Are There Enough Starting Pitchers To Go Around?

Photo by Jose Francisco Morales on Unsplash

With the hot stove season underway, we have been inundated with stories about how this team and that team wants to upgrade its rotation before the 2024 season. This makes sense. In a perfect world, every team would begin the season with five healthy starting pitchers who can throw at least 150 innings over the course of the season.

In 2023, not a single team fielded such a starting rotation.

The Blue Jays came the closest with four solid, healthy starters. Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, José Berrios, and Yusei Kikuchi each threw 150+ innings for Toronto.

Four teams had no starters throw 150+ innings last season: the Guardians, Angels, Reds, and Dodgers. Ten teams had only one starter throw 150+ innings: Red Sox, White Sox, Tigers, Rockies, Rangers, Rays, Cardinals, Mets, A’s, and Padres.

Only 56 starting pitchers gave their team(s) 150+ innings in the 2023 regular season. Click here to see this list over at FanGraphs.

Eight of these workhorse starters began the offseason as free agents; now four are off the market. Sonny Gray signed a three-year $75 million contract with the Cardinals. St. Louis also snapped up Lance Lynn (1 year/$11 million) and Kyle Gibson (1 year/$12 million). The Phillies re-signed Aaron Nola to a 7-year/$172 million deal.

Only Jordan Montgomery, Blake Snell, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Lucas Giolito are still free agents.

If we lower the minimum innings pitched to 100, we get a list of 117 starting pitchers. Click here to see that list over at FanGraphs.

At least six of those 117 starters won’t pitch at all in 2024 due to retirement (Adam Wainwright) or injury (Sandy Alcantara (Marlins), Shohei Ohtani (free agent), Johan Oviedo (Pirates), Tony Gonsolin (Dodgers) and Shane McClanahan (Rays)). At least three others will start the season on the injured list: Clayton Kershaw (free agent), Alex Cobb (Giants), and David Peterson (Mets).

Mike Petriello of MLB.com has a piece out today on the five best starting pitchers who could be acquired via a trade this offseason. Sure, some teams might upgrade their rotations with a trade. But that just moves good starters around the league. It doesn’t increase the supply.

Okay, let’s take a look at the top prospects. Surely there are some starting pitchers who will burst onto the scene and wow us in 2024.

On MLB.com’s Top 100 prospects, only two are pitchers are in the Top 25—Paul Skenes (Pirates) and Kyle Harrison (Giants). Harrison debuted last season to mixed results. Skenes has yet to pitch above Double-A.

Seven more pitchers rank between 26 and 50 on the list. One of those—Andrew Painter (Phillies)—had Tommy John surgery last July and won’t likely pitch in 2024. Of the other six, only two have pitched at Triple-A—Ricky Tiedemann (Blue Jays) and Mick Abel (Phillies). Cade Horton (Cubs), Jacob Misiorowski (Brewers), and Tink Hence (Cardinals) haven’t pitched above Double-A. Rhett Lowder (Reds) ended last season in High-A.

FanGraphs’ Top 100 features ten starting pitchers in the Top 50. Six also appear on MLB.com’s Top 50 list—Skenes, Painter, Harrison, Tiedemann, Abel, and Hence. Of the other four—Dylan Lesko (Padres), Gavin Stone (Dodgers), Ben Brown (Cubs), and Ty Madden (Tigers)—only Stone and Brown have pitched above Double-A.

It’s really no wonder why 15 MLB teams have shown interest in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the superstar pitcher from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. The 25-year-old right-hander has been posted by Orix Buffaloes and has until January 4, 2024 to sign with a major league team. Yamamoto won the Sawamura Award (similar to the Cy Young Award) in 2023, 2022, and 2021.

No, there aren’t enough starting pitchers to go around.