There are so many incredibly talented, young starters in pro baseball right now, that you have to drop all the way down to 19th on my list before you reach a starter that will be over the age of 29 to start the 2026 season. Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes showed out again, proving they are the two best pitchers on the planet, but Garrett Crochet was right behind them and has an argument to be the 1c to their 1a and 1b. Yoshinobu Yamamoto proved the Dodgers right, pitching a full season of elite ball and then going on an epic playoff run (ending with a World Series MVP). Bryan Woo had an incredible start to the season, throwing six innings or more in 25 consecutive starts; Hunter Brown took another step forward, proving the final three-plus months of 2024 weren’t a fluke; Cristopher Sanchez entered the elite discussion with a career year and second place Cy Young finish; Hunter Greene maintained his elite strikeout rate, lowered his walk rate and established himself as an elite force, even though he threw just over 100 innings; and Spencer Schwellenbach built off of his breakout 2024 before breaking his elbow.

Not to mention elite returns from injury with Kyle Bradish, Brandon Woodruff, Trevor Rogers, Logan Gilbert, Eury Perez and Jacob deGrom.

Plus the extremely exciting group of youngsters who made electric big league debuts: Chase Burns, Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Schlittler, Trey Yesavage, Payton Tolle, Cade Horton, Noah Cameron, Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, Shane smith, Hurston Waldrep, Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft, Connelly Early, Parker Messick…it feels like the list will never end.

And that doesn’t even count the elite prospects that should make their MLB debut this year, to include Thomas White, Robby Snelling, Andrew Painter, Jaxon Wiggins, Brody Hopkins, Noah Schultz and more.

Stats are from 2025; Age is the player’s age on opening day

There’s not much I can say about Skenes. He’s dominant at every facet of the game, prevents runs better than everyone else, has elite numbers across the board and he’s under the age of 25. He is the definition of an ace, a true #1 and his value might even go up this season, with the Pirates spending money and resources on improving their offense, so he should win more games this season. I understand wanting to choose Skubal or Crochet, because of team comp, recent team success, etc., but no one has a better package of youth and skills than Skenes. I’m not a fan of taking pitching in the first round of dynasty leagues, but Skenes is the exception.

Skuba’s 2025 season was even better than his 2024. He struck out more batters, walked fewer, allowed fewer earned runs, had the exact same BABIP, his strand rate was virtually equal (80% vs 80.6%), allowed the lowest contact rate of his career and had the best swinging strike rate of his career. His changeup was far and away the best in baseball (the run value on his changeup was seven higher than the second best) and it was the best pitch in baseball, with a 46.8% whiff rate and a 42.3% strikeout rate. His ERA has improved every single season he has been in the league, from 5.63 as a rookie in 2020 to the 2.21 he had in 2025. He has been the absolute best pitcher since he made his 2023 pitching debut on July 4, with an fWAR advantage of 3.4 (over Logan Webb). Since then, he has won 38 games (the most in baseball), has a 2.39 ERA (only Skenes is better among pitchers with 300 or more innings pitched since then), has thrown 467.2 innings (second, behind only Webb), has struck out 571 batters (leads everyone; Dylan Cease is in second, 33 behind, in 30 fewer innings) and has the 14th fewest walks, even though only three pitchers with fewer walks have also pitched more than 400 innings. Odds are, he will be traded by the Tigers this year. Will it be before the All Star break? At the deadline? Or in the off-season? We don’t know. All we do know is that, where ever he goes, he is going to dominate and will be one of the best pitchers on the planet (if not the best).

If the past two seasons has proven anything, it’s that the White Sox should have had Crochet in the starting rotation from the jump. His first 72 major league appearances were out of the bullpen, including thirteen after he missed the entirety of the 2022 season due to Tommy John surgery. Over the past two years, he has been one of the four best pitchers on the planet, joining Skubal as the only American League starters to a) generate 10 or more fWAR and b) as the only two AL starters in the top eight for starter fWAR (Hunter Brown was the only other starter in the top 10 to spend the last two seasons in the AL; Max Fried was ninth but spent one year in Atlanta and one with the Yankees), and they were the only two pitchers in baseball to strike out more than 440 batters. He had three pitches that generated 10 or more run value: his sweeper generated 15 (tied with Jesus Luzardo for most among starters); his sinker also generated 15 (tied with Framber Valdez for second most) and his cutter generated 10 (tied for third most with Merrill Kelly). Crochet pitches for a Red Sox team intent on competing and making the playoffs, has one of the ten best offenses in the league and one of the best defenses, generating the fifth most defensive WAR.

If not for a strained rotator cuff in his right shoulder, that cost him nearly three full months in 2024, we might be talking about his first two seasons as the greatest start to an international free agents career of all time (Hideo Nomo gets to hang on to the belt for now). Instead, it’s “only” the second best, but I think he will take two World Series rings and the 2025 World Series MVP award as a consolation. Yamamoto has been incredibly dominant in his first 263.2 innings in the MLB, with the 10th highest K/9 of starters who have thrown 250 or more innings over the past two seasons; the fifth best ERA; ninth best HR/9; and seventh best FIP. He had the seventh most fWAR among starters in 2025, even though he threw at least 10 fewer innings than the pitchers ahead of him. He will headline the rotation for the presumed best team in all of baseball, with the best offense and a presumably better defense supporting him.

Woo had a very good third big league season in 2025. He brought his strikeout rate up to his rookie season rate, though he did walk more batters in the process (his 2025 walk rate nearly doubled his 2024), though his walk rate was still under 2 BB/9 and third best in the league. He had the highest strike rate in the league, with 55.5% of his pitches ending up in the strike zone, but just the 10th highest zone swing & miss rate, and the fourth lowest chase rate among starters who struck out 190 or more batters. He also had the tied for 14th worst home run rate, with the only “elite” players with a worse rate being Joe Ryan and Jacob deGrom. But, he limits line drives, has a nearly 1:1 ground ball to fly ball ratio, has a solid chase rate and incredible stamina. He threw six or more innings in his first 25 starts and in 27 total, allowed more than two earned runs only ten times (which means he allowed two earned runs or less in two-thirds of his starts). Though he may not have elite velocity, Woo does have one of the best four-seam fastballs in the game. Batters had the lowest batting average against any four-seam against Woo’s, with a 28.8% whiff rate and a 31.8% strikeout rate against the pitch, and the second lowest hard hit rate (behind just Skubal). He may not be as an exciting to watch pitcher as Skenes, Skubal or Crochet, but he is a quietly methodical stud who would be the bonafide ace of all but four or five teams in the league (his team included).

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Anthony Kates

I’m a husband, father and fantasy sports fanatic. I’ve been playing some fantasy sport or other since the fall of 1996, thanks to one of my childhood best friends, Brent. I enjoy watching all major sports, reading fantasy novels, watching TV shows and movies, playing video games and writing about fantasy baseball. I started at Sports Ethos in 2023, just writing one article a week and cutting my teeth in fantasy sports writing and I am now a co-lead of the Fantasy Baseball department, co-host of the Fantasy MLB Today podcast and the author of two weekly articles, our dynasty baseball rankings and a handful of random articles a year. I support the Houston Astros, Dallas Mavericks, Tennessee Titans and all things Texas Longhorns.

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