The All-Star break is over and the second half is here, which means two things: the trade deadline rumor mill is cranking, and everybody with a spreadsheet has opinions about who’s actually been good. The Big Lead dropped its top-10 starting pitcher rankings this week using Statcast’s under-the-hood metrics — expected ERA, strikeout-minus-walk rate, barrels allowed — rather than the surface numbers that can lie to you.
At the top: Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski, and nobody’s particularly close. His 33.2% K-BB% is seven points clear of the field. A 2.07 xERA across 18 starts and 111 innings. The 1.62 ERA is actually flattering even that profile, which is the kind of sentence that should terrify the rest of the National League. Some regression is coming. It won’t matter.
Dylan Cease, now with Toronto, sits second — 148 strikeouts in 98.1 innings, a 25.9% K-BB%, and a 2.56 ERA that’s basically identical to his 2.86 xERA. No luck involved in either direction. He’s just been the second-best starter in baseball.
Then there’s Shohei Ohtani at third, because of course he is. The Dodgers’ two-way star also ranks seventh on The Big Lead’s best-hitters list, making him the only player to appear on both. His 1.79 ERA runs nearly a full run below his 2.71 xERA, which means either the baseball gods have a favorite or the second half brings some correction. Fourteen starts. It’s absurd, and it’s real.
The most interesting names are the ones whose ERAs haven’t caught up to what the metrics say they’re doing. Paul Skenes has a 3.57 ERA sitting 84 points above his 2.73 xERA — the largest gap on the list. Max Fried’s 3.21 ERA is nearly half a run higher than his 2.63 xERA, and his 1.8% barrel rate is the lowest of anyone here by a wide margin. He doesn’t miss many bats, but nobody squares him up either. Jesús Luzardo’s 3.43 ERA undersells him by half a run; his 2.91 xERA and 143 strikeouts in 115.1 innings say the run prevention is owed, not earned away.
The rest of the board: Zack Wheeler (2.13 ERA, 0.892 WHIP, 15 starts for Philadelphia), Bryce Miller (2.48 xERA in just 10 starts but elite everywhere), Tarik Skubal (27.1% K-BB%, 98 strikeouts in 82.2 innings for Detroit), and Kyle Harrison (3.16 xERA, 23.8% K-BB% over 17 starts for Milwaukee).
Meanwhile, in the Bronx, the Yankees have a bullpen problem that has nothing to do with advanced metrics. Camilo Doval — an All-Star closer who led the National League with 39 saves for the Giants in 2023 — has a 4.86 ERA across 41 appearances in his first full season in New York. The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty called him a “disaster” on Monday and urged the Yankees to trade him or designate him for assignment before the deadline. Doval threw just 10 strikes in 33 pitches against the Dodgers in Game 1 of a doubleheader, walking three in 1.2 innings. He’s been restricted to low-leverage situations. He’s out of minor-league options. The Yankees don’t trust him in big moments, and there may not be a market for a reliever who’s lost the strike zone.
Sources: Yahoo Sports, The Big Lead, The Sporting News, The Athletic