MLB’s best starting rotation? Yankees, Mets among top candidates
Multiple Cy Young winners have switched teams in what has been a wild offseason. But when it comes to the finest rotations, the teams at the top figure to be very familiar in 2023.
We asked the FOX Sports MLB writers to select their favorite starting five and got varied responses. Interestingly, no one chose either of the two clubs responsible for the lowest ERAs in 2022 (the Dodgers and Astros).
Here are four different cases for the best pitching rotation in baseball.
Let’s be honest: Our most recent glimpse of this rotation was a train wreck wrapped in a dumpster fire coated in disaster. In the National League Divison Series against the Phillies, Atlanta’s starters, except for Kyle Wright, got pummeled into dust by the Philadelphia offense. A sick Max Fried (the dude was blowing chunks in the clubhouse) posted the worst start of his season in Game 1, an injured Spencer Strider and his 93 mph fastball got eviscerated in Game 3 and a 38-year-old Charlie Morton looked like a 38-year-old in Game 4.
But a disappointing finish shouldn’t overshadow what this group accomplished during the regular season.
Once Strider joined the rotation at the end of May, only Los Angeles and Houston had lower rotation ERAs over the season’s final four months. The Dodgers have since lost Walker Buehler to Tommy John and Tyler Anderson to free agency. Houston no longer signs Justin Verlander’s checks. Strider and his tight pants, trademark mustache and outrageous 13.8 K/9 will be atop Atlanta’s rotation for at least the next six years.
And heading into 2023, no rotation in baseball can boast such a tantalizing combination of ceiling, youth and reliability. Fried is 29. Strider, the Rookie of the Year runner-up, is 24. Wright is 25. All three were spectacular in 2022 and are safe bets to continue or even improve upon that dominance in ‘23.
Fried might be the best left-handed pitcher in the world. Carlos Rodón and Julio Urías would disagree, sure, but the lanky Californian has compiled quite a formidable résumé. Since 2019, he’s thrown the fourth-most innings among wrong-handed starters (with a tidy 3.06 ERA) and the three guys above him on that list — Robbie Ray, Marco Gonzales and Patrick Corbin — are all ... not the best lefty in the world.
Wright quietly had one of the biggest come ups in 2022. After years of inconsistency, the former fifth overall pick blossomed into a legit No. 2 starter, tossing 180.1 innings of 3.19 ERA ball. Also, he won 21 games, so you know the guy just wants it more.
Behind that top three is the 39-year-old Morton, who wasn't the maestro he'd been his previous three full seasons, still projects as a solid mid-rotation starter. Eventually time will come for him as it does for all of us, but the Braves clearly don’t think that time is now considering they just gave him $20 million dollars to keep him from retiring.
The fifth spot in the rotation will go to either Ian Anderson, Mike Soroka or Bryce Elder, one of whom should turn in 25 or so capable starts.
In a short series, I understand if the potential dominance of a Max Scherzer/Verlander or a Gerrit Cole/Rodón duo is too much to pass up, but over 162, I’ll take Atlanta’s young top three against anybody.
— Jake Mintz
You could quibble with the relative steps back in 2022 for Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff atop the Brew Crew rotation following outrageously dominant 2021 campaigns, but I’m not gonna waste my time lauding the talents of those two. I think most fans recognize how good they are, and their overpowering arsenals speak for themselves. But any argument about a team having the best rotation in MLB has to go beyond the names at the top, so let’s go deeper.
Freddy Peralta had sky-high expectations entering 2022 after producing a legitimately historic campaign in 2021 — all he did was post the lowest single-season batting average against of any pitcher with at least 25 starts in MLB history. Even in a season interrupted by injury — the right-hander missed all of June and July with shoulder trouble — Peralta actually posted a lower FIP (3.06) than in his breakout 2021 campaign (3.12) and was once again top-five among starting pitchers with at least 70 innings pitched in BAA (.183), his true superpower. Shoulder injuries are admittedly terrifying, so betting on the durability here may be foolish, but the point is, when Peralta has been on the mound, he’s been damn close to elite.
We’ve seen how good this group can be in 2021 with Burnes, Woodruff and Peralta firing on all cylinders, but the real X-factor moving forward for the Milwaukee rotation is 24-year-old southpaw Aaron Ashby. The 4.44 ERA in his sophomore season may not jump off the page, but the bat-missing component was firmly in place in his first full big league season. The Brewers were the only team in baseball in 2022 with three pitchers to throw at least 100 innings with a K/9 of at least 10 (Burnes, Woodruff and Ashby). If Ashby can continue to rein in the loose command he’s battled over the course of his prospect ascent, it’s not hard to imagine Ashby unlocking another level in the not-so-distant future.
Stuff-wise, lefty Eric Lauer is the consummate back-end starter, but that undersells his general durability and penchant for run prevention: his 3.47 ERA over the last two seasons ranks 30th among 83 starters with at least 250 innings pitched, smack between Adam Wainwright and Pablo López. If he’s your No. 5, you’re in really good shape.
Without many other starters likely to change teams and swing the needle before Opening Day, FanGraphs currently projects Milwaukee’s starting pitching as the third-best by fWAR. With another step forward from Ashby and a healthier 2023 for Peralta, the Brewers could lay legitimate claim as the best rotation in baseball by the end of the season.
— Jordan Shusterman
After an offseason filled with change, The New York Mets’ rotation now offers the most complete blend of potential and certainty.
Co-aces Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are both pushing 40, but they combined to make 51 (mostly) elite starts over the 2022 regular season. If they can come close to replicating that performance, the Mets will be in great shape.
Kodai Senga, a longtime Nippon Professional Baseball star, offers significant upside as a No. 3 starter. And Carlos Carrasco and José Quintana are back-end starters who pitched more like mid-rotation options this year. What’s more, each of the Mets’ five projected starters threw at least 145 innings in 2022. The same is not true for some of the other teams thought to have top rotations, including the Yankees.
The Mets have done so much else this offseason that their rotation additions can feel like an afterthought. We get it. They also lost the man who, when healthy, is pretty clearly baseball’s best pitcher. But Jacob deGrom wasn’t particularly healthy over the past three years, and there’s no reason to expect that to change as he ages.
Really, then, owner Steve Cohen and general manager Billy Eppler managed this winter to increase the certainty within the Mets’ rotation while retaining almost as much of the upside. It’s a significant feat, and it’s a major reason the team is projected to be so great in 2023.
There are risks here, for sure. As mentioned, both Scherzer and Verlander are old. Senga has never pitched in the majors. Carrasco was awful in 2021. It wasn’t long ago that Quintana was a waiver-wire pickup.
But these are modern starting pitchers. It’s a risky field. The Mets’ rotation isn’t any riskier than many peers, and it might be much more effective.
— Pedro Moura
The worst pitcher in the Yankees’ five-man rotation is probably the guy who finished sixth in American League Cy Young Award voting two seasons ago.
The best is subjective. You could choose the pitcher who finished sixth in NL Cy Young Award voting this year in his second straight All-Star season.
Or, maybe you’d go with the five-time All-Star still in his early 30s who led the majors in strikeouts in 2022 while finishing ninth in Cy Young voting. Or, if you’re feeling particularly audacious, maybe you’d pick the pitcher who finished eighth in AL Cy Young voting this year in his first All-Star campaign.
Of course, there’s also the guy who earned back-to-back All-Star selections in 2017-18 and finished in the top 10 in Cy Young voting both seasons, all before turning 25.
If it’s difficult to match which is which from the above to Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and Frankie Montas, that’s completely fair and speaks to the embarrassment of riches at the disposal of the best rotation in baseball. If you don’t want to take my word for it, perhaps FanGraphs’ projected WAR totals can help solidify that belief.
Sure, there are always risks in a rotation. Rodón had never thrown more than the 178 innings he tossed last season. Cole made more starts last year than any pitcher in baseball and served up 33 homers. Cortes just had a breakout season and lacks a sustained track record of success. Severino has thrown all of 120 innings since the start of the 2019 season, most notably missing time coming back from Tommy John surgery. A shoulder issue nagged at Montas, who did not have the finish to the 2022 season that he would’ve liked.
But in Domingo Germán and Clarke Schmidt, the Yankees possess the depth to handle an injury or two. And if even most of the Yankees’ starting pitchers throw to their capabilities, it’s difficult to imagine another rotation in baseball offering more.
Cole, who finished with 257 strikeouts last season, was the third-best pitcher among this group by wins above replacement after Rodón (5.4 bWAR) and Cortes (4.2 bWAR). Cole and Rodón finished first and third, respectively, in strikeouts last season, and now offer one of the top tandems in baseball to combat their inner-city rivals. As much attention as the Aaron Judge re-signing rightfully received, the Rodón addition takes an already stacked Yankees pitching staff and ascends it above the rest of the competition.
— Rowan Kavner
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