We’re back with Part 2 of the Starting Pitchers section of the Future Hall of Fame Series. We’ll once again be picking up right where Part 1 left off; if you missed that one or need to refresh your memory on the methodology, you can find it here. And for that matter, if you missed the Position Players portion of this update, you can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
I’m going to try and get one more piece finished for this year’s update, hopefully soon. If you would like to be notified right when that goes live, you can sign up for the Hot Corner Harbor mailing list using the box below (or in the similar box at the end of the article).
Age 29: 31.7 WAR Median; 38.78% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Shane Bieber (17.7 WAR)
We have a couple of former Cy Young winners at the top of this group in Shane Bieber and Corbin Burnes (17.1 WAR). Both of them are pretty far off from Hall pace, in spite of those high peaks. Again, some of that is due to the specific quirks of bWAR, but only a bit; Fangraphs has both of them a little higher, but still only in the low 20s rather than high teens.
Since we’re at the end of the 20s, this seems like as good a place as any to talk about how the difference in quantity for modern pitchers really starts to add up. There are nearly 200 Liveball-era pitchers who have reached the 20 career WAR mark before their age 30 season, so way more than just the best of the best. Like I said earlier, part of the difference is that teams are more hesitant about calling up young arms than they used to be; there are a lot of debuts at Age 20 and 21 and even some 19s in that set of 200ish names, and 23s and later are harder to come by. But even among the pitchers who debuted at 23 (the same age that Bieber and Burnes got called up), you see a big difference. Just to give you a random mix of guys: Charles Nagy (debuted in 1990) got up to 1127.0 innings by this age, David Cone (1986) was at 1267.0, Andy Pettitte (1995) had 1449.2, Tim Lincecum (2007) was at 1411.2, Roy Oswalt (2001) sat at 1413.1, Jered Weaver (2006) was at 1320.1, Jose Quintana (2012) reached 1314.0, Jordan Zimmermann (2009) landed at 1094.0…
In comparison, Bieber is at 843.0, and Burnes is at 903.2. It’s not shocking that guys in the ‘80s and ‘90s threw more, but even seeing guys from a decade or two ago several hundred innings ahead is kind of shocking. Granted, some of that is external factors, like Bieber’s injury history, or Burnes taking several years to really stick in the majors… but that is part of the issue, right? Pitchers take longer to adjust to the modern game and aren’t trusted at young ages, they’re expected to go all out and wear themselves down more quickly, batters will adjust their entire games around driving up pitch counts and taking starters out of the game sooner… It all adds up in the aggregate. Looking at stuff like this is the kind of thing that makes me think future Hall voters will need a big shift how they think about these things.
Shohei Ohtani is also here with 15.0 WAR, but I already covered him back in the Hitters article.
Age 30: 36.7 WAR Median; 52.78% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Max Fried (22.9 WAR)
Well, at least we finally reach a player with over 20 career WAR who actually pitched in 2024. Fried is interesting in that he was kind of a really late bloomer, spending most of his ages 23 and 24 seasons in the minors (despite doing decently when called up briefly) and then “missing” a lot of time in his breakout sophomore year due to the shortened pandemic season. I kind of wonder if that kind of delayed start might mean he has quite a few more good years ahead of him, due to fewer pitches on his arm? I’m sure the Yankees hope so, given their huge commitment to him, although that also brings Carlos Rodon to mind as an obvious comparison. Whatever may be in store for him, Fried does basically need a pretty dominant run in his 30s to build a traditional Hall case; that’s not unheard of, even if it isn’t common.
I suppose this also goes for runners-up José Berríos (15.6 WAR) and Framber Valdez (15.1 WAR). All things considered, you’d definitely rather be Fried here given his existing WAR lead, but his if you’re already betting on something kind of unlikely like a string of great age 31-35 seasons, it makes sense to spread your bets around and consider more options.
Age 31: 41.5 WAR Median; 55.88% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Aaron Nola (35.6 WAR)
We have a big breakaway here, with Aaron Nola a dozen Wins ahead of everyone else we’ve talked about so far. Nola hasn’t really had the high peak that some of these other pitchers have (2018 is both his only All-Star campaign and his only top-three finish in Cy Young voting), but he has been consistently above average with a few really good years thrown in. And you know what he has that really sets him apart? Health and a lot of bulk. He’s started 32 or more games every year dating back to 2018 (the exception of course being 2020, where he was still towards the top of the league in starts), and he still regularly tops 190 or even 200 innings in a season even as those milestones have become much rarer. We’re still talking about pitching in 2025, so it’s hard to say whether that’s a promising sign or an omen that his arm is about to explode, but it’s still a fact. But if he ends up being an anomalous workhorse into his late 30s, maybe something like a modern Mark Buehrle… I don’t know, but maybe that’s enough of a hook to entice Hall voters even if he falls a little short in value.
We have a two-way tie after Nola, between Luis Castillo and Blake Snell (23.8 WAR); both have been good enough at their best that they also merit discussion. Again, they’ll definitely still need several more peak seasons, but they’re good enough that you can at least imagine a world where that happens.
Age 32: 45.3 WAR Median; 59.38% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Robbie Ray (17.9 WAR)
Robbie Ray is obviously very talented when he’s at his best, but it’s not a great sign for his Hall chances that he’s virtually tied with a guy three years younger than him. It also doesn’t help that he’s only thrown 34.0 innings the last two seasons combined.
Age 33: 52.5 WAR Median; 86.36% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Gerrit Cole (42.8 WAR)
The last twelve months have been a roller coaster for Gerrit Cole, going from “How will he follow up on his first Cy Young win?” to “missing the start of the year with injuries” to “a rough return from the Injured List” to “actually kind of salvaging the year with by the end of it with a strong finish and a pennant run” to “missing the entire next season with Tommy John surgery”. His career has been impressive so far, but he now won’t throw a pitch until his Age 35 season. So where does that leave us?
…Honestly, still not in the worst place. Cole has already been successful in his 30s, so we know he has at least some ability to adjust and adapt; there’s always a chance that his injury ends that, but it’s not close to a certainty. And he’ll also certainly get the opportunities to show he can manage it when he comes back, given that the Yankees have him under contract until 2028. He’s about 750 strikeouts away from 3000, which would be a big feather in his cap. And even if he doesn’t have that many big seasons ahead of him, his run as one of the game’s dominant starters has been pretty impressive, with that 2023 Cy Young representing his sixth time finishing in the top five.
And if Félix Hernández’s ballot performance is actually indicative of a change among Hall voters, Cole could well benefit from those new attitudes. King Félix finished his career with 49.8 bWAR and 2.46 Cy Young Shares, while Cole right now sits at 43.2 bWAR and 2.90 Shares. All things considered, his case would be much stronger if he came back strong and marched the rest of the way to 3000 strikeouts (I think he cruises into Cooperstown in that case, even if he falls below the median Hall WAR for starters), but he’s already into interesting territory in a shifting and uncertain landscape. With Cole out for the season, the leader for this age group in 2025 will fall to Kevin Gausman (24.1 WAR), who is… notably behind, to say the least.
I’ve been neglecting digging down much further into the individual quirks of the median pace, mostly because every candidate that we’ve covered is so far off from it that it feels totally disconnected, but I will note that the step for pitchers at Age 33 is the single largest one-year jump we see anywhere, at a whopping 7.2 WAR. That’s nearly 2 full wins ahead of the single biggest year position players ever face! And it’s coming at Age 33, which is the point where the hitter’s median pace actually starts to level off pretty significantly. And the pitchers, unfortunately, still have one more large leap to come…
Age 34: 53.7 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Zack Wheeler (34.6 WAR)
Zack Wheeler has been on quite the run since joining the Phillies, culminating (so far) with his second second-place finish in Cy Young voting. I’m always a little shocked that he’s not a little higher in WAR at this point, given that he’s a pretty well-established veteran, and it’s usually because I forget how rough his first four years were; after getting called up in 2013 at age 23, he’d total just 2.3 Wins through 2017, including missing all of 2015 with injuries. He didn’t really become good until his Age 28 season, and he didn’t become great until joining Philly two years after that. No matter how you slice it, that’s a late start to build a Hall of Fame run. He still might be able to pull one off, but it’ll probably depend heavily on having a few more very good years, while voters start to really support high-peak candidate and become more forgiving of low career totals.
Sonny Gray (32.4 WAR) is the Age 34 runner-up, and he’s a funny comparison for Wheeler. They’re both pretty close in value (despite Gray locking down a Major League rotation spot at a much younger age), and Gray also has a mix of good, great, and mediocre years. But while Wheeler has a clear narrative of a former prospect struggling, then developing over time into a great pitcher, Gray’s seasons are all just kind of mixed together. Every four years (2015, 2019, then 2023), he’ll put together a great, All-Star type season and pick up some Cy votes, and everything in between that will usually be fine (although there are a few stinkers in there too). He’s built a surprisingly great career for himself, and I’m genuinely curious if he’ll manage to keep up the pattern and deliver an incredible 2027 season (the Cardinals have a team option for that season, so he’s almost certainly still pitching by that point)… but I kind of think Wheeler’s narrative about building up to a run of dominance will actually play better with Hall voters even if the two of them wind up with relatively similar career numbers.
Age 35: 59.9 WAR Median; 95.00% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Chris Sale (53.4 WAR)
Way back in the 2013 offseason, Chris Sale was coming off his first All-Star season when I wrote my first ever Future Hall of Famer Starting Pitchers article. Sale made the cutoff for his age group in that one, and preceded to make his marks for the next nine years. In 2023, he finally fell behind the pace for the first time; he was coming off a string of three injury-wrecked years, the latest of which coincided with that wild 7.2 WAR spike at age 33.
But he turned it around last year in a big way. After a decent-but-still-injured 2023 season, Sale stormed back in a big way, earning the NL’s Pitching Triple Crown and finally winning his first Cy Young Award after years of getting votes but falling just short (including six straight top-five finishes from 2013 to 2018, highlighted by a runner-up finish in 2017). Baseball-Reference evaluates it as a 6.2-WAR season (again, partly because he only threw 177.2 innings), an amount that…
…Does not even come close to getting him back on Hall of Fame pace. Because as it turns out, the jump in the median for starting pitchers at Age 35 is the second-highest one we see, at 6.2 WAR. Sale’s historic season did not actually make up any ground for him here, it just kept him from falling even further behind. Now, our line does finally start to level off from here (mostly), so if he can post another All-Star season, Sale might be back above the median pace in a year or two. And of course, he’s within 600 strikeouts from the 3K milestone, which is a good old-fashioned standard that seems in reach. And Hall voters might like him anyway, since he feels like one of the last of an “old” style of starter (I think either him or Cole feels like the last guy before the “modern” style of starter truly comes into effect, but that’s just my gut reaction rather than a position that I’ve reasoned myself into). But there’s still a chance he ultimately falls short of the Hall median. Again though, half of inductees definitionally must be below the median, so it’s hardly the end of the story (and like I said with Cole, I think hitting 3000 strikeouts will more or less nullify any concerns there even if he still come up a little short in total value). Taken altogether, I actually think Sale has pretty good chances of eventual induction.
Sale’s former rotation-mate Jose Quintana (31.6 WAR) is a distant second-place here.
Age 36: 60.1 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Clayton Kershaw (76.5 WAR)
Clayton Kershaw marks our first starter who’s above their age’s median WAR since Paul Skenes waaaay back in the Age 22 bracket; I wasn’t kidding when I said it would be a while before our next one. Anyway, I’m not sure how much longer Kershaw wants to pitch, given his pretty frequent injuries these days, but he’s an easy first-ballot choice whenever he does decide to retire. He’s only 34 strikeouts away from 3000, so my first guess is he’s hanging around to hit that milestone, but it’s also very likely he just keeps going afterwards. Really, there’s just not much more to say about his obvious credentials.
Jacob deGrom (42.3 WAR) is the more interesting case here. He’s another case of a late blooming arm who’s packed a lot of value into a short time (he didn’t even debut until his Age 26 season, a full six seasons later than Kershaw despite being the same age) thanks to a high peak. But his recent injury history has been eating into his career value on the other side; it’s been six years since the last time he cracked 100 innings in a season. He still hasn’t even hit 1500 career innings. I don’t know if voters will be able to get past that little quantity, even with his high peak.
…And yet, it also seems at least a little hypocritical to make that argument when the Hall has gone relatively hard into inducting closers over the last decade or two. Four of the Hall’s last nine inducted pitchers were closers, six (and a half, if you add John Smoltz) out of the last seventeen if you want to go back a little further. Are deGrom’s 1367 innings (with two Cy Young Awards, remember) that much less valuable than Trevor Hoffman’s 1089.1 innings, or Lee Smith’s 1289.1, or Bruce Sutter’s 1042, or Billy Wagner’s 903? Even if you want to focus on context-sensitive stats, deGrom’s 25.8 Win Probability Added doesn’t look too out-of-place among the Hall’s relief corps (more on that coming soon). If we’re accepting them into Cooperstown, and also more open to shorter-career starters like Félix Hernández, why wouldn’t Jacob at least merit a serious discussion?
And of course, we can already see the younger classes coming after them, and how so many of them shoot for that same “burn bright & burn out” approach”, meaning deGrom’s eventual candidacy could be setting a lot of precedent for younger players. Regardless of whether he has a few more seasons in his arm, deGrom might be one of the cases that really polarizes or re-structures how writers discuss and vote for the Hall, and in the not-too-distant future, too.
Age 37: 61.3 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Yu Darvish (33.4 WAR)
I actually find Yu Darvish’s Hall of Fame case fairly compelling, but mostly because I’m open to the argument that his time in Japan deserves some serious extra credit. It’s not totally his fault that he didn’t debut in the majors until his Age 25 season. And yeah, the quality of NPB isn’t up to the same level of MLB, so you can’t do a 1-to-1 translation, but I do think debuting at the age of 18 and throwing 1268.1 innings with a 1.99 ERA and 1250 strikeouts is pretty darn impressive and worth some mention. He’s definitely the best Japanese pitcher to reach the majors so far in the three decades since Hideo Nomo debuted, and there’s even a chance he holds that title for quite some time longer (depending on whether Shohei Ohtani can stay healthy, or eventually moves towards DH’ing full time).
But I also understand that I’m much bigger on giving extra credit for stuff like that to Hall of Fame candidates, so I don’t know that this argument will go far with real voters. Darvish can still be good when he plays, but that’s been less and less the last few seasons, so I don’t imagine his MLB career stats reach the numbers that voters are traditionally looking for. Maybe if he can pitch well into his 40s, he’ll pull it off? But that feels like it’s mostly idle wish-casting at the moment; we can revisit the idea seriously if he suddenly puts up another Cy Young-level year in 2025. The runner up for this age group is Lance Lynn (30.8 WAR), who is even further away than Darvish, but also without as high of a peak or interesting extenuating circumstances.
Age 38: 61.8 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Johnny Cueto (38.3 WAR)
Johnny Cueto was active last season, but only just, throwing 11.1 innings with a 7.15 ERA and even worse FIP before the Angels cut him. Maybe some team will try and bring him back this year if their pitching staff gets too decimated, but there’s a real chance his career is over. He’s been better than you might have realized, but he’s clearly not going to get the traditional career numbers, and I don’t think his peak was ultimately high enough for him to get the kind of re-evaluation that other modern pitchers might possibly see.
Age 39: 61.8 WAR Median; 79.17% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Max Scherzer (74.5 WAR)
Honestly, we’re kind of on cruise control from here on out; everyone left is already an obvious yes or an obvious no. Max Scherzer obviously falls in the former group, with 3 Cy Youngs, 3407 strikeouts, and over 70 WAR (Fangraphs or Baseball-Reference version). Really, the biggest question here is if he can have a big comeback season in Toronto. He was pretty good from ages 36 to 38, his problem last year was mostly health, so it’s not unthinkable. And the kinds of pitchers who have been good enough to make the Hall (a set which definitely includes Scherzer) don’t always see success into their 40s, but it’s also not uncommon either. Maybe his 2024 injury is a sign of the end, but it’s not necessarily guaranteed.
Age 40: 65.4 WAR Median; 79.17% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Charlie Morton (19.6 WAR)
The last cruel twist of the Hall Median for pitchers is that it sees a 3.6-WAR jump in the Age 40 season, thanks to a few Hall members who were just below the median having big Age 40 seasons and passing up a few guys in the middle. That means that pitchers either need to maintain that late-30s success that I just mentioned in the last section, or have a little bit of insurance built in to account for it. Charlie Morton is not anywhere close to the Hall median, but that doesn’t necessarily rule out him having a solid Age 40 season of his own. This is a guy who basically reinvented himself and saw his greatest success at age 33, after all.
I guess Zack Greinke (72.4 WAR) goes here as well, depending on how we count “active” players. Despite not playing at all in 2024, he still hasn’t officially retired yet, he’s close enough to 3000 strikeouts (2979) that it feels like it would be tempting, and everything he’s said indicated that he’s open to coming back if the right offer came along. But… there’s been basically no more news on that front for ages now. Maybe he’ll try a mid-season comeback this year, if one of his preferred destinations suffers an arms shortage? I don’t know if I’d count on it, and it’s not like his Cooperstown credentials are in doubt… but man, it feels like those last 21 Ks would be a big motivation to try a one-month return or something. And it sure would be fun to see him suit up one more time…
Age 41: 66.7 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader: Justin Verlander (81.0 WAR)
It's funny how basically everything I said up there in the Scherzer blurb applies for Justin Verlander too; obvious future first-ballot Hall of Famer, 3-time Cy Young winner working towards 3500 strikeouts (3416) with 70+ f- and bWAR (this one is underselling JV a little, he’s actually over 80 in both), signed with a new team in 2025, was solid in 2022 and 2023 but trying to come back from a down-and-injured 2024 season. Maybe Verlander’s odds are slightly longer given the 2 extra years and 550+ extra innings on his arm, but I also don’t know that I would totally count him out until he decides to bow out himself.
Overall: 66.8 WAR Median; 82.61% of all players at this mark elected
Active Leader (for ages 41+): Rich Hill (17.0 WAR)
Like Greinke, Rich Hill has indicated a desire to pitch this season, but hasn’t signed anywhere yet in 2025. Unlike Greinke, the 44-year-old Hill did actually sign last year, appearing in 4 games for the Red Sox before being dropped. He seems fine with just pitching partial seasons, and there are always teams desperate for people to cover their innings, so maybe he does still appear in some games this year. He’s nowhere near the Hall median of course, but that’s fine; what a long, interesting, and singular career he’s had, coming back from looking snakebitten so many times to still be pitching professionally.
That brings us to the end of the Starting Pitching section of this year’s update. Normally, this would be the end of it, but this year, I’m going to try and add one more piece here before the season gets really under way. Billy Wagner’s induction this year gives us our ninth closer in Cooperstown, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing another one growing those ranks soon (more on that in the eventual piece). It’s been a few years since my last Closers update in the series, so why not take this chance to go through and update the standards, plus check in on any active relievers and compare their chances.
And of course, if you’d like to know when that gets published, you can sign up in the box below (or in the one at the top of the page); the mailing list only gets used for new pieces. And on a similar note, if you’d like to subscribe to my non-baseball writings over at Out of Left Field (mostly music and video games), I have a separate mailing list for that which can be found here; I should probably be starting work on my big Spring Playlist soon.
A Baseball Blog - Scientific and Speculative Thoughts from Third Base
You can almost pick an age group where we left the Live Ball Era and entered the Protected Pitcher Era. It would be around Gerrit Cole age 33.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to see Greinke come back and reach 3000 Ks
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