What makes a top 25 starting pitcher? Do Nolan McLean or Nick Pivetta have a case?

Every fantasy baseball season, we look for new ways to find value in drafts. Maybe there’s a new metric that’s been released or a new way to calculate playing time more accurately. Whatever it is, we’re hunting for that edge. But what if the key to figuring out the future is just looking to the past?

For my presentation at First Pitch Arizona this year, I did a deep dive into last year’s top 25 starting pitchers. Where were they generally drafted? Were there overlapping skillsets? Were they strikeout pitchers or command pitchers? How many innings did they need to throw? My goal was simply to find any common threads that would help us identify the markers that could lead us to this year’s top 25 starting pitchers.

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I’ve now taken that presentation and turned it into an article. Below, you’ll find nine traits last year’s top 25 all had in common, some trends for top 25 starting pitchers over the last few years, and breakdowns of a few fringe top 25 arms and my verdict on whether they’ll end up crossing the threshold or not. So let’s dive in.

⚾️ Coming soon: MLB returns to NBC and Peacock in 2026! In addition to becoming the exclusive home of Sunday Night Baseball, NBC Sports will broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, “Opening Day” and Labor Day primetime games, the first round of the MLB Draft, the entire Wild Card round of the postseason, and much more.

Top 25 Starting Pitchers from 2025

1. Tarik Skubal – Detroit Tigers

2. Garrett Crochet – Boston Red Sox

3. Paul Skenes – Pittsburgh Pirates

4. Bryan Woo – Seattle Mariners

5. Hunter Brown – Houston Astros

6. Cristopher Sanchez – Philadelphia Phillies

7. Freddy Peralta – Milwaukee Brewers (at the time)

8. Yoshinobu Yamamoto – Los Angeles Dodgers

9. Nathan Eovaldi – Texas Rangers

10. Carlos Rodon – New York Yankees

11. Max Fried – New York Yankees

12. Jacob deGrom – Texas Rangers

13. Nick Pivetta – San Diego Padres

14. Zack Wheeler – Philadelphia Phillies

15. Trevor Rogers – Baltimore Orioles

16. Joe Ryan – Minnesota Twins

17. Matthew Boyd – Chicago Cubs

18. Drew Rasmussen – Tampa Bay Rays

19. Logan Webb – San Francisco Giants

20. Chris Sale – Atlanta Braves

21. Hunter Greene – Cincinnati Reds

22. Kevin Gausman – Toronto Blue Jays

23. Andrew Abbott – Cincinnati Reds

24. Cade Horton – Chicago Cubs

25. Merrill Kelly – Diamondbacks/Rangers (at the time)

Obviously, as is the case every year, injuries played a big role in determining the top 25 starting pitchers. A large number of pitchers who were ranked inside the top 25 heading into the season missed large chunks of time with injury: Logan Gilbert, Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, Cole Ragans, Michael King, Pablo Lopez, Spencer Schwellenbach, Bryce Miller, Aaron Nola, Tyler Glasnow, Shane McClanahan, and Gerrit Cole.

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Where did we draft the top 25 starting pitchers?

While we often think that we need to spend an early-round draft pick in order to land a fantasy ace, the average ADP of the top 25 starting pitchers was 182.3 (taken from NFBC’s Online Championship data, 12-team leagues). Only six of the top 25 starting pitchers were drafted inside the top 50 picks, and another six were drafted between picks 51 and 100. Perhaps more surprisingly, there were seven pitchers who finished inside the top 25 who were drafted outside the top 200 picks. While this has been a trend in recent years, and I’ve written an article about it in past seasons, the number of late-round pitchers who produced top 25 value was larger than ever last season.

Some of that was obviously due to the injuries we mentioned above, so you don’t need to modify your draft strategy to only select starters outside of the top 200 picks, but it does continue to show that plenty of starting pitching value can be found later in the draft. Of those pitchers, many of them (Trevor Rogers, Matthew Boyd, Dre Rasmussen, Cade Horton) were drafted late because there were concerns about their projected volume. Perhaps banking on talent over roles with those late-round picks continues to be the way to go.

Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings 2026: Bryan Woo, Eury Pérez rise up in top 150 SP list

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Eric Samulski ranks his top 150 starting pitchers for 2026.

What traits did the top 25 starting pitchers have in common?

Trait 1: Innings pitched

Amongst the top 25 starting pitchers, the average innings pitched was 170. What’s more, 14 of the top 25 had at least 175 innings pitched, and only five of them pitched 130 innings or fewer (Eovaldi, Rogers, Sale, Greene, Horton). If we also look at their track record, 17 of the top 25 starting pitchers from last year have had only one or no seasons with under 120 innings as a starting pitcher, and only five of them have more than two seasons in their careers with under 120 innings (Eovaldi, Rodon, deGrom, Boyd, Sale).

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LESSON LEARNED: When identifying a potential top 25 starting pitcher, we want to target pitchers with at least a somewhat reliable track record of durability. It seems like being able to pitch consistently over 120 innings gives you a good chance to put together a season with enough innings to crack the top 25.

Trait 2a: Strikeout upside

Amongst the top 25 starting pitchers, the average total strikeouts was 181. Nine of them had at least 200 strikeouts. While some of that is obviously tied to the durability topic we mentioned above, the average swinging strike rate (SwStr%) for the top 25 SP was 13.7%. That’s significantly better than the league average for starting pitchers, which was 11%. In fact, only Drew Rasmussen had a SwStr% that was below the league average, and only five of the top 25 starting pitchers had a SwStr% under 12% (Kelly, Boyd, Pivetta, Webb, Rasmussen). What’s more, 11 of the top 25 starting pitchers had a SwStr% of 14% or better.

LESSON LEARNED: It’s hard to be a top 25 SP with a below-average SwStr%. There isn’t an exact mark we should strive for because the league average changes each season, but we can make 12% our cut-off.

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Trait 2b: Strikeout upside fueled by secondary pitches

This is kind of a subset of the previous, so we’ll make them part of the same overall trait. While general strikeout upside is important, I believe it’s equally important that we identify pitchers who have an elite secondary pitch. This gives us an extra layer of security rather than relying on pitchers who get by with just a dominant fastball. Last season, the average SwStr% for the top 25 starting pitchers on their most-used secondary pitch was 19.3%. Nine of those top 25 pitchers had a primary secondary pitch with at least a 20% SwStr%, and 14 of them had one with at least a 19% mark. That means 56% of all of the top 25 starting pitchers in fantasy baseball last year had a most-used secondary offering with at least a 19% SwStr%. That sounds like a pretty important criterion we should be looking for.

On the other end of the spectrum, only four of those top 25 starting pitchers didn’t have a single secondary pitch with at least a 15% SwStr% (Paul Skenes, Joe Ryan, Drew Rasmussen, Andrew Abbott). Skenes obviously throws multiple fastballs that can miss bats, and Joe Ryan famously has a dominant fastball, but the other two pitchers were just on the fringe of the top 25 and probably would not have made it in without multiple injuries.

LESSON LEARNED: A top 25 starting pitcher likely needs a dominant swing-and-miss pitch for strikeouts that is not some form of a fastball. That pitch also needs to be one that they use over 10% of the time.

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Trait 3: Hit Suppression

People will try to tell you that pitchers are not responsible for hit suppression, but I promise you that those people didn’t pitch or catch at a level where pitch mix and pitch sequencing truly matter. Pitchers absolutely have a hand in suppressing hits based on mixing and matching pitches and locations to keep hitters off the barrel. Good pitchers can limit hits with overpowering stuff or with plus command.

Last year, the average hits per nine innings allowed among the top 25 starting pitchers was 6.9, which was significantly better than the league average for starting pitchers, which was 8.5. Thirteen of the top 25 starting pitchers had a H/9 below 7.0, and only six of them had a H/9 of 7.5 or higher. In fact, only one top 25 starting pitcher had a below-average H/9. It was Logan Webb, who posted a 9.1 and was a big reason why his WHIP didn’t help you as much as you wanted it to last season.

LESSON LEARNED: Hits per nine might be a stat that we overlook when identifying top starting pitchers

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Trait 4: Relative Command

I say “relative command” rather than command because pitchers with high strikeout totals often throw a lot of pitches outside the strike zone to induce chases and whiffs. We’re OK with that if we’re getting strikeouts, so we don’t just want command as much as we want command that is above-average when also factoring in the amount of strikeout upside we get with it. A good stat for relative command is K-BB% because it factors in walk rate, but only does so as it relates to how many batters you strike out. To me, that’s more important than just looking at zone rates or walk rates.

Last season, the average K-BB% among the top 25 starting pitchers was 20.4%. Another stat in which they were, unsurprisingly, well above the league average for starting pitchers, which was 14%. Five of the top 25 had a K-BB% higher than 25% and 14 of them had a K-BB% higher than 20%. That’s, again, 56% of the top 25 starting pitchers who were at least 6% above league average in K-BB%. Only five of those top 25 starting pitchers had a K-BB% under 16.5%, which is still above league average (Horton, Boyd, Rasmussen, Abbott, Kelly), and only one of them had a below-average K-BB% (Merrill Kelly at 13.4%).

If you look at walk rate alone, only three of the top 25 starting pitchers finished in the top 10 in walk rate, and only four of the top 25 finished in the top 15. So walk rate didn’t correlate well to overall fantasy baseball success.

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LESSON LEARNED: Command relative to strikeout upside is more important than just good command. Searching for pitchers with the highest K-BB% is one of the best ways to find potential top-performing starting pitchers.

Trait 5: Impactful fastball

I’ve long been a believer that it’s hard for a pitcher to be above-average without a good fastball to fall back on. Last year’s top 25 starting pitchers seem to validate that. If we look at the raw stuff on the fastball, the average four-seam fastball velocity among the top 25 starting pitchers last year was 95.1 mph. That was 1.0 mph faster than the league average for starting pitchers. Ten of the top 25 averaged 95.5 mph or faster on their four-seam fastball, and only seven of them had below-average four-seam velocity (Pivetta, Rogers, Boyd, Ryan, Webb, Abbott, and Kelly). All of those pitchers succeeded because they either had plus extension/vertical movement, at least five pitches in their arsenal, or an elite left-handed change-up to pair with their fastball.

If we go beyond pure stuff, the top 25 starting pitchers, on average, threw their primary fastball (four-seam or sinker) 41% of the time. Ten of them threw it at least 45% of the time, which shows us that a good portion of the top 25 starting pitchers rely heavily on their fastball for success. Going beyond that, ten of them also had three variations of fastball, and only five of them throw just one fastball type (Sanchez, Peralta, deGrom, Greene, Gausman). Of course, deGrom and Greene have showcased historically good fastballs, and Gausman is a primary splitter pitcher, so it makes sense that those guys didn’t use multiple fastball variations; although, it would be nice if Gausman could learn one.

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LESSON LEARNED: If a pitcher doesn’t have a reliable, high-velocity fastball, it’s hard to be in the top 25. A deep pitch mix or multiple fastball variations will help to offset the lack of an elite fastball, and lefties without high velocity can often get by if they have an elite changeup or multiple fastball variations.

Trait 6: Fastball command

In addition to having a high-velocity fastball, a top 25 starting pitcher can usually command their fastball well. The average four-seam fastball zone rate among the top 25 starting pitchers last year was 56.1%, which is above the league average for starters at 53%. It’s important to note that this is above the league but not exceptionally so, which goes back to our earlier point that command is important relative to strikeout upside, but the top 25 starting pitchers will not likely be the pitchers with the best pinpoint command. However, only four starting pitchers last year had a four-seam fastball zone rate under 50% (Crochet, Pivetta, Peralta, Brown), and seven of them had a four-seam fastball zone rate of 60% or better.

LESSON LEARNED: Not only does fastball velocity count, but fastball command is important too. If a pitcher gets behind regularly, it’s harder for them to get strikeouts and prevent hits. We don’t need to look for ELITE fastball command, but it should at least be better than average.

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Trait 7: Deep pitch mix

When Eno Sarris first debuted Stuff+, he said there was a point where pitchers with deep pitch mixes often outperformed their Stuff+ grades. For him, that was when a pitcher had six pitches that they threw regularly. We have now seen a trend in the league where pitchers are starting to add multiple fastball variations to their arsenal to diversify their pitch mix. All of this, plus my experience as a catcher calling pitches, tells me that a pitcher with more pitches in their arsenal is often set up for more success.

Last season, on average, the top 25 starting pitchers featured a pitch mix of 5.04 pitches they used over 10% of the time. Nine of them regularly throw at least six pitches, and only three of them throw only three pitches (Sanchez, Greene, and Gausman). Gausman is primarily a splitter pitcher, and those pitchers often don’t have deep pitch mixes, but they are also volatile because they depend so much on the splitter. Greene is also a bit of a rare case because his fastball and slider are so good that he can be dominant without a deep pitch mix, like pre-injury Spencer Strider.

LESSON LEARNED: Having a deeper pitch mix gives a starting pitcher more wiggle room, which often leads to more success. Having a deep pitch mix plus velocity and fastball command is a top 25 recipe.

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Trait 8: High pitch mix grade

Even though “stuff” grades are not an exact science, we accept the basic premise that pitchers with elite raw stuff put themselves in an advantageous position. Yes, they will also need some semblance of command, but their elite stuff gives them a higher floor to work from than pitchers with lesser stuff. For me, when I use stuff grades, I like to use Pitcher List’s PLV metric because location is factored into the grade, whereas Stuff+ needs a separate Location+ metric to evaluate the command of a specific pitch.

The average PLV grade for the top 25 starting pitchers last year was 5.12, while the MLB average for starting pitchers was 5.01. Among qualified starters, eight of the top 10 PLV grades among starting pitchers were pitchers who finished in the top 25 overall. You can expand that, as 12 of the top 15 PLV grades belonged to pitchers who finished in the top 25 in fantasy baseball. Additionally, 12 of the top 25 starting pitchers had a PLV grade of at least 5.15, and only five of them finished with a below-average PLV grade (Brown, Boyd, Horton, Rogers, and Rodon). We should note that models tend not to like changeups, and those last four pitchers had strong changeups in 2025, so they may have been unfairly penalized.

LESSON LEARNED: Relying on pure stuff is great, but being able to properly execute a pitch mix is likely more valuable, so using a stuff metric that takes location into account may be more useful for projecting fantasy success. Overall PLV grades may be a good indicator of fantasy baseball success.

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Trait 9: Pitch mix to attack both right-handed hitters and left-handed hitters

In addition to having pitches that grade out well individually, I believe a starting pitcher must have a clear attack plan to both right-handed hitters and left-handed hitters. That means that, for a starting pitcher to have fantasy success, they must have a pitch they can throw for strikes to all hitters and a whiff pitch they can use for all hitters, and, preferably, a deeper arsenal around that to keep hitters off rhythm. So when we say a pitcher is a four-pitch pitcher, does that mean they have four pitches in total, but only throw two of them to lefties? Or does it mean they use four pitches to both righties and lefties? That’s important to distinguish how deep their pitch mix truly is.

On average, last season, the top 25 starters had 3.6 distinct pitches for righties and 3.48 for lefties. Eleven of the top 25 starters had AT LEAST four distinct pitches for hitters of each handedness, and every single top 25 starting pitcher throws at least three pitches to EITHER righties or lefties at least 10% of the time. What’s more, only four of the top 25 starters didn’t haveat least three distinct pitches for BOTH lefties and righties (deGrom, Pivetta, Greene, and Gausman). We already spoke earlier about how deGrom and Greene are rare cases because of their elite raw stuff, and that Gausman is an especially volatile starter because of his over-reliance on his splitter.

LESSON LEARNED: If a pitcher doesn’t have multiple, proven ways to attack both righties and lefties, it’s hard to finish in the top 25.

2026 Fantasy Baseball Top 300: Early injuries shake up preseason rankings

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Corbin Carroll, Francisco Lindor, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Jackson Holliday are among the injuries to watch in our latest update.

Top 25 starting pitcher trends over the years

As you can see from this simple chart, the innings threshold to finish inside the top 25 starting pitchers has been decreasing over the years. As strikeouts have increased and pitchers’ workloads have decreased, it is no longer necessary to pitch 180+ innings to be a top 25 starting pitcher. Of course, it certainly helps.

We’re also seeing that pitchers who finish in the top 25 starting pitchers on the season have an increasingly strong swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and CSW. This means that swing-and-miss stuff is more connected to top 25 finishes than it was a few years ago, which shouldn’t be a surprising revelation.

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Red flags to avoid when identifying potential top 25 starting pitchers

So, we’ve talked about a few good signs for starting pitchers, but what are some red flags that we want to avoid if we’re projecting a pitcher to finish inside the top 25 overall?

• A low SwStr% is bad, but it can be made up for with a deep pitch mix since all of the top 25 starting pitchers with a sub 12% SwStr% throw at least five pitches

• Having low fastball velocity is bad, but it can be managed with plus command.

• Having a low SwStr% on a primary secondary pitch is hard to cover for and is a major red flag.

• Low innings totals are a red flag, but if you have high strikeout upside, then 120-130 innings can be the floor

So, who are some pitchers that we might want to avoid ranking in the top 25 this upcoming season based on those red flags?

• Tyler Glasnow, Dodgers: He has just one season over 120 innings in his career.

• Blake Snell, Dodgers: He has only two seasons over 130 innings in his career, and he may be delayed to start the season.

• Dylan Cease, Blue Jays: His four-seam fastball command was 8th percentile last year. It’s hard to be a consistent starter if you can’t command your fastball.

• Freddy Peralta, Mets: His four-seam fastball command was 18th percentile last year, but he has succeeded at that rate before. He may be an exception.

• Spencer Strider, Braves: His four-seam fastball regressed immensely post-surgery in both velocity and command.

Top 25 starting pitcher locks for 2026

Based on everything we discussed above, here are the pitchers I feel confident about sliding into the top 25 in my rankings.

I would feel similarly good about having Pablo Lopez in here, but he ended last year on the IL, so I need to see him throw a few times in spring training before I go ahead and put him in there. Nathan Eovaldi is another potential candidate, but we know that innings totals and injuries have always been risks for him. So, with all that said, who are the other starting pitchers I feel good about ending the season in the top 25?

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⚾️ Coming soon: MLB returns to NBC and Peacock in 2026! In addition to becoming the exclusive home of Sunday Night Baseball, NBC Sports will broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, “Opening Day” and Labor Day primetime games, the first round of the MLB Draft, the entire Wild Card round of the postseason, and much more.

Potential top 25 starting pitchers for 2026 fantasy baseball

Eury Perez – Miami Marlins

Few pitchers in this section of the article have the upside that Perez does. The average swinging strike rate (SwStr%) for the top 25 starting pitchers last year was 13.7%, and Perez posted a 14.8% rate. He did have a 19% strikeout minus walk rate (K-BB%), which was below the 20.4% mark that was the average for the top 25 last year. However, last year was Perez’s first year coming off Tommy John surgery, so some rust with command was expected. He has a five-pitch mix that features a sweeper with a 22.2% SwStr% to righties and a harder slider with 21% swinging strike rate to lefties. We know his velocity is great, and his four-seam fastball also had a 59% zone rate, which was well above league average. My only concern with Perez is innings, but I feel like he could become a top 25 starter even if he only throws 150 innings this season.

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VERDICT: Locked into my top 25.

Nick Pivetta – San Diego Padres

Nick Pivetta finished inside the top 25 last year after pitching to a 2.87 ERA. However, that was his first season ever with an ERA under 4.00, so we have to wonder how sustainable that was. Pivetta posted just a 10.5% SwStr% and has a career 10.7% mark, so when you pair that with a four-seam fastball with below-average velocity and command, it’s not an ideal combination, even though the four-seamer does get whiffs up in the zone. He also posted a 19% K-BB%, which is fine but below the average for top 25 starting pitchers last season. Pivetta does throw a cutter and uses it primarily to righties as an early-strike pitch. He has a sweeper that posted a 20% SwStr% to righties, which we like, but has no swing-and-miss pitch for lefties. In fact, he’s really just a two-pitch pitcher to lefties, throwing his four-seamer 52% of the time and a curve 38% of the time. That curve had just a 6.4% SwStr% to lefties. All of that worries me. I know he has a pitch mix that grades out well by PLV, but it’s a far narrower mix than we believe, and I think much of his success can just be attributed to his HR/FB rate dropping to 9.7% after being over 15% for his career.

VERDICT: I don’t think there is enough strikeout upside or a deep enough pitch mix to left-handed hitters to warrant a spot in the top 25 for Pivetta, but he’s close.

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Drew Rasmussen – Tampa Bay Rays

Drew Rasmussen also finished inside the top 25 last year, but he was one of the names that kept coming up the most when I looked at pitchers who were below the average of the group. He had just a 10.8% SwStr% and a 15.4% K-BB%. He’s essentially just a three-pitch pitcher, with 90% of his pitch mix coming from his four-seamer, cutter, and sinker. That’s 90% of his arsenal being three different variations of a fastball. He also has never pitched more than 150 innings in a season. Yet, there are also some things to like. His fastball has above-average velocity, league-average command, and a flat attack angle that allows it to miss bats. His cutter eats up lefties and also posts a 16.5% SwStr% against them, and his sinker just gets beat into the ground by righties. His cutter does act like a hard slider and had an 11.3% SwStr% against righties too, but his sweeper does not get many whiffs. That means he has the same whiff pitch to both righties and lefties and relies a lot on his fastball to miss bats. That will always make it hard for him to have the strikeout numbers to earn a spot in the top 25, especially given his innings concerns.

VERDICT: Rasmussen has a safe floor given his 2.76 ERA and 1.00 WHIP over his 389.2 career innings as a starter. I think he has proven that he can induce weak contact, but his strikeout rate is likely capped around 22%, which means that it’s hard to envision his overall strikeout totals being much higher than 130 with his innings concerns. That all still makes him a fringe top 25 arm, however.

Nolan McLean – New York Mets

Many people have McLean ranked the highest of the young starting pitchers (Chase Burns, Cam Schlittler, etc.), but I may throw some cold water on that. Yes, McLean had a 21.3% K-BB% last year and has a 95 mph sinker that he can pound the zone with, which suggests both strikeout upside and hit suppression. However, I’m not so sure the strikeout upside is as good as everybody is anticipating. For starters, his 12% SwStr% last year was almost 2% below the average for the top 25 starting pitchers. His primary secondary pitch to righties is his sweeper, which he threw 32% of the time to righties; however, that pitch had just a 5.8% swinging-strike rate against right-handed hitters. That’s, um, not good. His curve did register a 24.3% swinging-strike rate against righties, but he throws it to them just 11% of the time, and it had just a league-average putaway rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch ends in a strikeout. I do like that he has six pitches and three fastball variations, but his pitch mix, according to PLV, also grades out below the league average for starting pitchers.

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VERDICT: I’m concerned by the lack of true out pitch against righties. Last year, McLean had just a 10.6% SwStr% to righties, and the sweeper does not look like a pitch that’s designed to miss bats. I like his general approach, but those execution and strikeout concerns have me more tepid on him than some of the other analysts out there, and I would not put him near my top 25.

Framber Valdez – Detroit Tigers

For many people, Framber Valdez is a top 25 lock. I’ve never been as big a fan, and there are a few reasons for it. For starters, I don’t believe there’s as much strikeout upside with Valdez. Last season, he had a SwStr% of 12.6, but the average SwStr% for the top 25 SP was 13.7%. He also had a K-BB% of 14.8% in 2025, where the average K-BB% among the top 25 starting pitchers was 20.4%. That’s a pretty stark difference. He does have a sinker that he commands well in the zone, a pitch mix that grades out well by PLV, and a history of solid hit suppression, which are all things we like. However, he has only one fastball variation and is essentially just a two-pitch pitcher against lefties. His main secondary pitch to righties and lefties is the same one, his curve, which had a 20.8% SwStr% to right-handed hitters and a 18.4% SwStr% to left-handed hitters.

VERDICT: Valdez’s muted strikeout upside and his more limited pitch mix cause him to rely so heavily on his curveball for success. That makes him a fringe top 25 arm who is often ranked too high.

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Nick Lodolo – Cincinnati Reds

I’ve always been a fan of Lodolo’s, but I can’t truly put my finger on why. Maybe it’s the gangly left-handed delivery or the strikeout potential, but I enjoy watching him pitch, so it was nice to see a bit of a breakout season for him last year. His 13.8% SwStr% fits right in line with a typical top 25 starting pitcher, and he has dynamic weapons in a curveball that registered a 19.4% SwStr% to lefties and 20.7% SwStr% to righties and a changeup that also had a 15.5% SwStr% to righties. Lodolo has a four-pitch mix that grades out well according to PLV and has also led to tremendous hit suppression over the last two seasons, with a 7.9 H/9 that’s well below the 8.5 H/9 league average for starting pitchers in 2025. His fastball command is slightly below average, which led to a 19.4% K-BB% that’s a touch below the mark we want to see from a top 25 arm, and paired with his brutal home park, makes him a little bit more of a risk than some of the other names in this section.

VERDICT: Lodolo’s command and home park work against him, but he has plus secondaries and the strikeout upside required to consider him a fringe top 25 arm who should be ranked higher in most places.

Ryan Pepiot – Tampa Bay Rays

Pepiot hit a career high of 167.2 innings last year in his second year with the Rays. That came with a 13% SwStr% and 15.6% K-BB%, which were both actually below the threshold for top 25 starting pitchers that we discussed above. However, I think there is more swing and miss in his arsenal. His four-seam fastball has good velocity at 95.2 mph with strong extension and a flat attack angle, so he gets lots of swings and misses up in the zone. It had both an above-average swinging strike rate and putaway rate in 2025. He has a 12.5% SwStr% against right-handed hitters with both his slider and cutter, which is slightly below where we’d like, but, again, his four-seamer is a true whiff pitch for righties. His changeup had a near 14% SwStr% to lefties, and the cutter is a nice strike pitch to lefties, so I like the depth of his overall pitch and his ability to get whiffs for both righties and lefties.

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His entire arsenal grades out well on PLV, and his overall hits per nine innings allowed is good, with a 7.2 mark last year and a 6.9 career mark. The issue is that home runs have been an issue for him in the past, with a 1.4 HR/9 and nearly 14% HR/FB last year. However, we have to keep in mind that he was pitching in a minor league ballpark last year. In his first season at Tropicana Field, his HR/FB was just 11%, and his HR/9 was 1.18. The move back to Tropicana Field will help him in 2026, and we could see his ERA fall back to the 3.50 range with a potential uptick in strikeouts.

VERDICT: The strikeout totals haven’t been where we’d like for Pepiot in the past, but everything under the hood with his arsenal seems to suggest that he has the mix and ability to get there. He’s also moving back to a more favorable home park this season, so I think a top 25 season could be in the making.

Jacob Misiorowski – Milwaukee Brewers

Misiorowski is a popular breakout candidate after posting a 32% strikeout rate in 66 innings in his MLB debut last year. It’s not hard to see the strikeout potential here. Misiorowski has a 99 mph four-seam fastball and posted a 14.8% SwStr% and 21% K-BB% last year, both of which are above the average mark we saw for the top 25 starting pitchers in 2025. His four-pitch mix graded out really well, according to PLV, and he allowed just 7.0 hits per nine innings last year, which was well above the 8.5 H/9 mark of the league average starting pitchers last season. Misiorowski’s curve posted a 20.2% SwStr% to lefties, but his slider had a below-average 11.2% SwStr% to righties. His four-seamer had just a 10.5% SwStr% to righties, but he uses it over 33% of the time in two-strike counts, and it posted an above-average putaway rate, so there isn’t much concern about his strikeout upside. He does have league-average four-seam command and just one fastball variation, which are minor concerns heading into 2026.

VERDICT: It would be nice if Misiorowski had shown a legit whiff pitch for righties, but the slider performed fine, and we know the four-seamer can miss bats. My larger issues are that he still has some command risk, which will always make his WHIP a bit of a risk. When you pair that with the fact that his “breakout” in 2025 also came with a 4.24 ERA, I’m just not sure his ratios will push him into the top 25 overall.

Edward Cabrera – Chicago Cubs

Yes, I’m higher on Edward Cabrera than most, but there are a few key reasons for that. For starters, Cabrera made a switch from using his four-seam fastball as his primary fastball to using a sinker. That sinker had a 61.3% zone rate, which is well above average among starting pitchers. That allows Cabrera to get ahead in the count, which he wasn’t able to do with his four-seamer, and then set up a slider that has a 19.3% SwStr% to righties and a curve that had a 19.9% SwStr% against lefties. That pair of secondaries has helped him post a 13.2% SwStr%, which is better than what the average top 25 starting pitchers did last year. The move to a sinker also helped his hit suppression, and his 7.3 H/9 for his career is well above-average. However, he still has some overall command concerns, which has led to a 17.5% K-BB% last year that’s below what you’d like to see from a top 25 starting pitcher.

VERDICT: Cabrera now has a true five-pitch mix with a fastball that he can command and two plus secondaries. That’s a great foundation for a top 25 starting pitcher. However, he has command and injury concerns that keep him just outside the top 25 for me.

Chase Burns – Cincinnati Reds

Few young pitchers are getting as much hype as Chase Burns, and I get it; we all love strikeouts. Burns had four straight games with 10 strikeouts last season and posted a 16.7% SwStr% and 27.1% K-BB% in his MLB innings last year. He did that on the back of a 98.7 mph four-seam fastball and a wipeout slider that posted a 19.2% SwStr% to right-handed hitters and a 29.4% SwStr% to left-handed hitters. Generally speaking, I don’t love it when a pitcher has the same swing-and-miss pitch to hitters from both sides of the plate; however, Burns also showed off a changeup that had 16.7% SwStr% to lefties but was just used 10% of the time to those lefties. I’d like to see him use that pitch a little more because he’s really just a two-pitch pitcher. Considering his four-seam fastball also gets hit more than you’d like to see, that doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for Burns to find success if one of his primary avenues isn’t working.

VERDICT: Burns’ limited pitch mix and hard contact rates on his four-seam fastball keep him out of the top 25 for me. That being said, the changeup is lingering there as a solid third pitch, which could really propel him up the rankings, so I’m coming around.