wacha is usually very good when he’s healthy. Expect an ERA somewhere from low to high 3’s.
While a decision hasn’t been made yet, odds are that Martinez will rejoin the rotation by the end of May. At that point, there’s no reason not to expect 4 months of his usual low 3’s ERA.
Your Cardinal-colored glasses are working overtime. I think you’re confusing possible with expectation. Mikolas’ component numbers aren’t that great. He doesn’t walk anyone, but his Ks are pedestrian. Until we see him add Ks, a mid-to-high 3.00s is a fair projection.
I love Wacha but he’s he hasn’t really done enough to deserve a 3.00-something projection at this juncture. His health profile is a mess and his component numbers aren’t particularly strong. I still believe in him when healthy, but I’m not expecting a low-3.00s…. maybe something in the 3.90-4.20 range.
Martinez is a mess right now with his health and hasn’t had a FIP under 3.53 the last 3 years. There’s no reason to project a low-3.00s for him.
I understand being excited for your team, but you have to divorce that from rational, stat-based projections. This Cards team is solid, but they have legitimate question marks w/their pitching.