Top 50 Starting Pitchers Heading Into 2026 cre TJStats
Oh god this graphic just reminded me of all the Skubal to Dodgers trade rumours
Who said they were rumors and not just premonitions
You know it’s going to happen.
The year is 2028:
Fresh off a new CBA where the luxury tax is abolished, the Dodgers roll out their projected starters of Skubal, Skenes, and Yamamoto for a three game series against the Tigers. In the bottom of the 9th of the third game, the Tigers bring up *insert AAA Toledo Mud Hens batter we were able to afford that wasn’t bought away* to face emergency position player pitcher Shohei Ohtani who allows a bunt single to end the Dodgers attempt at a third consecutive perfect game and the crowd of 100 goes wild before the Dodgers get the last out and take the third game and the series by the scores of 69-0, 67-0, and 68-0.
I’m assuming the series in LA because Detroit fans would probably turn out for that series.
Checks out, Dodger fans are outa there by the 8th inning to beat the traffic
I can see it now. Dodgers trade prospects for Peralta. Trade away Glasnow and/or Snell for prospects and to cut money. Dodgers take prospects they got from trading Glasnow/Snell and trade for Skubal. Dodgers then use the money they “saved” by trading Glasnow/Snell and sign Skubal to a massive extension.
Are you working in the Dodgers front office?
They can’t afford me
Delete this you heathen!
Important caveat to this list is that TJStats is a Fantasy guy. The rankings, whether you agree with them or not, are largely influenced by that. Here’s the full article with rationales.
As you can see, Yamamoto is where he is because of the Dodgers likely going 6-man, which hurts his value for fantasy due to “volume concerns.”
For a guy like Cole, it’s because he’s not due back until June and then, of course, the usual recovering from TJ concerns. In the article, he says someone like Ohtani would be top 10 if he had full usage and not limited by being in a 6-man. On Twitter, I saw him mention Wheeler would be Top 5 if he were healthy.
There’s a lot to these little fantasy-isms to it, so while there’s plenty of issues with the list in a real world setting, I don’t think it’s intended to be viewed that way.
Hey, TJStats here!
My idea was not really to create a fantasy baseball ranking, but I can see why it was considered as such. My goal was to predict the most valuable pitchers for the 2026 season. In that case, volume is very important and a big reason why Logan Webb makes his case for Top 5.
Thank you for sharing my article :)
That you for the context, especially for Webb. I was a little shocked to see him ranked so high before the details
Logan Webb is so excellent, but all the things he’s terrific at seem to be underappreciated. I know he looks like less of a sure bet from afar, but I’d venture to say that the only pitcher Giants fans have ever found this confident in are Lincecum and MadBum
This should be a pinned comment.
Everyone should read this first before you complain like I was about to.
What I find confusing is for Skenes he states that he’s off to one of the best starts to a career in a long time and that he has no signs of slowing down and “the sky is the limit” and then projects him to slow down significantly with an era a whole point worse than last year. If Skenes ERA goes from 1.90 to 2.90 he’s no longer the best pitcher in the NL, so why project him there, especially considering he doesn’t expect his K% or IP to change significantly.
The projections are provided by Steamer, not myself (TJStats)
So what your saying is that I made a mistake picking the entire Rockies starting pitcher lineup for my fantasy team?
We’re just Makin shit up now, huh
No Gavin Williams is laughable. I get he hasn’t earned top 10 or maybe even top 20, but no top 50 seems kind of crazy.
I do agree some of this list is wild. Chase burns at 36, among others. Gavin doesn’t deserve to be on the list. He hasn’t had a year under an xERA of 4. He has a lot of potential if he cuts down on the walks. I love his extension too. His 3.06 era doesn’t match his xERA of 4.30 or his FIP of 4.39 this past season. Which is why they are predicting for him to have a 4.07 ERA and a 4.16 FIP.
seriously. oh, everyone from last year who was in cy voting at the top? okay, duh. gerrit cole at 50? Sonny Grey on the list because he’s on the sox now? no cleveland pitchers, despite being a top 5 pitching team consistently? what are we doing here
Dylan Cease at 11 is insane lol
Depends on how much stock you put in advanced stats vs ERA. His xERA, xFIP, and SIERRA have been consistent. His BABIP has fluctuated wildly. If you get into more granular stuff, like stuff+ his 2023 was an outlier and he’s otherwise been very good since 2021
Top 5 in FWAR since 2021, top 10 since 2023. Seems defensible.
And you’re putting him in front of an infield with Ernie Clement and Andres Gimenez, who both got Gold Glove nominations. There’s every reason to expect his BABIP to be much lower this year.
Tbh the 2025 Padres rotation soured me on overly relying on advanced stats for pitching. The metrics insisted that Pivetta should be mid, Vasquez should be terrible, and Cease should be our ace. But consistently through the whole season, Pivetta was incredibly good, Vasquez was alright, and it was Cease who struggled. I do think that Cease’s 2025 numbers were an anomaly and he will be better in the future but #11 is still too high
I totally understand the impulse. It is just sort of true that pitchers tend to trend toward their peripherals, though. We can calculate FIP for as long as we’ve had reliable box scores, and the fact is there’s just a much stronger correlation from current FIP to future ERA than there is current ERA to future ERA.
I don’t like it when people use poor peripherals to say someone like Pivetta pitched poorly or is bad or whatever because clearly he didn’t and isn’t, but it’s reasonable to expect Cease to be better than him next year based on their peripherals.
Jesus Luzardo at 17 seems high.
Luzardo last season was 6th in pitching fWAR, 4th in K/9, and 6th in FIP. I honestly think he’s flying under the radar because his ERA was a bit inflated.
I think 17th is a more than reasonable projection for him.
17th does seem high to me too given he doesn’t have that big a track record, BUT, if you take away the two implosions from last year I believe he had a sub-3.00 ERA or thereabout.
Correct. 20 of his 80 earned runs this season came over 2 back to back starts. If you remove those, his ERA drops from 3.93 to 3.03.
I’m usually not a big fan of this “remove the outlier” type of analysis, because those were real performances that did count, but in this case I think it’s worth nothing that Luzardo pitched like a top 10 pitcher in 93% of his starts last year.
I saw the BJs logo before I read the name and my brain just assumed it was Yesavage lol
Yesavage was the better story, but Gausman was the ace of our rotation. He pitched very well in the playoffs, just got outdueled by Yamamoto. I would’ve assumed he’d be the top Jays pitcher, but I haven’t watched much of Cease last season.
He absolutely should be, I’m not convinced that Bieber won’t also be a whole hell of a lot better after another offseason of recovery. That rotation is so stacked there’s a non-zero chance Cease is the 4th best SP on that team.
I’m hoping whatever magic Pete Walker worked on Robbie Ray will also help Cease 🤞. Both are high strikeout guys who have a tendency to walk batters.
Common argument amongst baseball fans in 2022⁄2023 that Bieber’s stuff was declining. Then he was dominate for 2 outings in 2024 and immediately tore his UCL. Who’s to say.
It’s very funny that “worse Blake Snell” is exactly one spot behind actual Blake Snell
Finally some respect for Kyle Bradish
2.78 ERA over the past three seasons, with a 4th place finish in the Cy Young vote when he was healthy all year
Yeah but Trevor Rodgers at 45 is a bit off.
I get he’s only been good for 1 year but it still seems low.
Barely more than half a year and while his advanced stats say “good pitcher,” his results were well beyond them and there’s good reason to expect some regression. Bradish has much more consistency between results and advanced stats. As long he’s healthy, he really is one of the best across the board.
I mean you gotta look at the names around him.
Is he better than Carlos Rodon at 43? Rodon is coming off his third 4.5+ WAR season in the last 5 years.
He’s thrown 70 innings over the last two seasons lol acting like he’s some year in, year out stud not getting any respect
For context, in 2024 and 2025, there were 43 individual seasons by relief pitchers with more innings (71.1) than Bradish has pitched over the last two years combined.
Yeah having Tommy John will do that
Correct.
Don’t know how you can miss the majority of the last two seasons and have people clamoring about, “finally some respect”
Because even when he was healthy and finished 4th in Cy Young voting he got no respect.
I still really wish we didn’t make that trade
Shhh!! I’m gonna try to snag him on the low again this year in fantasy…
Can’t wait for Bryce Miller to have his breakout season. League is sleeping on him (understandably)
Jays fans are not, he was supposed to be the worst pitcher in your rotation and he was absolute nails in the ALCS
Him being our playoff Ace after a season of dealing with foreign bodies in his elbow was not on my bingo card. I hope he gets to put it all together this year.
Game 1 of the ALCS legit had me feeling like I needed to fill out one of those apology forms
He was mostly bad this year because he was hurt. Miller was excellent in 2024.
Yeah he definitely made wet fart during the the ALCS
I mean I feel like 2024 was very much a breakout for him. Last season he was battling injury pretty much all year wasn’t he. His 2024 was pretty fuckin good though
In the moment I think his season as a whole was outshined by Logan despite ending with better numbers. Bryce was untouchable from July on but his May and June weren’t great that year. Posted an ERA of 5.22 and 4.68 those months but then drop to 1.80, 2.22, and 1.52 the next 3 months. We came into 2025 thinking Cy Young contention and obviously the injuries derailed building on his 2024. I’m hoping for that full year of dominance I know he can do. Him and Woo back to back going full force is going to be LETHAL.
Webb above Yamamoto is wild
Yamamoto is great and all, but can he do it on a cold rainy night in San Francisco?
Coward would probably refuse to get off the plane in Stoke. He’s not built for it.
If only MLB would’ve allowed us to open the dome when Yamamoto pitched
I mean it’s one spot but Webb has been a model of SP consistency since 2021..
Last year, Webb had 0.5 more fWAR and pitched 34 more innings than Yamamoto, different story than bWAR. Counting stats wise lead all MLB in IP and lead NL in SOs. Yes, playoffs, but Webb is a beast to have over the whole season.
I keep forgetting just how long Webb has been in the league. This was Yamamoto’s first full season in MLB whilst Webb debuted in 2019 and already had over 1,000 IP. Still, I think time will (eventually) show that Yamamoto’s ceiling is higher
Yamamoto’s ceiling is already higher, I think everyone knows it. Webb just chews through innings better than anyone else, and over a whole year that volume is really important.
What more must he do to silence the doubters? Win all four games of the World Series?
He must manage a winning season with the New York Jets
Simple. The Jets won every game they got an interception in. Invest heavily in the beat players at catching interceptions. Go undefeated.
Dodgers players are infamously hated by the media
He would have to win all seven.
Seriously though that man still haunts my nightmares.
perform at or near that level for multiple seasons
I love this thought process as a Madbum lover 😈
If you’re talking about a one game situation, then sure. Webb has been more valuable over the course of a full season and hes done it for longer.
one spot is nothing. 3-6 is interchangable to me. all elite pitchers.
on the conspiracy side, TJ Stats is a Jays fan so maybe they’re still recovering from the heartbreak? also, Cease is too high there holy moly
Idk, seems right to me (ignore my flair)
I would say Trey Yesavage over Gerrit Cole is even hotter of a take…
Season is about consistency while PS is about bringing out full potential for peak performance. Yamamoto has proven peak performance in WS but he still needs to prove consistency over months in a season.
He had like a 2.5 era
He literally just finished ahead of Webb in the Cy Young voting what are you talking about
The disrespect for Yamamoto is seriously wild. Besides Bumgarner, no one has done what he just did last season during the WS.
Overall, regular season stats are pretty much top 5, but offseason stats are top 1 of this current generation.
No one on that list has that many WS wins, 1.2 ERA, 2x rings, and one of the top 3 playoff run in baseball history.
We can all “glamor” and talk up about regular stats due to longevity, but let’s be honest here, we all want the pitcher with a near 1.0 ERA during clutch moments in the end. And that should be weighted heavier when doing a proper power ranking.
I love Trey Yesavage but it’s insane to claim that he’s going to be better than Gerrit Cole in 2026. He’s a rookie!
Cole is coming back from a big injury and is probably not even gonna be available to start the year.
I feel like that’s more a function of Cole being too low than Trey too high tho
Trey shouldn’t be in the conversation for top 50 pitchers. He was awesome in the playoffs, but nobody had seen him before. We have no clue how he’ll adjust to being a regular starter over a whole season. He hasn’t even pitched a full season as a professional!
Yeah but the uncertainty cuts both ways, I don’t think anyone would be surprised to see him in the top 10 next year. I don’t think there are 50 Pitchers I would rather have next year than Yesavage, he’s for sure a lot riskier than say, Trevor Rodgers, but his upside is also much higher.
I think he’s got a massive range of outcomes so they just picked a midpoint one. Don’t have to imagine too hard to see him be the blue jays best pitcher, and also wouldn’t be too shocking to see him struggle and finish the season in AAA.
Gerrit Cole isn’t coming back until May/June.
I mean Gerrit is *35 not 36 coming of Tommy Johns
he has also pitched more than 44 career innings
I think this is more about a snapshot of one season. Most pitchers returning from TJS struggle for a while before returning to form (if they return to form) including Sandy Alcantara and Shane Bieber. Hopefully he doesn’t fall off like Buehler.
Volume likely has a bit to do with it. Cole will miss the first couple months of the season, so just from a WAR standpoint (I’m assuming that’s likely what this is based off of) it could be tough for Cole to out value Trey who should have a full year of innings. Add in the uncertainty of a 35 year old coming off TJ and I can kinda understand it even if I don’t fully agree
Not a single Cub.
Just a rotation of 4’s 😭
No cade Horton but the Miz makes 38. Such a joke lol
Same here with the Snakes, Dodgers have 4 and one of their pitchers hits 50 HRs
Yeah, how embarrassing. What respectful organization would even do that?
I’d take Imanaga over a few guys on this list
No Cade Horton?
Right? He was working his way to RoY before the broken rib.
Look at his FIP not his ERA.
His peripherals are not great. Stats suggest he was a pretty insane luck merchant.
Lots of time to improve the process and show up on next year’s list, though.
Every Cubs pitcher has “insane luck” aka excellent defense backing them up.
Dylan Cease is so overrated dude.
Also, no, George Kirby isn’t a better starting pitcher than Ohtani and Wheeler.
I think this list actually just highlights how few reliable SP there are. Schlittler and yesavage don’t belong here either but they could be better than a lot of these guys
Dylan Cease discourse has been so wild after the Jays signing. If Niebla couldn’t fix his consistency issues that’ve plagued his whole career, Walker’s not exactly going to turn him into Nolan Ryan.
“Meet Potential Ace”
Worth a shot after Walker helped Robbie Ray’s consistency issues.
Edit: Alejandro Kirk is also regarded as a top framing catcher
Niebla is good at helping with pitchers stuff. Cease now has pretty solid stuff. Pete Walker I think can help mentally and simplify his pitch approach.
But you’re right in that a lot needs to be seen. He’s a project being paid as a sure thing. As a Jays fan I hope it works
Wild seeing him this high tbh
But I’ll drink the Kool aid
Kirby is likely to pitch a lot more innings than Ohtani and Wheeler this year. Ohtani because they will be cautious and limit his workload, and Wheeler will miss the start of the year while recovering from serious injury (and will likely have limited workload as well for much of the year)
Wheeler is coming off of thoracic outlet syndrome, if he’s even going to be healthy enough to pitch there’s a decent chance he isn’t as effective as he’s been
Obviously he could prove that wrong, but I understand ranking him lower than you’d think because of that
Impressive showing by the Cubs on this list.
Cubs are the kings of the mid-off
To be fair Justin Steele absolutely WAS a top 10 pitcher. Hopefully will pitch to that in the 2nd half.
Maybe I’m the idiot but I feel like this isn’t very good.
Sanchez ahead of Wheeler? Pivetta over Gerrit Cole or Cam Schlittler?
Sonny Gray at 22?
Etc
Wheeler is only where he is because of concerns over his return from TOS. If he was fully healthy he’d likely be in the top 5.
Sanchez is one of the best in the sport and deserves his place here.
He’d be third if he was healthy.
I mean Wheeler had a very serious injury last year and may not be effective at all in 2026. He may never be an effective pitcher again. If he hadn’t gotten hurt last year I’d probably have him ahead of Crochet, but he’s gonna miss a big chunk of the year and we have no idea what he’ll look like when he returns. Same with Cole (to a lesser extent).
I think this chart is assuming wheeler isn’t 100% coming back from injury, otherwise #26 makes no fucking sense lol
That being said, Sanchez was insane last year and the Cy Young runner up behind Skenes
No disrespect to Sanchez. I like Wheeler a lot
Yeah before wheeler got injured him and Sanchez were basically neck-and-neck stat-wise. If wheeler stayed healthy the Phils very likely would’ve had the #2 and #3 Cy Young candidates last season lol
I’m really hoping wheelers return from injury goes well, especially considering he plans on retiring at the end of his contract. The man needs to finally get his Cy Young
Wheeler is coming off of TOS and Cole is coming back from TJ and won’t be back for a few months at least.
Fangraphs’ projections has Sonny Gray projected at 3.9 WAR (9th highest overall), which puts the Sox as the top organization for starting staff combined WAR.
I’m sure the Fangraphs modelers are smarter than me and have good reasons for their rankings, but it certainly feels high to me.
Ranger Suarez playing for the entire organization??
Idk what you all are so worried about. The Dodgers don’t even have a top 5 pitcher.
The dodgers entire pitching staff could get injured and they’d win the World Series with Kike Hernandez in his little helmet throwing soft pitch for 162 games while the run line is 22.5.
Don’t forget Rojas, who can perfectly imitate every pitcher on the Dodgers
Yamamoto useless confirmed.
they can keep snell on ice all year to keep him fresh
This list is going to age worse than any dairy product
When you know none of your pitchers are in the top 50 and can sit back and watch everyone else argue
Hello, I’m in this post too!
I’ve never seen a pitcher guy by on hype alone quite like Jacob Misiorowski
He certainly doesn’t deserve to be top 50 yet
Certainly good enough to win 2 games against the Cubs in the playoffs though ;)
I mean he is raw as fuck but the tool kit is insane.
Only three teams have four pitchers in this list. Two of them were in the World Series last year.
The other is the Reds.
To be fair, 4 pitchers who were Phillies last year are on the list!
This is Bryan Woo erasure, and I will not stand for it!
Can’t believe I had to scroll all the way down to a comment without upvotes to find someone baffled that Woo is so low. He’s top 5 in my opinion - and the comment section shows that people are sleeping HARD on him.
It’s cool seeing someone other than a mariners fan saying this. His 25 game streak of 6.0 IP + <2 BBs was insane. Not to mention he finished 5th in AL cy voting. Such a shame his injury barred him from most of the playoffs.
No Cubs? 👉🏼👈🏼
To be fair, Cade Horton should absolutely be on here.
Jays have 4 starters in the top 50!
LETS GO
So do my Reds. See you guys in the World Series, right?
until you see the dodgers with 4 in the top 27 lol
Comparison is the thief of joy, lol
And Singer/Lowder as our #5. Might be the best rotation we’ve had during my lifetime
If only we had someone bats.
I love it - I believe it. And believe it or not - this is consistent with Fangraph projections. Blue Jays have the 5th highest projected pitching WAR!
But - despite that - should note that TJ Stats is from Toronto and I’m pretty sure is a Jays fan.
Let’s see how this pans out. I think he’s being fair but important to note that
Just happy to see my guy deGrom back on these lists. Feel like how truly dominant he was is going to get lost to history and it makes me sad.
Yamamoto is too far down the list
Every few days I see posts like this that remind me Framber Valdez might’ve ruined his free agency by being a giant loser. No doubt he’ll get signed for more money than I’ll see in my life but he probably would’ve been signed much sooner for a much bigger haul.
it’s kinda wild for how high in-demand quality SP’s are, and yet every fanbase is having a negative reaction to when their team is linked to him via rumors lol
For sure but seeing your own pitcher deliberately throw at your catcher’s face is a pretty awful stink to wash off.
oh definitely. To be clear, i don’t want him anywhere near our team lol
IDK about Webb over Yamamoto to be honest. Everything else is mostly fine
Cease at 11 is laughable
I mean, is it crazy to think Robbie Ray should be on here? He was pretty decent last season (top 40 at least?) - lots of unproven guys on this list.
TJ generally approaches pitcher evaluations with a heavy focus on stuff, peripherals, and projections. Ray is good but aging and has some reasonable volume concerns considering his injury history. I would imagine he was probably on TJ’s radar for the list and was left off to make way for some young stuff monsters he’s bullish on.
To be clear, I don’t necessarily agree with this approach or list, but that’s the read I get on TJ’s stuff.
Robbie Ray was an honourable mention!
You’re spot on with how I assessed Ray. The strikeouts faded away last season and his knuckle curve just was not the same.
A team can win a division with their best pitcher still technically being a rookie, right? Guys? Anyone?
Don’t worry my guy, we’ll both do it together
Alcantara over Allstar Matt Boyd? 🤔
Cam Schlitler respect
cole ragans ahead of hunter brown?
Cole Ragans above like the next 10-15 guys behind him is weird. Had a very bad year last year and was good the year before, but not great.
Eovaldi at 32 feels wrong as fuck.
Surely there will be no strong opinions about this
I see this list and I just get more and more confused about the Mets off-season priorities lol
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole is now the 4th best SP on the Yankees lol and barely makes the top 50.
I’m gonna call BS for 200, Alex.
As much as I think Chase Burns will be good, putting him above Abbott and Lodolo already is insane, shoutout Bradish and Rogers as well.
The league continues to underrate Andrew Abbott
Not a single Guardians pitcher eh? Gavin Williams? Tanner Bibee? Ouch. Guess we are Cleveland vs the world again.
people are outing themselves here for not knowing ball
The Yoshi disrespect will be noted and recorded.
Rasmussen should be higher.
Go Angels
Miz being on this list is pretty dumb
Emmett Sheehan disrespect, dude’s gonna be nails this year
I like Emmett but he doesn’t belong on this list right now.
Wow someone misspelled Jack Leiter 50 times in a row. How embarrassing for them!
Is anyone actually wanting someone other than Yoshi on their team when October comes around?
I guess if everybody says Luis Castillo isn’t a top 50 pitcher every year they’ll eventually be right. He no longer has the stuff to be a top 20 pitcher year in and year out but come on, how do you look at how he finished last year with throwing 180 innings and say he’s washed
OP chose violence this morning
Where is Gavin Williams. 12-5 with a 3.06 ERA and 173 K’s.
Cade Horton should be top 50
#Not great, Bob
Man not seeing any Diamondbacks. That can’t be right….. right? Right?
Please have a healthy year, Bradish…
yankees fan desperately hoping cole returns to form by 2026
Think Cole and Schittler will definitely be higher at the end of the season
Mets best pitcher is a rookie, please sign someone.
Crazy to see we don’t even have a pitcher in the top 50. We’ve gotten so used to having solid pitching with a CY Young candidate almost every year for the past 10+ years. Really makes you appreciate the Kluber years
Ahh Miles Mikolas isn’t on the list because he’s a free agent. That can be the only reason
/s
Blue jays up in here with 4 of the top 50 starting pitchers
I know it’s prob a toss up and you can defend Webb over Yama and VV. But I’m still triggered lol
There are a lot of former white Sox on this list
Both WS teams have 4 in the top 50
i assume this is with the caveat that if zack wheeler comes back from injury and is at full strength, he is much higher?
cuz like, no offense to everybody not named paul skenes or tarik skubal, but zack wheeler is better than you
it was nice having 4 of these guys in our rotation. we miss you already Mr. Rager
Where the hell is Gavin Williams?
The lack of Gavin Williams here is disturbing
