Of all the positions to rank in 2024, starting pitchers are easily the most challenging. Pitchers in today's MLB have pushed the sport–and their bodies to the absolute limit. This isn't the game your parents grew up watching. The stuff is far more explosive, yet throwing a ball as fast as humanly possible comes with a cost.
Sadly, that means many of the starting pitchers who make MLB so fun to watch won't be joining us to start the season. Some won't be expected to throw a single pitch in 2024, which is a tremendous bummer. It also necessitates, as we journey into this segment of the MLB positional rankings, that we make some decisions about who is eligible and who is not.
There isn't necessarily a clear way to do so, because many of the best pitchers in MLB have been injured at different times. But for simplicity, if a pitcher is recovering from either Tommy John surgery or some other injury that ended their 2023 season or took place this offseason, we'll be leaving them off. We'll shortly talk about some of the names who would have likely made this list if not for those injuries.
So with that said, let's dive on in and rank the crop of stud pitchers MLB has to offer up!
Injured List: Sandy Alcantara, Shane McClanahan, Jacob deGrom
Right off the bat, it is brutal that we don't know when we'll next get to see any of these stars toe the slab. Alcantara was coming off a Cy Young this time last season, McClanahan may have taken one home if not for his injury last summer, and deGrom may still be the best pitcher on Earth when he's available to perform. The sooner we get each of these three back on a big-league mound, the better baseball is as a product.
Just Missed: Sonny Gray, Kodai Senga, Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez
On any given day, one of these four could dominate the best lineups in the league without issue. Gray and Senga currently don't have targeted start dates to their seasons, so that's more injury malarkey that stinks for all involved. Verlander, 41 years old now, still pitched well last season, while Valdez saw some rough patches while still logging a ton of innings. You can't go wrong with any names here, but they ever-so-slightly missed the cut.
10. Luis Castillo, Mariners
Luis Castillo had to feel like he won the lottery in 2022 when he was traded from one of the worst parks to pitch in (Great American Ball Park) to one of the best (T-Mobile Park). Since then, he's done nothing but log innings and dominate, culminating in a top-five Cy Young finish in 2023. And the best part for Mariners fans is he isn't even getting the most buzz to win the award on his own staff in the upcoming season thanks to rising star George Kirby. But be warned: nobody should make the mistake of sleeping on Luis Castillo.
9. Pablo López, Twins
The Twins traded two-time defending batting champ Luis Arraez to the Marlins last offseason and no smart baseball fan can argue they lost the trade. Pablo López racked up 234 strikeouts in 194 regular season innings and then topped it off with two stellar starts in October. Minnesota let Sonny Gray walk to St. Louis without putting up much of a fight, in part because it's clear they believe Lopez is the true ace of their staff. If the Twins win more playoff series this season, it will be because that notion was indeed correct.
8. Zac Gallen, Diamondbacks
There were two performances by Zac Gallen that spoke volumes about his makeup last season, even as his overall numbers dwindled a bit down the stretch. One was when he threw a complete game shutout at Wrigley Field against the Cubs in September, when the two teams both knew they were fighting each other for one of the Wild Card spots. The other was when he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning in a do-or-die Game 5 against Texas in the Fall Classic. He may be at number eight on the list, but he can be anyone's number one when he brings his best stuff to the table.
7. Logan Webb, Giants
Logan Webb does have the benefit of an excellent pitcher's park in San Francisco, but he of all MLB pitchers doesn't particularly need it. He's been the most consistent ground ball merchant in the league since breaking in as a rookie in 2021, a skill that translates from ballpark to ballpark above all others. Combine that with the fact he threw an MLB-high 216 innings last season and you have a recipe for a lot of wins coming the Giants' way when Webb takes the hill.
6. Blake Snell, Giants
Can you believe this guy is teammates now with the guy we just finished talking about? Yes, Snell has been markedly better in his two Cy Young years than his other years, and yes, he walks a lot of batters. He's been relatively durable compared to other pitchers of his caliber, though, and he has often said that destigmatizing walks has allowed him to keep the crooked numbers off the scoreboard. No one is excited about seeing Snell staring at them on the mound in a must-win game, even if it's only for five or six innings.
5. Kevin Gausman, Blue Jays
You don't see a lot of breakout seasons from starting pitchers at age 30 after eight up-and-down seasons with four different franchises. But Gausman has been a one-man wrecking ball since the start of his 2021 with the Giants, never finishing lower than ninth in Cy Young voting. He's also made 95 starts in that time span, making him just as valuable for his durability as the quality of each of those starts individually.
4. Corbin Burnes, Orioles
Something about Corbin Burnes being traded to the Orioles felt like justice being served. Going back to last offseason's arbitration battle, the relationship between Burnes and the Brewers appeared to be permanently soured. Meanwhile, the Orioles were sold to an ownership group full of local ties and instantly signaled that a “win now” mentality was taking hold by making the trade. Even if this is a one-year partnership, Burnes has every incentive to pitch his tail off in Camden Yards—which, reminder, is a pretty serious pitcher's park now.
3. Zach Wheeler, Phillies
Somehow, Zach Wheeler has only made an All-Star team once in his career—in 2021, when he also led all pitchers with 7.5 WAR. But when the cards are on the table, no one has been more steady, especially in the month of October, over the past three seasons. Having earned himself the most lucrative contract extension for any pitcher in history, Wheeler now sets out on a mission to prove to the baseball world that he's worth every last penny.
2. Spencer Strider, Braves
Spencer Strider has 483 career strikeouts in 320.2 innings. That's a rate of 13.6 K/9, for those keeping track at home. For all the talk about his slightly inflated ERA, Strider led the National League in FIP last season, a metric that attempts to correct for batted ball luck, both good and bad. Plus, Strider added a nasty 12-6 curveball to complete his arsenal, and has looked like the most dominant pitcher on any Spring Training mound. There's a reason betting markets have him as the clear NL Cy Young frontrunner.
1. Gerrit Cole, Yankees
There will be no anti-Yankees bias accusations today. Gerrit Cole seems to have dodged the initial bullet regarding his injury diagnosis, and assuming he does indeed come back around the middle of the season, there is no reason to believe he won't continue to dominate while logging workhorse innings. Getting the Cy Young monkey off his back was also enormous for Gerrit Cole, allowing him to center his focus in the latter stages of his career squarely on a championship.
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