Now that the 2022 MLB playoffs are underway, it's time for a postseason-flavored update to my in-season ace rankings.
This originally ran at the start of the wild-card round and has been updated as a look at players on teams in this year's division series and only those currently healthy or projected to be healthy very soon. Instead of projecting for the next season, a potential peak season or a full career, this ranking is based on value for this postseason alone, not considering how deep their teams might go. Here's last year's playoff list and this year's April list.
That means past postseason experience counts more than in a conventional ace ranking (and in many cases will act as a tiebreaker), while 2022 performance is more relevant than a multiseason track record, though having both is even better. Some of the best advice I got from scouts and execs that I ran this list by was to prefer currently healthy arms with a recent run of swing-and-miss stuff rather than focusing on name brands with good full-season stats.
Some teams are heavily featured here and thus some of these pitchers could also be used out of the bullpen, but that doesn't diminish for me what they could do as a starter -- if given the shot.
Here are the aces who will rule this October.
Tier 1
1. Justin Verlander, Astros
In a season that Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani have rightfully received a lot of attention for incredible seasons, what Verlander is doing deserves to be mentioned right with them.
He made one appearance combined in 2020 and 2021, his age-37 and age-38 seasons, and it seemingly looked like 2022, coming off of Tommy John surgery, would be the winding down of a Hall of Fame career. Instead he's back in the discussion as the best pitcher in baseball, was the unanimous top choice for this list and is set to hit free agency again with a shot at another nine-figure contract.
On top of all that, he continues to evolve as a pitcher. It was a huge development when Verlander -- long known for his power fastball/curveball combination dating to bursting on the scene as the second overall pick in the 2004 draft -- started to favor a changeup that became his most effective offspeed pitch over his breaking ball. That was during the 2010 and 2011 seasons -- and now a decade later, he's still throwing nearly as hard and is nearly as good overall while rarely even throwing his changeup.
When scouting amateur pitchers, finding the ability to adjust is a bit of a holy grail when it also comes with elite raw talent. Verlander is now one of the best of all-time at figuring out how to make what he does work. This tier would have been more crowded if the Mets had advanced, but his combination of now value and track record puts Verlander in a class of his own among pitchers from the remaining eight teams.
Tier 2
2. Max Fried, Braves
Fried has a track record all the way back to being a top-10 pick out of high school in 2012 and has had a steady rise over the past four seasons, including last year's World Series run, to becoming one of the best pitchers in baseball. He's not a slam-dunk Hall of Famer in his late-30s or a flamethrower with gaudy strikeout numbers, but he has great feel for four pitches that he throws at least 14% of the time each, and all are comfortably above average, with his big curveball a signature pitch.
3. Gerrit Cole, Yankees
Cole would've been a staple near the top of this list for the past four years (I've only written it twice) as he's been the ace of the Yankees and, before that, the Astros (or a co-ace with Verlander) in playoff runs dating to 2018.
His playoff performances have generally been solid -- though last year's only appearance was forgettable. His velocity continues to climb over the years, averaging 97.9 mph this year and his slider has been his go-to off-speed pitch dating to high school, often grading as a grade-70-or-80 pitch to scouts on his best days.
4. Julio Urias, Dodgers
Urias caught fire down the stretch and will be expected to pick up the slack with Walker Buehler out for the year and Clayton Kershaw now more of a potential supporting piece than a true ace. It has been awhile since the Dodgers' vaunted pitching depth has had this many questions, which means Urias will have to keep pitching like he has been.
The rest of the candidates are the about-to-be-healthy Tony Gonsolin, not currently healthy Dustin May and Michael Grove, holy-cow-those-are-better-numbers-than-I-expected Tyler Anderson, I-think-I-can-trust-him Andrew Heaney, and spot-starter-only David Price while break-in-case-of-emergency rookies Bobby Miller and Gavin Stone linger.
5. Aaron Nola, Phillies
Nola has the lowest fastball velocity (92.9 mph on average) of anyone in the top 15 of this list except for Bieber (91.5), but his peripherals (ERA estimators range from 2.58 to 2.74) this year have him knocking on the door of Tier 1 with the highest pitcher fWAR in baseball.
His actual outcomes (3.25 ERA) are a bit behind that though, and there isn't a playoff track record, so combining those with velocity tend to have the experts rounding down on the gaudy peripherals. That said, his last regular season outing (6⅔ IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K) was one of his best of the season.
6. Zack Wheeler, Phillies
Wheeler has quietly been one of the best free agent pitcher deals (non-Scherzer category), already covering his whole deal in performance (13.2 WAR) while only three years through a five-year deal worth $118 million. Like Verlander, he doesn't throw a changeup very often and like Cole, he sits in the mid-to-upper-90s and throws the vast majority of his pitches in the high-80s or higher since a fastball, cutter and slider make up 86% of his arsenal
7. Spencer Strider, Braves
If Strider stayed healthy through the end of the season, he could have very well ended up at the top of this tier. It sounds like he could be back from an oblique problem for the divisional series, so he's ranked. Strider is right there with Manoah with the fifth-best fastball among starters and an aggressive approach that's mostly power-based with his fastball and slider. As a rookie, he has the shortest track record and his fastball usage (highest among starters) could be an issue in the playoffs, but it hasn't been yet, in part because it's a really good pitch.
8. Shane Bieber, Guardians
As mentioned, Bieber has the lowest velo of the pitchers on this list and his one career playoff appearance didn't go that well, but he has been consistently really good in the regular season for five seasons. He has adjusted as his velo has slipped the past few years to now throwing 63% breaking stuff (cutter, slider and curveball, which average in the 82-87 mph band). Bieber's slider has graded out better this year on run value than those of Cole and Carlos Rodon -- and their sliders are their best secondary pitch, so Bieber is leaning into what he does best.
9. Blake Snell, Padres
Snell has a distinct way of pitching. Among starters with 120+ IP this year, he has the fifth-lowest out-of-zone contact rate allowed and the seventh-lowest rate of pitches thrown in the strike zone, but also an above-average rate of first-pitch strikes. He tries to get ahead and then goes deep into counts trying to get hitters to chase. He sits 94-97 from the left side and has crisp offspeed stuff, so the plan usually works.
10. Framber Valdez, Astros
Speaking of playoff experience, Valdez has a lot (eight starts in the past two postseasons) and leads all starters in groundball rate this year by a big margin. There's inherent risk in throwing a bunch of sinkers (even if they're 93-95 mph) and letting hitters put the ball in play when margins are tight, but Valdez's curveball is one of the best in the league.
11. Cristian Javier, Astros
On the other end of the batted-ball spectrum, Javier has the lowest groundball rate among all starting pitchers. He's doing the Lunow-era Astros thing of throwing a lot of riding or rising four-seamers at the top of the zone to great effect, with one of the top-10 heaters in the league. His slider is a solid second pitch, with a good whiff rate, but the second-weakest quality of contact allowed this season, just ahead of Edwin Diaz.
Javier has the 10th-best ERA and the best xERA of all pitchers who have thrown 140 inning this season. That xERA is notable as it grades StatCast data to determine quality of contact (other ERA estimators just use stats like strikeouts and walks) and his extreme flyball tendency means other ERA estimators have trouble projecting his true talent level, while ERA is always a bit noisy due largely to defense and run support. I think Javier will be in the playoff rotation, but is obviously the third-ranked Astro on this list with Jose Urquidy, Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia in the mix for the last two rotation spots.
You could easily include a couple of other pitchers in this tier. In fact, I found it difficult to make a hard cutoff, so here are the rest who could easily fit into this tier, but with an asterisk on the final spot for a choose-your-own-adventure.
The next 11 -- plus one
Luis Castillo, Mariners
George Kirby, Mariners
Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers
Triston McKenzie, Guardians
Nestor Cortes, Yankees
Yu Darvish, Padres
Logan Gilbert, Mariners
Tony Gonsolin, Dodgers
Kyle Wright, Braves
Robbie Ray, Mariners
Joe Musgrove, Padres
For the last spot, you can choose your preferred flavor of starter. Shoot for upside coming off of the IL recently Luis Severino, lean to smaller-name softer-tossers with surprisingly good seasons in Tyler Anderson, you could lean to playoff experience with Luis Garcia, Charlie Morton or choose one of the two that don't find into any of those groups in Jameson Taillon or Ranger Suarez.