My Top 50 MLB Players for 2024, Part 1 (1-25)
I did this for the first time a year ago, and the results went in my favor. Can I repeat my success?
Another year, another top 50 list. A couple things to go over before I begin with the first 25:
As with last year, I view injuries generally as noise. There are a few exceptions (Buxton, Kershaw, Trout, etc.) who deserve it as a consideration, but I remember when Aaron Judge was considered injury-prone and Max Fried was an anchor in the rotation. People get hurt, it happens.
I exclude all players unlikely to play most of the year, so guys like McClanahan and Woodruff also miss the list. I only considered Ohtani’s hitting this year in line with this rule. I don't think it’d make much sense otherwise.
Think of it like a fantasy draft ranking, based on prorated performance next season, with position taken into account (assuming sufficient guaranteed playing time). The valuations are based on batting FanGraphs WAR (fWAR) per 650 plate appearances and pitching Baseball Reference WAR (rWAR) per 180 innings pitched, to make the grading criteria concrete.
Alright, here we go.
Aaron Judge - 31 - OF - New York Yankees (2023 Rank: 3)
All rise for the #1 player on my ranking. After Trout’s slight offensive decline in a half-season of play, and Ohtani’s torn UCL limiting his ability to pitch, Judge slides up to a deserved #1 position on my list entering 2024. In my list last year, I described Judge’s 2022 as a year of offensive dominance that was unlikely to maintain itself in another year of play. While he didn’t play the whole year, the 106 games he managed to appear in proved that he maintained, and potentially even improved on his herculean form from 2022. He punished fastballs with the same vitriol that he did in 2022, and improved against breaking balls, despite worse results on the surface and far higher whiff rates. An improved barrel rate (1st), average exit velocity (EV) (1st), and 90th Percentile EV (1st) makes those few sacrifices well worth it, leading to an other-worldly 64% hard-hit rate (61% in 2022, and 1st, of course). A good sign is that the additional swings and misses come from smart decisions, with chase rate at a career-low and zone swing rate at the same level as usual, leading to the 5th-highest SEAGER of all players with at least Judge’s amount of PAs, a metric recently devised by Robert Orr that evaluates quality of swing decisions.
Judge arguably improved in 2023, after an already monstrous 2022.
According to SwingGraphs, Judge also was able to maintain his otherworldly swing path efficiency. He was one of the top players in vertical bat angle (VBA) in 2022, the measure of the angle of the bat when it makes contact with the ball, but he became the best amongst regulars in VBA in 2023, with a 2° improvement to 42.5°. While this may not directly explain the 7% decrease in groundball rate he experienced, it definitely didn’t hurt his ability to get copious amounts of flyballs.
With the Verdugo trade, the running belief, tentatively confirmed by the man in charge himself, is that Judge will roam center field next year. This didn’t factor in my decision at all, but one has to wonder how he’ll perform there at age 32. At age 30, he put up 1 out above average (OAA) in around 80 games worth of play there, but he’ll never be that young again. One has to believe reps at 1B and DH have to seriously increase at some point to preserve the third-of-a-billion dollar investment; I don't mean to throw anyone under the bus, but how long can Stanton have an iron grip on the DH slot in the order? He’s 34, and Soto, Judge, and Dominguez will all demand some DH time this year, either to get them out of the field for defensive inadequacy (the former) or for potential health concerns (the latter two). Something’s gotta give.
Ronald Acuna Jr. - 26 - OF - Atlanta Braves (2023 Rank: 16)
Despite Acuna’s incredible talent, his transformation in the 2023 season was virtually impossible to predict. He managed to drop his K rate from 23.6% to a shocking 11.4%, while ranking 2nd in average and median EV (all to the man ranked directly above him), and 9th in 90th percentile EV. He made 5% more contact in the zone and 8% more contact outside of it, which is a truly preposterous improvement in just one offseason. The reduction in K rate was the largest in MLB this year, with Bellinger just behind him, and he was 10th and 7th in in-zone and out-of-zone contact improvement, respectively. Paired with the 3rd-best SEAGER in the league, indicating he’s swinging at extremely high value pitches and laying off poor ones, Acuna has evolved into a truly generational hitter.
The facts above may have had him as the best player in the league in some years, but he still has some flaws that I can nitpick. A key one is his speed: he’s averaged 28.2 mph since returning from surgery, only a bit above league-average, and more than an mph less than his prior marks. He stole 73 bases despite the regression, but it hurt him both in his stolen base efficiency, with a success rate only 4% better than average, and defensively, putting up a poor -9 OAA and -4 fielding run value (FRV) in RF last year, saved only by a rocket arm. Acuna’s other flaw is his ability to elevate the ball - his 42nd percentile sweet spot rate on a slightly above-average swing path isn’t great, and a 48% groundball rate would be problematic if he didn’t crush the ball constantly.
Of the top two, I believe Acuna is less likely to repeat their peak season. Acuna’s speed and contact style provides less value than the power and discipline combo of Judge, and Acuna’s regression in speed hurts his production on groundballs and in the field as well. Amongst his peers in this echelon of offensive output, only Juan Soto is anywhere close in balls hit into the turf, and he can draw walks at a rate that Acuna simply can’t. The groundball rates only spiked post-surgery, so if Acuna can rectify that problem to some extent, he could be a true monster.
Mookie Betts - 31 - 2B/SS/OF - Los Angeles Dodgers (2023 Rank: 4)
Mookie Betts decided to turn back the clock in 2023, putting together a comprehensive offensive season that got closer to matching his 2018 MVP season than any prior. His production was primarily from a 27.8% groundball rate, the lowest in the league amongst qualified hitters, which allowed him to carry a top-10 line drive and flyball rate at the same time. This pairs beautifully with his great 45.4% pull rate, allowing him to generate high-value batted balls in the air with regularity. He also had amazing plate discipline at the same time; his chase rate was in the 99th percentile, tied with Juan Soto at just 20% according to FanGraphs, creating nearly as many strikeouts as walks as a leadoff hitter, while still being top-10 in bombs. Offensively, Betts may be the most complete hitter there is: he makes tons of contact with great power, pulls the ball in the air, never chases, never whiffs, and still is quick enough to swipe the occasional base.
Betts’ defense is what costs him here. While versatile, he is not reaching the heights he saw in Boston’s right field, nor can he manage average showings in the infield, which will be relevant with the announcement of his Opening Day position being second base shortstop. His peak full-season showing as a Dodger hasn’t yet matched his worst as a Red Sox according to Statcast’s OAA, and he is merely below-average in sprint speed and above-average in baserunning, rather than the upper percentile speedster in both categories he was in Boston. Mookie Betts is evolving, and aging. He’s upped his offensive performance to counter his regression in defense and foot speed, but I wouldn’t count on him repeating the complete offensive season he just had.
Mike Trout - 32 - OF - Los Angeles Angels (2023 Rank: 2)
Trout missed half the season in 2023, and he showed clear signs of regression in that time. He had the lowest wRC+ of his career outside his 40-game cup of coffee in 2011, primarily from the lowest ISO he’s seen since his earliest days in LA. He remains the same hitter as ever against fastballs, but he struggled to get breakers in the air, which is just as likely a consequence of low sample size as regression in that department. As he’s aged, he’s relied on his elite power to remain productive. His whiff rate ticked up immediately when he reached the brink of 30, coinciding with a precipitous drop in baserunning value, but elevated his barrel rates as a result. He remains a great defensive CF, with a prorated 8 OAA, but I’m not sure he’s generational in any area anymore. Trout’s base is so good, though, that he still earns the respect of being named the 4th best player in the league.
Jose Ramirez - 31 - 3B - Cleveland Guardians (2023 Rank: 5)
Jose Ramirez had his worst season statistically since becoming a regular in 2016, and was eerily close to the level of struggle he faced in 2019, a year he ghosted the Guardians for the first half of the season. Upon further review, however, there’s virtually no cause for concern here. In fact, I’d strongly advocate buying the dip.
He improved in almost every facet from 2022, from a 1.5% decline in strikeout rate, to a slightly improved walk rate, all while matching his career-highs in exit velocity and hard-hit rate. He remained towards the top in pulled flyball rate, pulled the ball 5% more often last year than in 2022, and managed to trade in popups for line drives in the meantime. It was expected that he would perform better with the banning of the severe shifts that he faced nearly 100% of the time as a left-handed hitter, but he actually performed better against shifted defenses than straight-up ones for the first time in six years. If you maintain those same expectations, Ramirez should have some unrealized gains to collect in 2024.
He also just had his third-best baserunning season ever, according to FanGraphs, by virtue of efficient base-stealing, and remains an above-average 3B by both OAA and DRS. I think a lot of people will underrate him even more than usual after a “pedestrian” 5.1 fWAR year from 700 PAs, but Ramirez has a real shot to reach MVP-level heights again in 2024.
Fernando Tatis Jr. - 25 - OF - San Diego Padres (2023 Rank: 8)
Consider it the ''Acuna'' effect, but I’m not willing to bail on Tatis after one uncharacteristic year post-injury. While he did struggle to hit the ball with the same authority as years past, he also presented new layers to his game to make him an even more dynamic player. Most notably, he cut his K rate by 6% to 22%, a rate he had only ever come close to matching in the abridged 2020 season. He maintained a great average EV of 91.9 despite this, mirroring Acuna’s temporary drop in EV and Barrel rate in 2022, and saw offense against breaking balls that still matched his career norms. His downgrade in results came against fastballs, which was still well above-average despite being his worst figures yet. Tatis missed an entire year of play, so his ability to get more disciplined while maintaining a solid power floor is a sign of good things to come.
Despite the downtime, well below-average baserunning (for his standards), loss of power, and underperformance in xWOBA by .035, he still managed ~4.5 fWAR/650 from his elite defense in right field. DRS rated him as the best defender by far, at 29 DRS (2nd was Gimenez at 23), and 13th in FRV, at 12. Did you know Tatis only played 20 games in the outfield before 2023? He’s an absolute menace.
Tatis only put up an All-Star caliber year in 2023, but one shouldn’t be so quick to jump ship on a young player who has only improved virtually every year. His floor is outstanding, and his ceiling maybe even more so. 2021’s offense and baserunning with 2023’s defense would probably net him a unanimous MVP award, and that’s good enough for me.
Shohei Ohtani - 29 - DH - Los Angeles Dodgers (2023 Rank: 1)
Ohtani is only ranked as a hitter after he tore his UCL and subsequently underwent a surgery that has no name. Very suspicious. Offensively, he’s at the top of his game. His exit velocity was better than his 2021 self, at a staggering 94.4 mph, while also running the lowest strikeout rate (23.9%) and highest walk rate (15.2%) of his career with top-30 value on the bases. His better quality of contact comes against all pitch types, but it also comes with less overall contact, which makes the lower K rate more a product of careful pitching against him than a change in his own approach. The great thing is that the Dodger lineup will give him more pitches to hit than virtually anywhere else, and he should reap the offensive rewards that come as a byproduct of that. If he bats behind Betts and Freeman, how do you pitch to him? He’s not protected by a random assortment of Anthony Rendon, CJ Cron, Brandon Drury, and Hunter Renfroe anymore.
Juan Soto - 25 - OF - New York Yankees (2023 Rank: 6)
The Yankees’ newest star has a profile that’s as steady as ever, maintaining the same strengths and weaknesses that have been associated with him for the past several years. He still paces the league in chase and walk rate, along with great exit velocities, but cannot keep the ball off the ground. His 51% groundball rate is the 10th highest amongst qualified hitters, and his 37th percentile sprint speed isn't going to let him leg out any extra hits. The primary cause is a 25.7° VBA, which while being one of the worst in the league, is remarkably normal for him since 2021. VBA correlates with groundball rate and BABIP, and a .296 BABIP, which while OK at first glance, is a little low given his incredible ability to barrel the ball in a cavernous park like Petco. Another metric that encapsulates this issue is launch angle standard deviation, which remains at just 30.4°, far lower than the average of 26-27°, and is also only a very slight improvement from 2022.
The move to New York no doubt strengthens the Yankee lineup, but the park isn’t as beneficial as one may hope. Soto doesn’t pull the ball nearly as much as some lefties; while he has a high pull rate of 38.9%, his pulled flyball rate is a well below-average 5.4%. if the ball doesn’t go directly down the line, the friendly dimensions of the right-field corner aren’t in play. Left-center and right-center field at the Stadium are infamously deep to compensate for the cheap home runs down the line, so Soto may actually cost himself a few home runs with the move. Other than 2020, Savant’s expected HR measure for Soto at Yankee Stadium is lower than his actual HR total in every season, adding to this worry. While this and his spotty defense in left field are concerns, they’re nothing compared to his ground ball issues. If that’s rectified, nobody will mind the rest.
Yordan Alvarez - 26 - DH - Houston Astros (2023 Rank: 13)
Much like Judge, the offensive season that I believed was too good to repeat was…virtually repeated. He managed an absurd 18% barrel rate and 93.3 mph average exit velocity while maintaining the drastic improvements in plate discipline from a year ago. His power numbers are worse than they were in his nuclear 2022 season, but he still ranks as a clear top 5 in almost every relevant power-related category. He dropped his groundball rate by 4%, which is good for his problematic knees, and maintained the ability to mash against every pitch type; in the past two years, only 2023’s breaking balls have him anywhere near a .400 xWOBA (.407). He chased a touch more than he did in 2022, but he made 6% more contact on those chases, a dramatic improvement that might explain the slight dip in contact quality. He was clearly better in 2022, but 2023 Yordan was as good of a DH season as one could hope for, and he still finds ways to get better. Between him and Ohtani, the baserunning is the difference-maker here.
Bryce Harper - 31 - 1B - Philadelphia Phillies (2023 Rank: 10)
Harper healed up from Tommy John a month faster than expected, and by the end of the year he was playing at a level that proved he was as good as new. Despite early season struggles that saw plenty of ground balls and poor swing decisions, he still managed to put up numbers that are right in line with the rest of his career and ranks 2nd in SEAGER, between Acuna and Seager himself. To put it into perspective, in the 56 games he played in the first half of the season, he only put up a mediocre .291/.386/.400 slash line with 3 home runs on a sky-high .377 BABIP. In the second half, he was at his best, with a .296/.413/.583 slashline with 18 HR in 70 games. This second-half transformation came with far better K%, BB%, hard-hit rate, and more, without even mentioning his quick development towards being an average or above-average first baseman from virtually no experience! If Harper’s second half was a full year, it would arguably be the second-best season of his career, behind 2015. Like Tatis, I think betting against Harper in 2024 would be a big mistake.
Julio Rodriguez - 23 - OF - Seattle Mariners (2023 Rank: 17)
Like his rookie year, Julio struggled in the early months with a 101 wRC+ and decent power. In the 2nd half, he warmed up with the weather for a 153 wRC+ along with his ever-present stellar center-field defense and baserunning that is synonymous with his name. The same warts plague his profile as before, though, and arguably got even worse: first, a slightly higher 47.6% ground ball rate is a waste of his great hard-hit rate, and secondly, a chase rate that is 4% higher than his rookie season, keeping his walk rate well below-average for someone hoping to be a long-term leadoff man. This is reflected in his SEAGER, which dropped from a very good 20.8 to an average 15.8.
What’s most important is that Julio’s production remains MVP caliber despite that. In the second half last year, he put up nearly 7.5 fWAR/650 in the 2nd half, which was 6th in the league amongst qualified hitters. He’s making more contact and hitting the ball harder, at the cost of some worse swings, giving him an xWOBA that is actually higher than a year ago. His speed, defense, and arm remain the envy of other MLB outfielders, which keeps him as a “true” center fielder, and he managed to steal 37 bases at a 79% success rate. He was able to avoid a true sophomore slump, while shoring up his game in several key areas. If he’s able to elevate the ball a little more while regaining some of his rookie-year patience, he will soar.
Corey Seager - 29 - SS - Texas Rangers (2023 Rank: 31)
Seager had the best full season of his career in 2023, maintaining the elite production he showed he was capable of in 2020 over an injury-shortened run of 119 games. He had remarkably few changes in his approach from 2022, utilizing improved performance against fastballs with the same great swing decisions to run elite contact rates on amazing power. Amongst all qualified hitters, Seager ranks 1st in SEAGER and 2nd (behind J.D. Davis) in the difference between in-zone and out-of-zone swing rate, the simpler way to quantify swing decisions. Either way you look at it, nobody is better at swing selection than the reigning World Series MVP.
I’ll admit I was a bit too harsh on Seager last year with my ranking, and I’m correcting that now. But one has to be careful - this reeks of an unrepeatable career year, with only improved exit velocities and near-career-best fielding numbers substantiating this sudden improvement. With his heavy bat-to-ball approach, I find it hard to believe he’s going to run nearly identical power numbers to Yordan Alvarez for more than just a single season. Let’s see him prove me wrong.
Bobby Witt Jr. - 23 - SS - Kansas City Royals (2023 Rank: UR)
This is one of the most aggressive rankings on the list, but I wholeheartedly believe it. Witt looks like the real deal. After a defensive season completely panned by DRS and FRV in 2022, he made an improvement of 18 runs in both measurements at shortstop, proving he may be able to stick at shortstop long-term. Savant gives him a +10 FRV, which would put him in the upper echelon in shortstops, while DRS gives him a mediocre -4. I met his ranking in the middle; if he’s legitimately a +10 FRV SS, he’d probably be a top-10 player in my book.
Witt’s weakest attribute may be his defense, which is shocking since it might end up ranking in the top 10% of the league long-term. His 30.5 mph sprint speed makes him a baserunning menace, netting him a league-leading 11 triples and 49 stolen bases, albeit with just a 77% success rate. It’s a regression from his 81% success rate from his rookie season, but it still makes him a terror.
Offensively, he utilizes his speed well with a 79% contact rate paired with a low 17.1% K rate. Witt runs an incredibly low groundball rate, which while softening the threat of his speed on infield grounders, allows him to abuse the large gaps at Kauffman Stadium. Witt also runs an above-average exit velocity and barrel rate, giving him exceptional long-term upside. Every bit of contact is a chance for another double extended from a single, or a stolen base, an approach that I’ve lauded in the past for other players with 99th percentile motors. You could argue he got a little unlucky too: his xWOBA was 30 pts higher than his real wOBA, an occurrence more likely to be reversed than continued, and his DRC+ was 11th across all qualified hitters. Overall, he had more home runs last year than the slugging Castellanos and more steals than speedsters CJ Abrams and Trea Turner. At age 22. He’s the real deal.
I quipped to one of my friends midseason that “Bobby Witt is who people think Trea Turner is,” a sentiment I still stand by. At 23, one could argue Witt has more of a comprehensive contact/power profile than Turner has ever had. Where can he go from here?
Freddie Freeman - 34 - 1B - Los Angeles Dodgers (2023 Rank: 12)
Despite the best season of his career coming in 2023, my opinion on Freeman hasn’t changed much, if at all. His results came amidst a bit of regression: more strikeouts and fewer walks, most notably from a drop in contact rate on pitches outside the zone. It’s a small blip on the radar screen, but at age 34, one has to be a bit concerned. His success almost entirely stems from his elite distribution of launch angles, which is a consistently applicable skill, and has only been matched in a similar sample size by 2015 Brandon Belt and 2016 Nick Castellanos since the introduction of Statcast. It comes from a VBA that’s always near the very best: it’s been over 40° since it first was tracked in 2018, and he was 2nd in 2023, only behind fellow behemoth Aaron Judge.
Defensively, he posted his worst DRS in a decade, and while maintaining solid baserunning skills, continues to lose a little bit of speed every year. I’m not selling Freeman in 2024, but he did not magically peak at age 34 in Dodger Blue and become a top-5 player. He’s not knocking the ball around with the same venom, lost a decent amount of discipline, and was more productive against LHP than RHP, bucking all of his career norms. I think the placement is justified for his stability at the top of the order, but I’m not buying a season similar to 2023 in 2024.
Kyle Tucker - 27 - OF - Houston Astros (2023 Rank: 19)
Kyle Tucker feels like the next Jose Ramirez - you know what you’re gonna get, but the end-of-season slash line is rarely going to put you in disbelief. Tucker does it all; he walks at a solid rate, puts the ball in play, hits the ball fairly hard, steals bases, and defends his turf with the best of them.
What’s most interesting about Tucker is that he hasn’t fulfilled his potential to be an elite player yet, despite already presenting the pieces that show it’s somewhere in there. In 2022, he had a weaker offensive year, with an OPS around .800 and an xWOBA only in the 89th percentile, while making up for it with +5 OAA and +8 FRV. In 2023, he did the opposite, with a negative defensive performance canceled out by an OPS near .900 and the 2nd best xWOBA of his career, ranking in the 95th percentile. The offensive improvement correlates well with an evolution to a more passive approach, having matched his career-high in Pitches/PA from 2021, his other great offensive year, and better production against fastballs. If he puts the two together, it’ll be an MVP-level showing that could generate close to 7 wins and validate my continued belief in Tucker despite some stagnation in his results for the past three years. Also, hit him higher than 5th, Joe Espada. Jeremy Pena and Mauricio Dubon don't swing it like that.
Spencer Strider - 25 - SP - Atlanta Braves (2023 Rank: 27)
Strider paced the league in 2023 with 281 strikeouts in 186.2 IP, but he showed the flaws that first concerned me when I ranked him 27th last year. Despite an elite fastball/slider combo, he requires precision every night from his only two reliable offerings to avoid getting torched by long balls in the gap and over the fence. It certainly didn’t help that he lost some of the characteristics that made his fastball so effective in 2022: his fastball VAA relative to the average went from +.56° to +.37°, and he lost an mph in velocity as well. The resulting decrease in performance incentivized him to lower its usage from 67% to just under 59%, with the slider and changeup picking up the slack. Both his fastball and slider got barreled up more frequently, and consequently, gave up far more home runs.
The changeup improved on its 2022 self, creating more swings and misses while keeping the pitch out of the middle of the zone. It is still only used 12% of the time against left-handed hitters, but it should continue to get more and more share if his fastball holds firm. His slider was more effective in this area as well, inducing more chases on a similar whiff rate against right-handed hitters with better glove-side placement. During Spring Training, he’s also debuted a brand-new curveball that makes me more optimistic than ever about his future, despite the slightly underwhelming sophomore season. Even if the pitch is only dead-average on 10% usage, its presence will open up opportunities for his primary two pitches to shine.
Francisco Lindor - 30 - SS - New York Mets (2023 Rank: 28)
I probably underrated Lindor last year, as he has never had a season that could even be labeled even “average” for a major-leaguer in his career, with fantastic upside. His worst year in recent memory, 2021, still involved average offense, above-average baserunning, and an incredible 21 OAA on defense in just three-fourths of a season. In 2023, he posted some career-bests in barrel rate (10.4%) and average EV (91.2 mph) anyway, which helped rationalize the increase in swing-and-miss that began in 2020. The biggest change of all, though, is his career-low 34% groundball rate, which is more than 6% lower than any of his prior seasons. His 31 HR nears the power peaks of his younger self in the juiced ball era, as does his performance against left-handed pitching. While I wholeheartedly endorse Lindor’s mini-renaissance at age 30, defense that is as bad as ever, while still above-average, and unicorn results in groundball rate and on the right side of the plate lead me to believe it won’t end up being completely sustainable.
Austin Riley - 26 - 3B - Atlanta Braves (2023 Rank: 34)
The Braves’ third baseman continued his evergreen offensive production, fittingly putting up his third straight season in a row of a 130 wRC+, 8% walk rate, and 25% strikeout rate. He has no real weakness; he pulls the ball often, gets plenty of balls in the air, can produce against any pitch type, and isn’t even a liability on the bases. In 2023, he decided to become significantly more passive, but it didn’t tip the scales one way or the other. His move up my board, as a result, is mostly because of how I’ve altered my outlook on his defense. I’ve waned on OAA as an infield defensive metric over the past year, and his third-straight defensive year above 6 DRS makes Riley look like an anchor down the third-base line.
Austin Riley is about as consistent as they come.
Matt Olson - 29 - 1B - Atlanta Braves (2023 Rank: UR)
As mentioned in my recap article, Matt Olson’s exclusion from the list was my biggest regret.
He demonstrated a similar skillset to his Athletics days in his first year in Atlanta, and simply struggled to find a way to hit breaking balls. He responded by performing far better than he ever has against them, which lends a touch of doubt to whether this level of performance is sustainable. He also had a near career-low pull rate, the same performance against fastballs, and had very little difference in plate discipline from any of his prior seasons. In short, he executed the same approach he’s always had much better than ever before.
There are no holes in his approach, but there’s no resounding area, either. With the fact that he’s a first baseman, carrying limited defensive and baserunning value (despite being a great defensive 1B), it’s hard to advocate for a position much higher than this. He’ll likely be an All-Star caliber player, but it'll be difficult to replicate the premier power he just displayed. My placement of Goldschmidt at 19th last year sets a healthy precedent, although that placement was certainly too high for him in hindsight.
Zack Wheeler - 33 -SP - Philadelphia Phillies (2023 Rank: 32)
Wheeler was as good as ever in 2023, which in the current pitching landscape, is a giant bonus to his case. He had the same high-octane heater, jamming sinker, chase-generating curve, and cutter (or is it a slider?) as ever, but he added a sweeper to the mix, which has been extremely effective at generating softly-hit flyballs against right-handed hitters. His fastball was also a star of the show, with an outstanding 41% CSW on arsenal-high usage that regularly lands high in and just above the zone, while limiting hard contact. His sinker also jams hitters effectively, with a 45.7% chase rate that is a testament to its effectiveness.
His tools to beat left-handed hitters are more makeshift - his fastball doesn’t have the same shine, and his sinker and sweeper are non-factors. His curveball and cutter are the stars of the show here, and while the curveball is the pick of the litter, and the cutter does its job, there’s nothing truly overpowering here, unlike the right-handed hitters. His 15.7% K-BB% is above average for RHP against LHB, but it’s still a minor issue for an otherwise rock-solid profile.
Wheeler is still a star SP, thanks to being able to do it all. He gets strikeouts from pounding the zone with heaters and sweepers, jams hitters for weak contact with sinkers, and rollovers with curves, and he does it with the regularity to only rarely concede free passes. I’m always a fan of deep repertoires, and Wheeler is the epitome of that. All 5 pitches see significant use in one situation or another, and they all earn their keep - his 5.37 overall PLV is top amongst SP, and his lowest, the sinker at 5.12, likely is heavily undersold by that measure with its contact mitigation skills. The fastball and sweeper set it up beautifully.
Zack Wheeler’s pitch distribution is like a mosaic.
Adley Rutschman - 26 - C - Baltimore Orioles (2023 Rank: 22)
Adley stepped things up in his sophomore year on the offensive end, but proved that he was still mortal with some regression on defense. He managed to drop his whiff rate on breaking balls considerably while fixing the hole in his swing against changeups, progressing towards being the offensive juggernaut that many anticipated as a prospect: lots of walks, relatively few strikeouts, with above-average power from both sides of the plate. He’s a true switch-hitter, too; his weak side, as a lefty against right-handed pitchers, still netted a .787 OPS and 80:61 K:BB. While I doubt he’ll ever hit 30 home runs, he’s a hallmark of offensive consistency at a position that rarely finds it.
Defensively, he remains above-average to top-of-the-line on defense, depending on who you believe, but he clearly lost a step in that category. He produced less value from blocking than a year before, dropping from 18 to 2 blocks above average according to BaseballSavant, and 18 DRS to 2 in FanGraphs. His framing abilities have stayed at the same level, though, with BaseballProspectus even giving him higher recognition for his framing abilities in 2023 than elite defensive catchers Sean Murphy and William Contreras. He probably will never be a generational defensive catcher a la Buster Posey (who is?), but he makes up for it with great offense and solid baserunning.
Gerrit Cole - 33 - SP - New York Yankees (2023 Rank: 14)
Cole finally won a Cy Young, but it may have come off the least convincing season of his since his days in Pittsburgh. The springboard to his success was a massive reduction in home run rate, something that had been an Achilles heel with a fastball-centric approach in a park that loves left-handed fly balls. Surely that reduction came from a change in approach, right?
Well, not really. He lost considerable life on all of his pitches, other than his cutter, while seeing minimal change in ideal contact rate (ICR). He is conceding fewer flyballs on his secondaries, but even more on the fastball, which he elevated as much as ever. His exit velocity allowed is a touch lower on his heater and change, but on the whole is about the same, while his flyball EVs are significantly lower across the board. This improvement in home run rate screams unsustainable to me: he didn’t change much, yet his fastball and slider managed it exceptionally well. He was even throwing his fastball a mile per hour slower than the past two seasons! While some may say he’s trying to mitigate contact more than in the past, there's nothing process-wise that bears that out.
Cole saw much better home run results in 2023, despite minimal change in his repertoire or plan of attack.
First was the interesting change, now the important one. His fastball, slider, and curve were all 4.5% lower in CSW last year. That’s an incredibly big dropoff in a single season and is extremely concerning. It’s all for different reasons, too: his fastball’s drop in velocity made it less potent overall, his slider allows contact 12% more and chases 10% less than a year ago, and his curve also allows 12% more contact than before, the latter two of which on similar command. Again, this came with minimal compensation in contact mitigation, and only cost him strikeouts. After being adored by sabermetrics since becoming an Astro, he put up his worst SIERA (3.63) and xFIP (3.60) since that point by a large margin. Gerrit Cole’s prime may have come to a close in the most fitting and deserved way possible.
It’s fair to still hold out some hope, though. He’s still got a deep mix, has found confidence in the cutter that I put special focus on in my review of him last year, and it’s only one season of poor results. But if this form continues in 2024, I don't think I would bring back Cole if he chooses to opt-out. 5 years at $36 million is a steep price for what he’s projected to do at ages 34-38.
Corbin Carroll - 23 - OF - Arizona Diamondbacks (2023 Rank: UR)
C2 is extremely difficult to rank. He has generational baserunning abilities, netting his inclusion on a FoolishBaseball video, but hasn’t bloomed into the standout defender one would expect with his speed, and probably overperformed a bit offensively. He had below-average quality of contact on pitches that weren’t fastballs, and while he made a ton of contact, most of it either went towards groundballs (great for speed, bad for general value) or flyballs (bad for both). With his median and average flyball exit velocity only in the middle of the pack for qualified hitters, and a below-average pulled flyball rate, I find his 15% HR/FB% unlikely to sustain itself. I don't think he’s going to create 1.6 wins from his baserunning again, and I’m not sold that his approach will allow either his speed to flourish or his power to match its 2023 self. Even in the worst case scenario, he’s still a star from his well-rounded profile that has plenty of room to grow from an exciting floor.
Marcus Semien - 33 - 2B - Texas Rangers (2023 Rank: 43)
I was very wrong about Semien, largely because of a misevaluation of his rate of regression and mediocre quality of contact numbers. But Semien continues to impress from a great amount of pulled flyballs (16.1%), great swing decisions (20 SEAGER), and great 2B defense (15 OAA, 16 DRS). He still runs well, too, so his top-25 contact rate gives him a great number of opportunities to utilize it.
There still are some concerns though. The first is obvious, because I said it last year (and that aged so well). He’s not getting any younger, and he just peaked in a lot of areas. I predicted his 7 baserunning runs wouldn’t hold up - it didn’t - but his career-best defense and a resurgence in contact rates helped keep him productive. I fear for the worst, and that might mean I get the worst of it for the second year in a row with Semien.
Sean Murphy - 29 - C - Atlanta Braves (2023 Rank: 49)
This may shock some people, but did you know Sean Murphy ranked 11th in the league in quality of contact (xWOBA) amongst all hitters last year? That’s better than Matt Olson, who hit 54 HRs, and Mike Trout, who underperformed his herculean standards but still was amazing in all offensive categories. He also had the 11th-highest barrel rate, above mashers Adolis Garcia and Giancarlo Stanton. He’s a serious offensive threat, and remains the same premier defensive catcher as before. His transformation into a true slugger came from a serious spike in pull rate (39.7% -> 48%) and a near 3 mph gain in exit velocity. A more sturdy lineup never hurts, either.
While his season was a tale of two halves (.999 OPS pre-All-Star break, .595 post-break), the precipitous falloff in performance isn’t reflected nearly as strongly in the peripherals mentioned before. There was no 100 PA span where he was below average in xWOBA and exit velocity, and his K rate was actually at its lowest when the season concluded. While the hamstring strain he suffered on June 16th doesn’t really line up with his splits (he had a 1.200 OPS from that day until the break), the nagging nature of the injury could have explained some of the struggles.
The familiar side of Murphy’s game is his defense. As a defensive force at the game’s most impactful defensive position, he was amongst the league’s best at blocking (16 blocks above average, according to Savant), framing (7 runs above average), and getting the ball out of his hands (1.9 second pop time), despite only catching in 101 games. That part of his game is set to continue being dominant, so if his offensive improvements can hold up, he’ll be another bona fide star for the Braves that will be locked up for the next half decade below market rate.
Part 2 (26-50) hopefully will be out by Opening Day. Let me know what you think about the first 25 players, if you’d like.
Sources
PitcherList
FanGraphs
SwingGraphs
Alex Chamberlain’s Pitch Leaderboard
Robert Orr’s App (linked because I don't know what to call it)
BaseballReference
BaseballProspectus