Aces. Studs. Horses. We're over a month into the Major League Baseball season and it's time to check in on the power dynamic at the game's most pivotal position–the starting pitcher. The game is filled with talented hurlers who are taking the ball every fifth day and shutting down the opposition and they're all chasing the same goal at the end of the year: a Cy Young Award.
Today, we examine the most likely candidates to take home the award at the end of the season, not only based on production at the start of this season, but track record and underlying metrics as well. It's a half-reflective, half-predictive system where we acknowledge who the best pitchers have been up to this point, but give extra weight to the stars who have proven they can stay at the top of the heap for a full season.
In addition, we're giving extra weight to volume at this point in the year, rather than just going by ERA, which is normalized on a per-inning basis. Yes, the ultimate goal of pitching is to keep runs off the board, but a baseball season is so long that a pitching staff needs to rely on an ace who can work deep into games and save the bullpen for the stretch run. The workhorses that are proving they can shoulder a heavy workload merit extra consideration on an early-season list like this one.
All set? Let's count down the five top Cy Young candidates thus far in both the American and National Leagues:
National League
There are a number of deserving candidates in the National League. However, Philadelphia Phillies star Zack Wheeler leads the way.
1. Zack Wheeler, Phillies
The Phillies have had the best starting pitching in baseball this season, but Zack Wheeler has arguably not been their best pitcher in terms of raw numbers. That distinction could just as easily belong to NL Pitcher of the Month Ranger Suárez, who we'll get to in a bit. But ask any Phillies fan who they trust to carry the freight for the rest of the season and you'll get the same answer: it's the guy the Phils just made the highest-paid pitcher in franchise history this past offseason.
Zack Wheeler's seven-inning, zero-earned run, 11-strikeout performance Monday afternoon solidified his spot at the top. His 63 strikeouts tie for the lead in all of baseball and after being victimized by minimal run support early on, he's earned wins in each of his last four starts. He also took over the NL ERA lead at 1.64 and leads in FIP as well at 2.29. There are no boxes Wheeler does not check when trying to predict future performance as the season moves forward.
2. Tyler Glasnow, Dodgers
Strikeouts are king at this time of year and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Tyler Glasnow is tied with Wheeler for the MLB lead at 63. He also leads the majors with 50 innings pitched, which is a big deal for Glasnow specifically, given that he's never logged more than 120 innings in a big league season before. 2024 is a chance for Glasnow to prove he can make it through a full campaign as the ace of a staff and so far, he's more than delivering on expectations.
We've always known that on any given day, Glasnow could be the single most dominant pitcher on a big-league mound. He simply needs to prove he can make it through a full healthy season, both to put himself in contention for awards like the Cy Young and give his team a shot at winning a championship. The Dodgers gave him a lucrative five-year extension to prove he could do so, but only time will tell if Glasnow can keep this dominance up and keep himself on the mound.
3. Ranger Suárez, Phillies
Though his teammate Wheeler took over the NL ERA lead, Ranger Suárez still leads all starting pitchers in WAR with 2.1, despite making one fewer start than Wheeler and several other aces to this point. The 28-year-old is going deeper into games than he ever has before, has a perfect 6-0 record with a 1.72 ERA and leads MLB with a staggering 0.72 WHIP.
The only thing keeping Suárez in the three spot is lack of experience. He's never made an All-Star team or received a Cy Young vote and this is only his third season as a full-time starter, with a 3.88 combined ERA in the previous two. But he ticks every other box from control to walk and strikeout rates to preventing hard contact. The Phillies hit the lottery with Suárez as their preseason number three starter and there's reason to believe they could have the top two Cy Young finishers at the end of the year in the same rotation, which has only happened five times in MLB history, per MLB.com's Sarah Langs.
4. Shota Imanaga, Cubs
Few pitchers have ever entered the league with the authority Shota Imanaga has displayed in his first six starts. His 5-0 record, 0.78 ERA and 0.75 WHIP indicate that not only is he already proving to be a massive bargain for the Chicago Cubs, but the league simply hasn't caught on to what he's doing to keep them off balance. Which leads to the biggest question surrounding not only the Cubs, but perhaps the entire National League in 2024: what will happen when Imanaga starts facing lineups the second time around?
Coming from Japan at 30 years old with a 91-93 mph fastball, it wouldn't appear on the surface that Imanaga's raw stuff would be enough to overpower big league hitters, but that fastball has so much ride through the zone that no one is ready for it on the first go-around. Imanaga himself has even acknowledged in an interview with ESPN that he doesn't think he's proven anything yet, because the league has yet to have time to adjust to his arsenal. So perhaps some regression is to be expected, but if Imanaga can prove he is indeed one of the five best pitchers in the NL, it makes Chicago one of the top contenders for a pennant rather than a plucky underdog.
5. Sonny Gray, Cardinals
He doesn't yet have enough innings to qualify for the league lead, but Sonny Gray has a 0.89 ERA, which is the second-best in baseball behind Imanaga among all pitchers with at least five starts. Ever since returning from a shoulder injury to begin the season, Gray has been the savior of the St. Louis Cardinals, perhaps the main reason why despite being in last place, they're not completely out of the hunt yet as they were by mid-May of last season.
And if you really want an indicator of how superb Gray has been, let's go back to the start of 2023. In that last season-plus, Gray has made 37 starts and leads all starting pitchers with a 2.52 ERA and 2.65 FIP. Better than Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell, the Cy Young winners, and better than any of the other stars ahead of him on this list. Gray is a name who we should perhaps expect to rise rather than fall as the season progresses and later iterations of these rankings emerge.
American League
The American League features many up-and-coming stars. Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers has established himself as a legitimate ace so far in 2024.
1. Tarik Skubal, Tigers
Every baseball geek under the sun was hyping Tarik Skubal as a darkhorse Cy Young candidate coming into the season, so much so that the term “darkhorse” no longer carried any weight. After putting up tremendous stats in an 80.1-inning sample size in 2023, Skubal's electric stuff and elite peripheral numbers seemed to indicate an even bigger breakout was in the cards. So far, that notion has appeared extremely accurate.
Skubal has a 1.90 ERA in 42.2 innings, ranks fourth in the AL with 53 strikeouts and leads the league in WHIP at a stingy 0.77. He'd have stiff competition in the voting if the award were decided today, but the fact his WHIP and FIP (2.06) are so low seems to indicate that what he's doing is the most sustainable among those other AL contenders. To top it off, his Baseball Savant page is a mosaic of red circles. Every shred of evidence we have suggests Tarik Skubal has fully blossomed into one of the elite hurlers in the game today.
2. Logan Gilbert, Mariners
It's a little unfair to call Logan Gilbert the “forgotten man” in the Seattle Mariners' rotation, but coming into the season, there was at least a kernel of truth to that notion. Luis Castillo and George Kirby were the Cy Young frontrunners, while young guns Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo were the next wave waiting to take over the reins. But through seven starts, it's no contest: Gilbert has been the most dominant and consistent Mariners starter, taking a big step forward in his career trajectory in the process.
Gilbert is tied for the big league lead with six quality starts, has a 1.69 ERA in 48 innings, is third in starting pitcher WAR at 1.9 and leads the AL in hits allowed per nine innings at a measly 4.7. He's channeling the elite extension he's always had as a 6-foot-6 specimen into vastly increased whiff rates on his slider and splitter. When you have less distance to gauge where the pitch is headed, you tend to look silly at the plate and that's been the key to Gilbert's newfound mastery in 2024.
3. José Berríos, Blue Jays
If you remove José Berríos' red herring 2022 season, in which he had a 5.23 ERA and led the AL in hits allowed, the Puerto Rico native has pretty much been an upper echelon starter for the entirety of his nine-year career. He's never finished higher than ninth in Cy Young voting, but he's logged exactly 32 starts in every full season since 2018 and his ERA is consistently in the mid-threes. This year, he might be taking the extra leap forward.
Since he's been around so long, we might tend to overlook the fact that Berríos is only 29. Skubal, who everyone considered a breakout candidate heading into the year, is just two years younger. With an MLB-leading 1.44 ERA, Berríos is shutting down opposing offenses like he never has before. The only reason he ranks third instead of first is his FIP and xERA are above four, so we need to see him continue his elite production another month or two before we fully buy into his season being an elite one.
4. Seth Lugo, Royals
Before the season, if you were told the Royals would be good and you were asked to identify the three players most responsible for their success, it's likely you would have nailed the first two: Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez. But even if told the third would be a starting pitcher, upwards of 90% of people likely would have said Cole Ragans. Ragans has been solid, but converted longtime relief pitcher Seth Lugo has been the driving force behind the entire pitching operation.
Why is Lugo so good all of a sudden as a 34-year-old with just 12.7 career WAR? Well, for one, he's expanded his arsenal to include eight pitches. How do you game plan for someone with more offerings than there are buttons on a PlayStation controller? And he's channeling all that deception into a 1.60 ERA and 1.02 WHIP in 45.0 innings. With only 31 strikeouts, Lugo will have to keep his ERA minuscule to stand a real chance at winning a Cy Young, but what he's doing for an emerging Kansas City team has to be applauded.
5. Kutter Crawford/Tanner Houck, Red Sox
We couldn't do this list without acknowledging the incredible turnaround of the Boston Red Sox' starting rotation and trying to decide between Kutter Crawford and Tanner Houck is like choosing a favorite side of the KitKat bar. In terms of WAR, ERA and allowing hits, it's Crawford. But Houck has his teammate in innings pitched, strikeouts, WHIP and FIP. There's really no right answer.
And the thing that makes what Crawford and Houck are doing extra special is that everyone else in their starting rotation as of Opening Day has already spent significant time on the injured list. Neither Crawford nor Houck had ever been through a full season as a starter, making Brayan Bello and Nick Pivetta the de facto top two in the Red Sox' rotation, while Garrett Whitlock was in a similar boat with Crawford and Houck. All three of those others have missed at least three trips through the rotation, making Crawford and Houck insanely valuable to their team and worthy of Cy Young consideration given the surprise 19-16 start to the season.
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