My Top 50 MLB Players for 2025, Part 2 (26-50)

I do the second half of my list of the top players for the 2025 MLB season.

Welcome back to my 2025 Top 50 player list! It remains based on prorated performance (i.e., injuries are not considered, except in the most extreme circumstances). While this may be controversial, a player’s “injury proneness” can flip on a dime, and unlike their actual results, I have no access, or the ability to interpret, their medical records. I grade position players on fWAR and pitchers on rWAR, because I believe they are the best representations of a player’s production throughout a given year. A new addition for this year’s list is the prior year’s ranking in both the prorated (designated “P”) and total (“T”) sections. They will be next to the “previous rank”, which indicates where I put the player in question on my list before 2024. If a player’s rank does not qualify (DNQ), that means they didn’t meet 377 PA or 122 IP, the requirements to filter out seasons too short to be worthwhile.

You can access Part 1, which includes explanations for Ranks 1-25 here. You can see the full rankings in the graphic below if you’d like to skip around. Thanks for checking the list out!

My rankings if you want to skip somewhere specific. Big thanks to @TJStats for providing the foundation of the code from his pitching summary article.

26. Bryce Harper - 32 - Philadelphia Phillies - 1B (Previous Rank: 10, P: 27, T: 24)

2024 may have been Bryce Harper’s worst season in nearly a decade, and although that only means it was a great season rather than an elite one, it gives me some doubt about how effective he can be in the years to come. He will be 32 come Opening Day, and he showed regression in almost every area a slugger could - without the ability to claim a significant injury derailed him like 2023. He opted for a far more stable approach last year, creating way more contact as a result, but it came at the hefty cost of plenty more lazy flyballs. He was not emphatic when he got a pitch to hit, producing only a 10.6% barrel rate, and without more balls in play or free passes. Combined with the new reality of full-time play at first with just average speed, the upside seems to be fleeting. While a .352 (pull-adjusted) xWOBA is solid, it’s not enough for someone limited in contribution elsewhere. One can hope it’s a one-year lapse, but he appears to be on the trajectory of a stable middle-order option, rather than an offensive virtuoso in the years to come.

27. Adley Rutschman - 27 - Baltimore Orioles - C (Previous Rank: 21, P: 140, T: 119)

While Rutschman had the first serious hiccup of his career, underperforming in almost every category, there’s fortunately a clear launch date for his struggles. Before June 27th, he had a .830 OPS and 15 HRs, both of which were on pace to be the highest of his career. After getting hit in the wrist during the 5th inning in that game, however, he went a pitiful .550 OPS and 4 HRs the rest of the way while confusingly avoiding the IL. There’s no reason to believe he turned into a pumpkin permanently, so I have to excuse his post-injury performance and work with the results in his first 3 months. As alluded to earlier, he moved away from his “as many walks as strikeouts” approach for a more straightforward “hit bombs” one in that time, with a corresponding drop from the 93rd percentile in the swing decisions metric SEAGER in 2022 to the 24th in 2024. It wasn’t detrimental to his overall performance, but it certainly wasn’t the plan of attack that made him so highly touted as a prospect. Adley himself seems to partially agree - after the injury that sapped his abilities, he returned to walking about as much as he struck out despite being practically no offensive threat.

Adley’s Process+ (the bold white line) does a no-dive after his June 27th game. In particular, the green bars representing his power go from comfortably over the “100” line to the equivalent of Marinara’s Trench. Chart sourced from here.

With all that in mind, his defense is my main sticking point for the drop in ranking. He’s continued to be a modest positive, but the promise of the elite defense he showed in his rookie year continues to get further and further away with reversion in framing and pop times. We may have seen just about the ceiling of Rutschman: a 130 wRC+ hitter with above-average defense at catcher. That's a great player, but not near the top-10 or serious MVP consideration.

28. Mike Trout - 33 - Los Angeles Angels - OF (Previous Rank: 4, P: DNQ, T: 384)

Where do I put Michael Nelson Trout? Fairly low, apparently. While my list doesn’t punish players for missing time with the focus on prorated production, it does punish 33-year-olds who rapidly losing value in all areas other than pop. The time has finally come for him to vacate center field for the corner, and I would expect him correspondingly to be more passive on the bases to protect his body. A power-hitting corner outfielder can be quite useful (see: Judge, Aaron), but his batted-ball results put him closer to Bryce Harper than even someone like second-half Jackson Chourio, and his SEAGER was a horrendous 22nd percentile, by far his lowest since tracking began in 2020. There is some room for optimism: he again put up a generationally low groundball rate, 24%, which would keep him in lockstep with his great 2019 and 2022 years, and he was a positive on the bases for the first time in more than half a decade. Yet his sprint speed has continued to drop, and he doesn’t inspire the same fear in opposing pitchers to pitch around him for 20% walk rates. If Trout was in the NBA, he’d be a star that was load-managed every third game, and in a sport where everyday availability is compulsory for position players, becoming a permanent DH may be inevitable. 6 more years on that contract.

29. Patrick Bailey - 25 - San Francisco Giants - C (Previous Rank: UR, P: 12, T: 35)

Some may be surprised that Bailey is on here, but you shouldn’t be. Patrick Bailey is the best defender in the league, and it’s not close. Last season, he had a 22 Fielding Run Value (FRV), 5 more than 2nd place Daulton Varsho, and the year prior, he was 2nd with a 18 FRV. When looking at framing specifically, it’s even more impressive. He’s saved 41.1 runs in 1675 innings by stealing strikes in the past two years, with the 2nd-best coming in 16.5 runs behind (Austin Hedges). A defensive monster in his own right, Hedges managed that mark in just 963.2 innings. Third place is Francisco Alvarez, at 23.1, in a Bailey-comparable 1599.2 innings. Put simply, Bailey is almost twice as good at framing as every other catcher in the league. Bailey also controls the run game extremely well. His caught stealing rate is around 27%, which is solid in itself, but his pop time of around 1.85 is incredible, and implies that the fault may be more with the pitcher than with him. He ranked first in the metric this year, and tied for second last year, on a similarly great 1.87.

Patrick Bailey is in a league of his own defensively. The orange dot at around 25 framing runs and 900 innings is Bailey. Despite nearly a dozen catchers playing as many innings, nobody is even close. [FanGraphs]

Offense has been Bailey’s biggest shortcoming, but he’s shown great improvement in minimal time. In 2024, he improved his SEAGER from the 8th percentile to the 36th, cut his K rate 6% while walking 3% more, and hit the ball 2.5 mph harder on average. He looks like a league-average hitter with the defense of Austin Hedges, which is a terrifying combination. A year from now, there’s a good chance this ranking is far too low.

30. Blake Snell - 32 - Los Angeles Dodgers - SP (Previous Rank: UR, P: DNQ, T: 90)

You can hear my thoughts on Snell in a more developed manner in the article I wrote about him after his second Cy Young season, where I found his high walk rate to not be an issue of command, but rather the damage-adverse approach that Niebla has endorsed with pitchers like Bieber during his peak years. His troublesome trio of secondaries continues to carry on, but the slider continues to descend in the pecking order for his monster curveball and changeup. The Dodgers have made a couple of modifications in the leadup to Spring Training, most notably adding more carry to all four of his offerings. The most radical of the adjustments was to his curveball, having sliced its depth in half, but I imagine they're trying to bring everything a little closer together for tunneling purposes as they did with Tyler Glasnow in his debut year. If the Dodgers can get Snell to be even better than last season, where he was one of two pitches to have a higher CSW% than ICR% (Tarik Skubal was the other), that would be an accomplishment in itself.

31. Logan Gilbert - 27 - Seattle Mariners - SP (Previous Rank: UR, P: 174, T: 119)

After much fanfare about Kirby, Logan Gilbert seems to be the premier pitcher of the massive crop of young starters they’ve promoted over the past several years. He maximizes his 6'6" frame to elicit 7'6" of extension, matching Tyler Glasnow for top marks amongst the SP class, and attacks the zone with a wide and ever-growing swath of pitches. The splitter that he added two seasons ago was far more mature this time around and reaped the rewards that it deserved; its 53% whiff rate against LHB puts it in a class of its own, and a 60% groundball rate never hurts either. His gyro slider, his premier pitch at a blistering 88.5 mph, saw similar gains in command to run crazy numbers across the board. The cutter was a brand-new addition for 2024, and it should have better days ahead. It ran great swing and miss, but was lit up with more amateur placement than one's used to with LG. Given it comes in at a hard 92 and has great carry, I expect improvement next year similar to the splitter's. His 4-seam only sees 30% usage, but that still may be too much taking into account its mediocre shape and its only slightly above-average results. He has reduced it by around 10% per year since 2021, and I'd be surprised if it remained above 25% with what he's got cooking.

Overall, Gilbert seems to be able to do everything very well. He limits hard contact, gets lots of groundballs, and is elite at generating whiffs with all of his pitches. One has to of course consider that he plays in Seattle, which is Heaven on Earth for pitchers. His away ERA is 1.50 higher than at home! Nonetheless, he’s a workhorse who can do a kitchen sink approach better than anyone consistently. As shown by his little header, I think WAR doesn't appreciate his talents nearly enough.

32. Jarren Duran - 28 - Boston Red Sox - OF (Previous Rank: UR, P: 16, T: 7)

I want to believe that this form of Jarren Duran is close to real, but I can’t bring myself to. I see a lot of Julio Rodriguez in him: great defense in center field and elite at getting an extra 90 feet, but “only” a capable hitter with a scary groundball rate. He’s a fairly free swinger, with a 26th percentile SEAGER, and although he possesses great bat speed for his strikeout rate, it feels like something has to give. I'd guess his strikeout rate rises from his below-average contact rate out of the strike zone, which will hurt his stolen base opportunities in turn. The baserunning and defense will give him an amazing floor, but I’m not sure Fenway will allow him to outperform his batted ball data by 30 WOBA points consistently.

33. Yoshi Yamamoto - 26 - Los Angeles Dodgers - SP (Previous Rank: 50, P: DNQ, T: 257)

The three-time Sawamura Award winner had an untimely injury right as he began capitalizing on his adjustments State-side to justify his ace status, but managed to reconnoiter before a critical playoff run. In the last month before his mid-June injury, he ran a 22 K-BB%, 33% ideal contact rate (ICR), and 59% groundball rate amidst a stretch of 7 runs in 27 innings against quality opposition. In particular, he had a fantastic start in the penultimate game in that span against the Bronx Bombers in that stretch, pushing his whole arsenal up by 1.5 - 2.5 mph to pitch a gem away from home. The next start, his triceps gave in early. Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps a sign of the cost of running hot. Although he did return by September, it cost him a chance to put up a great rookie season, or even contend for a Cy Young Award.

His fastball performed well with its great ride but is limited by frequently featuring in the bottom of the zone, where it doesn’t harvest many swings and misses. His curveball is his main calling card, with a ridiculous 19 inches of drop, and he took a proactive approach to procure called strikes. Its 30% called strike rate alone would be a great CSW mark, but its above-average whiff rate lent itself to a swinging strike rate of 13% in addition. The hefty in-zone rate cost him a lot of hard contact, so I imagine there will be a greater focus on keeping it down. Of course, that's easy enough to say from my swivel chair. Regardless of how he elects to handle it, it'll persist as an ongoing issue so long as it keeps that trademark depth with a foot of sweep. Out of the hand, it'll always stick out like a sore thumb.

Then comes his splitter, which has below-average carry and run at a blistering 90 mph. It was located well to induce a swinging strike rate of 25%, and I imagine its batted ball quality (xWOBAcon) will drop in due time with a groundball rate over 60%. He also has played with a cutter and sinker, both posting mixed results despite profiles that should lend themselves to success if he has the tenacity to continue to try weaving them into the game plan. I suspect a repeat performance from Yamamoto in 2025, and perhaps even an improvement on his 3.00 ERA and 1.11 WHIP. His peripherals across the board were outstanding, and he has a great grip on his arsenal.

34. Max Fried - 31 - New York Yankees - SP (Previous Rank: 34, P: 84, T: 68)

My love for Fried is well-documented, and while he had a tough 2024 for his usual standards, what he did manage to do only solidifies why I’m such a believer. His changeup and curveball were more erratic, costing him whiffs in the former and hard contact in the latter with their career-high zone rates. I'm confident they will regress to the mean in 2025, and there’s something new to look forward to in his sweeper, a pitch the Yankees are known for making a focal point in pitching development. It has 10 inches of depth, a completely absurd amount that demonstrates his low-vert emphasis perfectly, and gives him another weapon to handle the same-side platoon matchup that completely dominated him last year with a drop in his traditional slider usage. His OPS against LHB was a shocking .850, compared to .550 vs RHB, and that will not be a difference that sticks around. His “down year” produced a 15 K-BB%, 3.60 SIERA, and 33% ICR, which is the type of stat line most pitchers would die for. I expect more sweepers next year - perhaps some extra sliders as well - and with the move to LHP-friendly Yankee Stadium, Max Fried is due for another sub-3.00 ERA year.

35. Cal Raleigh - 28 - Seattle Mariners - C (Previous Rank: UR, P: 20, T: 19)

I likely misevaluated Raleigh last season when I barely considered him for the top 50, and he leaped at the chance to demonstrate my foolishness with his best season yet. He posted 5.2 fWAR in just under 650 PA, demonstrating his prowess as a switch-hitting catcher (mainly from the left side) while posting elite power and plate discipline skills. He ranks 96th percentile in pulled flyballs, explaining how he managed 34 home runs in cavernous Safeco Field, and 87th percentile in SEAGER, a noticeable improvement from prior seasons that helps explain his 2-point increase in walk rate. A typical year for Cal should be 30 HR and a 115 wRC+ without being an anchor on the bases, and that's more than good enough. While few catchers can hit in the middle of the order and induce less than a dozen double plays per year, Raleigh manages it casually.

Although his offense is great, his defense behind the dish may be even better. Last year, he evolved into being an elite framer, ranking in the 98th percentile according to Statcast, and he runs an above-average pop time to disincentivize the ever-growing number of prospective base stealers (Raleigh stole a career-high 6 himself!). All told, I would consider him similar in quality to the Dodgers’ Will Smith from a few years ago, except with more skill points indexed into defense than offense.

36. Rafael Devers - 28 - Boston Red Sox - 3B (Previous Rank: 31, P: 48, T: 42)

I had a dilemma on what position to give Devers in his header. Despite exclusively playing third base outside of six chance innings in his whole career, some preseason drama makes a hefty dosage of first and DH almost assured in his near future. The move is well-warranted - it lets him mitigate his defensive weaknesses and creates more avenues for prospects Kristian Campbell (who will now debut) and Marcelo Mayer. In fact, he has consistently been a large negative at the hot corner according to DRS throughout his entire career, and all but one on the authority of Savant. I’m not sure how strong of a first baseman he can be, but he surely can’t bring less defensive value. Right?

Offensively, he carries on consistently as ever. He's a lock for 30 HR and a 130 wRC+ every year with no real weakness in his game. He limits the strikeouts even with his great power, can work a walk, and can crush every pitch type to an elite level. Perhaps the pulled flyball rates could improve, but that's a minor nitpick at Fenway, where you can elevate and celebrate over the Monster. The most surprising thing to me during research was his bat speed, only 72.5 mph and in the 60th percentile, in spite of hard-hit rates that exceed the 90th. That epitomizes Devers' innate feel for the barrel perfectly.

37. Tyler Glasnow - 31 - Los Angeles Dodgers - SP (Previous Rank: 30, P: 166, T: 221)

Glasnow is one of the biggest beneficiaries of my list being based on prorated production rather than total production. Despite pitching six years as a full-time starter, he set his career-high in innings pitched this year at…134. For reference, Logan Gilbert had 132.1 IP this year. In the first half.

The Dodgers didn’t tinker with Glasnow really at all. The big addition was a sinker to jam RHB and add a different look to his extremely vertical arsenal, and it earned its place immediately. It managed an ICR of less than 30% against RHB and a 20% whiff rate, both great marks for a 2-seamer. The pitching lab also continued a consistent trend of Glasnow reducing the amount of drop in his curve, this time by 1.5 inches, making it now a cumulative 6 inches less than it was in 2019. While it didn’t run the same gaudy whiff numbers of years past, it also limited hard contact efficiently for (arguably) the first time in his career. On the whole, Glasnow had an ICR 2% lower than any other season since 2020 at the expense of some swing and miss; Glasnow’s 32.2% K rate was his lowest since he became a full-time starter in 2019, but it still would top the chart amongst qualified starters. The Dodgers’ aim seems to be to reduce volatility in Glasnow by sacrificing some of his nastiness for damage control, perhaps saving his arm in the process. After a 2024 season that saw Glasnow post the best peripherals (specifically in xERA, xFIP, and SIERA) and innings total of his career, it’s hard to call that mission a failure.

38. William Contreras - 27 - Milwaukee Brewers - C (Previous Rank: UR, P: 29,T: 19)

Like Raleigh, I omitted William Contreras last year because I didn’t fully buy into his success, but after another year of great all-around play, I’m cautiously in. His best trait is his elite swing decisions that rank in the 100th percentile across the league, and he's picked up some power along the way for maximum effect. This may not be obvious, considering he chases pitches out of the zone an average amount, but he virtually never takes a good pitch to hit. That nuance helps clarify how he has sustained a 20% K rate with pretty mediocre chase and whiff rates two years in a row. My sole concern for him with the bat is his groundball rate; 54% is sky-high, and his poor vertical bat angle (VBA) of 27.5° means the contact quality isn't going to improve any time soon.

Defensively, he remains solid. He couldn’t match his great 14.4 runs above average in FanGraphs framing from 2023, a likely outlier to begin with, but he was still a hefty net positive at just past 3 runs over par. Statcast gives him a more lukewarm reception, calling him a neutral in everything but the run game - where he’s a negative - but that’s still more than good enough for a bat as good as his. I question whether he can keep up this much offensive output with his high groundball rates, but there is no question that he is an elite hitter by catching standards.

39. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - 26 - Toronto Blue Jays - 1B (Previous Rank: UR, P: 30, T: 17)

Has Vlad Guerrero finally broken through? By Betteridge’s law, my answer must be "no", albeit with studies on the issue showing the answer to the headline is actually more often "yes". Unfortunately, then, I must actually explain the answer.

First, the good. Unlike his great 2021, he demonstrated dominance against all pitch types; he produced results against everything, rather than simply crushing heaters. That allowed him to put up near 94 mph exit velocities against every pitch group, despite not passing 93 on anything the year prior. He was also much stricter with when he swung - this may not necessarily be a positive, but the results seem to indicate it was. These two changes allowed him to flash the great hit and power tools that people praised as a prospect consistently.

Now the not-so-good. His VBA is largely unchanged at a flat 27॰, which hampers how far his exit velocities can take him. Even with a 94 mph average EV and 110.5 mph 90th percentile EV, he retained a barrel rate barely above 10%. That’s great, of course, but clearly not superstar caliber. His groundball rate still hovers around 50%, and he pulled the ball less than any other point in his career. In fact, his pulled flyball rate was worse than any season he’s played since 2021. That‘s the Don Mattingly Way™, and it may be the thing keeping the true Vladdy Jr. caged within.

Lastly, the ugly. Defensively, he’s no stalwart. DRS gives him a middling rating at first base, while FRV calls him well below average. Even at 20, he was a negative defender at third, making a move back unlikely despite occasional rumors to the contrary. On the bases, he’s a heavy negative and has grounded into 6 more double plays than anyone else in the past four seasons. Part of that is volume, but it may equally be his "ground and pound" offensive game.

In all, Guerrero has the makings of a great slugging first baseman, but can’t seem to fully bring it together offensively to make up for his shortcomings He will be a free agent after 2025, and I imagine he will get a deal between $450 and $500 million without a crazy outlier season one way or the other. That still will be far too much, of course. He had nearly a 1 fWAR/650 PA season, like, a year and a half ago.

40. Cole Ragans - 27 - Kansas City Royals - SP (Previous Rank: UR, P: 36, T: 27)

I don't like doing honorable mentions out of principle, but if I had last year, Ragans would have, without a doubt, been first on the list. He suffered from the same sort of doubt that Skubal got in off-season discourse after his amazing 2nd half, but the lack of polish gave me too much doubt in his consistency to put him in the top 50. From August 2nd to the end of 2023, his swinging strike rate was over 16% and his groundball rate was near 50%, but he walked nearly 10% of batters he faced and achieved his 2.70 ERA by achieving the delicate balance between a masterpiece and a complete clunker. While he showed better poise on off days last season to avoid the hair-pulling outings, further issues took their place. He regressed by a tick of velocity across the board and lost the depth of his mix after a precipitous plunge in production from his cutter and slider.

The changeup is what makes everything work. It was generationally good with a 47% whiff rate and a 27% swinging strike rate on 25% usage with great lift that generates swings underneath it. The fastball has great vert, but with his release, the large tailing action from his natural pronating tendencies, and below-average extension, it underwhelms at 95.5. It performed worse than ever against RHB, and that is the last thing he wants when his slider has seen monumental regression simultaneously. His gyro slider lost 11% of its swinging strike rate, the largest decline I think I’ve ever seen in one year, and it gave up a horrific 46% ICR at the same time. I suspect it’ll regress to the mean somewhat, but when the cutter sees the exact same issue emerge (29% -> 41% ICR) Ragans feels more and more like a “boom or bust” pitcher akin to Gerrit Cole than a true showstopping ace. Perhaps more curves can do the trick, which functioned well 10% of the time, but troubling signs are emerging.

41. Spencer Schwellenbach - 24 - Atlanta Braves - SP (Previous Rank: UR, P: 65, T: 132)

I declared Spencer Schwellenbach "baseball's most underrated player" last August, wherein I detail why I held, and continue to hold the young Brave pitcher in such high regard. If you want explicit details, I suggest reading that. Put succinctly: he’s an extreme outlier in getting whiffs whilst simultaneously dodging barrels, and has a five-pitch arsenal that is far more advanced than it has any right to be. Keep in mind that he started the 2024 season in Low-A before getting pushed to the majors by May 28th. There was a clip going around about his ridiculous splitter, and it very well could be his third-best pitch (it gets better results than the slider, but the slider is used against both sides). His worst pitch of the five is probably his four-seam due to its middling location, which is comical considering it has a 32% CSW on great carry all the same. He has a serious chance of being the best starter on the Braves next year, with Fried's departure to New York and Strider’s return from surgery piling on top of his already persistent hard contact issues.

The only pitchers to do outperform Schwellenbach in both swing and miss (CSW) and contact mitigation (ICR). He places 18th in ICR-CSW, a statistic of my design that haphazardly finds the pitchers that perform the best.

42. Ketel Marte - 31 - Arizona Diamondbacks - 2B (Previous Rank: UR, P: 9, T: 10)

Ketel Marte played at a top-20 level last season, a performance notarized by both the surface stats and the peripherals, but I can’t say that I’m convinced it’s here to stay. He did make better swing decisions, but there is one glaring outlier in his approach that is the spearhead of his success. His hard-hit rate was 11% higher than any other year of his career, 3 mph harder on average, and his 90th percentile EV was up 2 mph as well. Ketel’s game is lots of contact with respectable power, not lots of contact with lots of power (how many players’ game is that, anyway?), and this flies directly in opposition to that. In addition, this improvement only came against fastballs. He was slightly better against breaking balls, but it seems a little far-fetched to believe that Ketel Marte was able to raise his hard-hit rate against fastballs by a whopping 19% with no concessions at 30 years of age.

Defensively, he was great with 10 runs saved at second base. It's the 2nd-highest mark of his career, and he seems to persist as a slightly above-average defender overall at the position year-over-year. On the bases, he’s dead neutral, indicating the lion's share of his contribution will come from the bat alone. With the concerns listed before, I have to put Ketel Marte far lower on the list than his great year may indicate.

43. Michael King - 29 - San Diego Padres - SP (Previous Rank: UR, P: 53, T: 42)

I was somewhat doubtful that King could sustain his great play from 2023, but he thoroughly managed it. He's a classic product of the Yankee system with a great changeup/sweeper combination and with a strong grasp of his sinker, he's a nightmare to face. His 2-seamer stole strikes over 30% of the time with minimal risk, thanks to its meticulous placement on the outer third to RHB and inner third to LHB. His changeup is involved 25% of the time - 37% against LHB - and is similarly dominant with a 21% swinging strike rate and 35% ICR on a 97th percentile chase rate. It gave up only a handful of barrels all year, which is incredible considering its elite 70% strike rate. He pounds the top of the zone with his four-seam, and if any pitch is due for regression, it’s that one. I don't think it has the movement to be in the upper echelon when used a quarter of the time at 94 mph. Lastly, his sweeper stymies hitters on both sides with great down and away location, getting a sub-1% mistake rate on 18% usage according to PitcherList.

The main concern for me is his ability to deal with LHB; the changeup is great, but the sinker and sweeper should expect regression, and one would be happy if the 4-seam was simply average. He additionally was down a mph on his hardest offerings across the full season, a symptom of an increased workload, but any further drop would be cause for concern. I suspect the command will stick around and allow him to carry a 3.50 ERA regardless, but there’s far more risk than his sub-3 ERA in 2024 would indicate.

44. Corbin Burnes - 30 - Arizona Diamondbacks - SP (Previous Rank: 29, P: 123, T: 76)

Rent is due, so I need to put Burnes somewhere that people will growl at me for and farm engagement. Burnes is a real shell of his former self, and honestly, he’s lucky to be on the list at all. Just three years ago, he probably would have been top-5 on this list with a 35% K rate, 35% CSW, and 31% ICR over 167 innings. Now, he scuttles by on a 23% K rate, 33% ICR, and 29.5% CSW. He’s practically a contact mitigation specialist now, which is fine as long as his command remains in check, but feels like a dramatic under deliverance of his abilities.

His cutter, as with anything involving Corbin Burnes, is the sticking point here. It’s down 2 inches of run from his peak seasons of 2020 and 2021, and the whiff rate has plummeted from 33% to 19%. He dropped its usage by 10% in 2024 after years of consistent 55% usage to make room for his superior secondaries, a wise decision. Most impressive is his slider, which tunnels amazingly well with his cutter, harvesting 45% whiff and chase rates and 25% swinging strike rates at will from his opponents at virtually no risk. Burnes doubled its usage by claiming that lost cutter territory, and he may well double it again. If so, I may be back on board the Corbin Burnes hype train, with a quality curve and change in reserve. Otherwise, it all feels a little too precarious. Back-to-back SIERAs at 3.75 or over doesn’t give me any confidence in long-term success.

45. Michael Harris II - 24 - Atlanta Braves - OF (Previous Rank: UR, P: 147, T: 205)

After a third straight year of regression in prorated performance, my faith in Harris’ game is undeterred. He had a solitary bad baserunning year coming off a hamstring issue, and flashed better use of the pull side while keeping the rest of his unique qualities in check. His center field defense remained elite, and he’s able to make his swing-happy approach work while keeping balls in play to use his wheels to his advantage. If given a full season, I expect 20 HR, 25 SB, and 10 FRV at a minimum; if he doesn’t reach those totals, I’m not sure I can consider him a top-50 player next season. At some point, he has to show a little bit more than promise.

46. Sandy Alcantara - 29 - Miami Marlins - SP (Previous Rank: UR, P: DNQ, T: DNQ)

I debated who, if any, of the absent aces from 2024 would make the list, and Sandy is the first one of those candidates to make the cut. The announcement of an innings limit early in the year doesn't affect him in this ranking due to its prorated performance focus, but it may indicate that he holds back a little for the autumn months. Going off his Spring Training velocities of 98 on his heaters and 88-90 on the soft stuff, this placement seems fair enough. He ran into trouble before injury in late 2023 with regression in sinker command and changeup performance, the latter being something I correctly predicted in that year's list as justification to not call him one of the top couple starters. His balanced four-pitch mix, all between 20 and 30% usage overall, gives him some leeway to struggle, but he may lack the same overbearing velocity to succeed deep in games.

47. Logan Webb - 28 - San Francisco Giants - SP (Previous Rank: 38, P: 108, T: 60)

I was more pessimistic about Webb than my ranking may have indicated last year, mainly due to questions about how his heavy called strike approach could sustain itself. This year, some of the problems with such an approach revealed themselves, but it's nowhere near the cause of his regression.

Yes, his strikeout rate dropped, his walk rate rose, and he got less ground balls with harder contact. But the changeup, his critical pitch, saw a 23% increase in ICR and a 21% drop in groundball rate to same-handed hitters this year, despite continuing to post absolutely absurd (52%?!) chase rates against them. Such a decline doesn’t make sense to me - the changeup still killed the same crazy amount of vertical break, and the horizontal break may have improved by dropping even further into "cooky low" territory. To add to the mystery, it had the lowest mistake rate of his career according to PitcherList, and was zoned a shockingly low 30% of the time. Perhaps its tendency to leak more arm-side is a consideration, but the pitch as played was completely unusable, and it saw similar, albeit more muffled regression against their intended left-handed targets as well.

Webb’s sinker drops nearly 6 inches more than one would expect from his arm angle, a mark that can only be matched by someone like Clay Holmes. Nearly half of the sinker’s circle is in the black, indicating that it is completely uncharted territory. [Max Bay’s Dead Zone App]

If he can find his changeup again, all is good. His sinker performed at its usual elite level with 6 extra inches of drop out of the hand, and the sweeper continued to pacify RHB. I don't see a reason to drop Webb in the ranking, because this sort of year was already priced in last season. The outlier walk rate seemed like a giveaway to upcoming regression to the mean, rather than a breakthrough in command.

48. Matt Olson - 30 - Atlanta Braves - 1B (Previous Rank: 19, P: 170, T: 142)

I’m done with putting first basemen at 19 after a Paul Goldschmidt ranking failure the year before this one. I don't know what to think of Olson anymore, since he seems to undulate like Machado between an MVP-level year and one to forget. He stopped punishing fastballs to the incredible degree he was prior and completely caved to secondaries, which seems like just a speed bump given his career trajectory. I’m gonna take the Machado approach from years past by throwing him on the list and largely ignoring his prior season’s performance because he seems to come and go as he pleases year to year.

49. Carlos Correa - 30 - Minnesota Twins - SS (Previous Rank: UR, P: DNQ, T: 35)

A last-minute addition to the ranking, Correa was in vintage form offensively for his 86 2024 games in Minneapolis. He consistently makes very good swing decisions with plenty of contact, despite elite bat speed that generates great power. He tapped into his pull-side power more than any season since his Houston days and endures as a solid, albeit not great, defensive shortstop in spite of ongoing lower body injuries that got two contracts voided. Even if he was an average third baseman, the offensive level from three of the past four years is high enough for C.C. to be considered a top 50 player.

50. Spencer Strider - 26 - Atlanta Braves - SP (Previous Rank: 16, P: DNQ, T: 1233)

Strider was roughed up in his first 2 starts of 2024 before going down with an elbow injury that cost him the season. He got to briefly display his new curveball in that time, which will add a much-needed 3rd speed range to his mix. It's more of a tastebreaker than a dominant third offering, but if it can be average against left-handed hitters at 15-20% usage, Strider should be able to get by.

On the other side of the coin, his fastball was down a tick from 2023 (it was down a further tick from 2022), a certain component of his poor performance. Strider’s performance will be heavily dictated by how hard he can throw coming off surgery - he will hope for an outcome akin to Skubal, who has seen his fastball velocity increase by 3 mph since his own season-ending operation. He's pushed it past 98 in the Spring, but how things look in July will be the truth test.

Strider gets great utility from his elite fastball/slider tunnel to get whiffs, but their aggressive use leads to plenty of barrels. The values are in Run Value per 100 pitches over expected [Maxwell Resnick’s Tunneling App]

Lastly, we arrive at a slider that remains perhaps the league's best deceptive. It consistently runs 25% swinging strike and 50% whiff rates against left-handed hitters, which is just jaw-dropping. Against righties, it exceeded a 60% whiff rate in 2023, which might be even more amazing. It does get crushed to get those results, despite a low in-zone rate, and that's why the curve is so key. One can live with a 40% ICR if the CSW is even higher, a quality only conceivable for a dozen pitches amongst the league's starters at most. That’s why his curve is so critical; any reduction in hard contact from pitch disparity is more swing-and-miss at low cost.

Conclusion

That wraps up the list. If there’s enough interest, I’m willing to do an “honorable mentions” article (something I admitted to generally being against in the Cole Ragans blurb, and remains true). Part 1 of this year’s list has outperformed last year’s counterpart in just six weeks, so it seems like there may be some interest there. I already have many blurbs ready because of how players got cut towards the finish line, so it wouldn’t change the timeline of my other releases at all. Otherwise, onwards to less arduous material like the last SP to Watch article mid-week.

P.S. For those curious, Lawrence Butler would probably be my #51. That title was previously claimed by Cole Ragans in 2024 and Yandy Diaz in 2023.

Sources

FanGraphs

BaseballReference

PitcherList

BaseballSavant

Robert Orr’s “Realestmuto” Dashboard

SwingGraphs

Maxwell Resnick’s Tunneling App/Article

Michael Rosen’s Pitch Plot

Max Bay’s Dead Zone App

TJStats’ Spring Training App

TJStats’ Pitching Summary code (for ranking graphic)