1. Gio Gonzalez, Washington. A left-hander who has always had pretty good stuff but was considered wild until this year, Gonzalez was drafted by the White Sox, traded to the Phillies, traded back to the White Sox, traded to Oakland and, this spring, traded to Washington. Hammered by the Cubs in his first outing, Gonzalez in his last five has pitched 33 innings giving up only 13 hits and 3 runs for a 0.82 ERA, 35 strikeouts and 10 walks.
2. Johnny Cueto, Cincinnati. Hitter’s Park? What hitter’s park? Cueto is 4-0 with a 1.31 ERA on the year. His being a #1 is really a matter of staying healthy.
3. Anibal Sanchez, Miami. 39-38 coming into this season, Sanchez has struck out 46 batters in 40 innings, 2.01 ERA.
4. Brandon Morrow, Toronto. I’ve always loved Brandon Morrow, ever since I saw a game years ago when he and Greinke looked like the two best pitchers in baseball, going head to head. I’ve always thought Morrow had Cy Young stuff. He has 15 shutout innings in his last two starts, 17 strikeouts and no walks. And the start before those two was really good, although he gave up a run.
5. Brandon Beachy, Atlanta. In his major league career he has made 34 starts, lost only 6 games and struck out 211 batters.
6. Jake Peavy, Chicago. He’s been there before, of course, but Peavy is pitching at a Cy Young level once again. His average Game Score this year, 68.0, is the fifth highest in the majors, behind Jered Weaver, Matt Cain, Felix Hernandez and the snakebit Ryan Dempster.
7. Drew Smyly, Detroit. Still hasn’t had a bad start in the majors. There are now 7 pitchers in the majors who have made at least five starts and have posted a Game Score of 50 or higher every time out: C. J. Wilson, Anibal, Stephen Strasburg, Lance Lynn, Smyly, Dempster and Ted Lilly.
8. Madison Bumgarner. I didn’t say #1 on this staff. San Francisco has lots of good pitchers, but he’s been their #2 guy so far.
9. R.A. Dickey. I know, I know; it can’t happen. But he is coming off a string of strong performances, and at some point you have to give him his due. I have him currently ranked as the 45th best starting pitcher in the major leagues.
10. James McDonald, Pittsburgh. Quietly getting people out for the last year.
Here are this week’s starting pitcher rankings. On the left is the pitcher’s ranking as of one month ago, April 10; no longer the start of the season, but one month ago. The five categories to the right of the pitcher’s name are his Game Scores in each of the last five five-day start windows. Last night was the start of a new five-day window, so most of those are blank as now.
To the right of that is the number of Games Started by the pitcher this year, his average Game Score in those starts, and his current ranking number. To the far right is his current rank. There are 200 starting pitchers who are currently ranked.
White-on-Green indicates the pitchers who are surging in the rankings. White-on-Brown indicates those who are falling.
There are eleven pitchers who were ranked at the start of the year, but have disappeared from the rankings since the start of the season due to inactivity: Carlos Carrasco, Brad Hand, Tom Gorzelanny, Jo-Jo Reyes, Chien-Ming Wang, Ross Ohlendorf, Jorge de la Rosa, Dontrelle Willis, Tyler Chatwood, Wade LeBlanc and Rodrigo Lopez. That number will go up rapidly now, because we have now passed the 225-day mark since the end of last season, and pitchers scores drop by one full point a day when they are inactive for more than 225 days. These are the rankings:
Thanks for reading.
Bill James