Athletic MLB Insiders SP Ranking

[Brewcrew82]

Interesting article from the Athletic (subscription required, highly recommend) in which they have insiders from throughout the industry evaluate SPs on a points system (1-100) and then rank them accordingly. As you would expect, the Brewers are featured heavily.

Burnes earns a 97 rating and tied for #2 with Cole and behind Verlander. 2.5 point drop from    2022 preseason. 

Woodruff with an 84 rating and tied for 12th with McClanahan. 8.5 drop from 2022 preseason. 

Peralta with a 50 rating and tied for 49th with Charlie Morton and Tyler Anderson. 13 point drop from 2022 preseason.

Obviously none of our top 3 were as good as they were in 2021, so you can’t complain too much about the drop in points. Burnes is right where I’d put him, though not behind Verlander. I would probably have Woodruff up a couple spots due to how dominant he was post-May. Peralta I think is about 10 spots too low imo, but I can’t argue too much due to how much time he missed last year. The real issue is who he ranks behind; namely, Jack Flaherty. Guy will live off his 2019 2nd half for eternity seemingly, when he’s always injured and not that good anymore even when he does pitch.

https://theathletic.com/4328582/2023/03/23/mlb-aces-project-pitcher-rankings/?source=user_shared_article

[Jake McKibbin]

14 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Interesting article from the Athletic (subscription required, highly recommend) in which they have insiders from throughout the industry evaluate SPs on a points system (1-100) and then rank them accordingly. As you would expect, the Brewers are featured heavily.

Burnes earns a 97 rating and tied for #2 with Cole and behind Verlander. 2.5 point drop from    2022 preseason. 

Woodruff with an 84 rating and tied for 12th with McClanahan. 8.5 drop from 2022 preseason. 

Peralta with a 50 rating and tied for 49th with Charlie Morton and Tyler Anderson. 13 point drop from 2022 preseason.

Obviously none of our top 3 were as good as they were in 2021, so you can’t complain too much about the drop in points. Burnes is right where I’d put him, though not behind Verlander. I would probably have Woodruff up a couple spots due to how dominant he was post-May. Peralta I think is about 10 spots too low imo, but I can’t argue too much due to how much time he missed last year. The real issue is who he ranks behind; namely, Jack Flaherty. Guy will live off his 2019 2nd half for eternity seemingly, when he’s always injured and not that good anymore even when he does pitch.

https://theathletic.com/4328582/2023/03/23/mlb-aces-project-pitcher-rankings/?source=user_shared_article

Flaherty really struggled in his final tune up today, particularly with striking out guys. I think 6 ER's in 3.2 IP and 1 strikeout

[SF70]

2 hours ago, Jake McKibbin said:

Flaherty really struggled in his final tune up today, particularly with striking out guys. I think 6 ER's in 3.2 IP and 1 strikeout

92-95 Flaherty isn’t anything more than an ok backend starter. 

[kestrel79]

It will be interesting to see if velocity is down league wide this year with the pitch clock. Having less time to recover between pitches has to effect how hard you can throw the ball somewhat.

[Jake McKibbin]

2 hours ago, SF70 said:

92-95 Flaherty isn’t anything more than an ok backend starter. 

The cards are banking hard on him stabilizing their rotation, I also don't think Mikolas can be as good as he was last year again, certainly not likely 201 innings. There's real potential for this to just blow up on them

[MrTPlush]

Yes, because Peralta is such a shining example of being healthy and pitching…

Freddy Peralta can’t even manage 100 innings pitched. How high you going to rank a guy who can’t be on the field half the year?

[Brewcrew82]

33 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

Yes, because Peralta is such a shining example of being healthy and pitching…

Freddy Peralta can’t even manage 100 innings pitched. How high you going to rank a guy who can’t be on the field half the year?

Except he has managed over 100 innings pitched before (144.1 IP the year before last). And he's been really good to elite on a rate basis when he has pitched. No one would say Peralta is a shining example of durability at this point, but he's been more durable more recently than Flaherty and has also outperformed him on a rate basis throughout. 

[KeithStone53151]

4 hours ago, Jake McKibbin said:

The cards are banking hard on him stabilizing their rotation, I also don't think Mikolas can be as good as he was last year again, certainly not likely 201 innings. There's real potential for this to just blow up on them

In the regular season, teams that rely on hitting tend to win more than teams that rely on pitching. It's the old, good hitting beats good pitching but great pitching beats great hitting. A team like the cardinals can probably mash their way to the top of the division assuming the hitting works out as intended...even if the pitching is mediocre/bad(which seems likely). Also I would assume they'll make deadline moves to bolster pitching, they have enough ammo in the farm to make moves.

[Brewcrew82]

5 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

In the regular season, teams that rely on hitting tend to win more than teams that rely on pitching. It's the old, good hitting beats good pitching but great pitching beats great hitting. A team like the cardinals can probably mash their way to the top of the division assuming the hitting works out as intended...even if the pitching is mediocre/bad(which seems likely). Also I would assume they'll make deadline moves to bolster pitching, they have enough ammo in the farm to make moves.

I don’t know if there’s going to be any ace type arms available that would move the needle for them. Burnes ain’t happening, in which case we’d likely be out of the race anyways. Bieber if the Guardians are out of it? But otherwise the top pitchers in baseball are heavily distributed amongst contending teams this year.

Cards are taking a huge gamble with that rotation.

 

[Jake McKibbin]

13 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

In the regular season, teams that rely on hitting tend to win more than teams that rely on pitching. It's the old, good hitting beats good pitching but great pitching beats great hitting. A team like the cardinals can probably mash their way to the top of the division assuming the hitting works out as intended...even if the pitching is mediocre/bad(which seems likely). Also I would assume they'll make deadline moves to bolster pitching, they have enough ammo in the farm to make moves.

That's true, but I think you could easily make an argument the Brewers line-up as a parallel is better than the cards rotation, particularly given Flaherty, Matz and Mikolas have missed a ton of time between them, and Wainright is looking hittable with the decreased velo

[KeithStone53151]

5 hours ago, Jake McKibbin said:

That's true, but I think you could easily make an argument the Brewers line-up as a parallel is better than the cards rotation, particularly given Flaherty, Matz and Mikolas have missed a ton of time between them, and Wainright is looking hittable with the decreased velo

The Brewers lineup has a lot of upside with only two spots that I'm confident will have good production(SS/C). A lot of variability in the others, there are a small percentage of outcomes that it's better than the Cardinals lineup straight up this year. On paper right now the teams are overall close in my opinion.

[KeithStone53151]

14 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I don’t know if there’s going to be any ace type arms available that would move the needle for them. Burnes ain’t happening, in which case we’d likely be out of the race anyways. Bieber if the Guardians are out of it? But otherwise the top pitchers in baseball are heavily distributed amongst contending teams this year.

Cards are taking a huge gamble with that rotation.

 

Pitching is so volatile, a couple guys will come out of nowhere and be reeeeeeally good. They don't necessarily need a Cy young candidate pitcher. Someone like Merrill Kelly would be very helpful for any rotation.

[Brewcrew82]

23 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

Pitching is so volatile, a couple guys will come out of nowhere and be reeeeeeally good. They don't necessarily need a Cy young candidate pitcher. Someone like Merrill Kelly would be very helpful for any rotation.

They already have a Merrill Kelly in Miles Mikolas. Not that he wouldn't be helpful in providing quality innings during the regular season, but again, what they lack compared to every other contender, including the Brewers, is big arm, ace pitching. They're going to have a hard time going with Mikolas, Wainwright, and Montgomery against the likes of Verlander, Scherzer, Fried, Strider, Wheeler, Nola, Burnes, Woodruff, Urias, Darvish, etc. It's probably the biggest reason why they've sucked in the postseason recently. 

[KeithStone53151]

5 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

They already have a Merrill Kelly in Miles Mikolas. Not that he wouldn't be helpful in providing quality innings during the regular season, but again, what they lack compared to every other contender, including the Brewers, is big arm, ace pitching. They're going to have a hard time going with Mikolas, Wainwright, and Montgomery against the likes of Verlander, Scherzer, Fried, Strider, Wheeler, Nola, Burnes, Woodruff, Urias, Darvish, etc. It's probably the biggest reason why they've sucked in the postseason recently. 

Fair point. They might have to go for an impact reliever or two and utilize their starters like the 2017-2019 brewers if a big time starter doesn't come available. How gross would it be having to deal with Hader in a Cardinals uniform if the Padres start poorly?