What is a "Top of Rotation" starter?

[MVP2110]

How many pitchers were aces in 2017 to you guys?

 

There's "ace" and there's "top of rotation". To me personally, "ace" is reserved for those elite guys listed above (Sale, Kluber, Scherzer, Kershaw). Then there's a next tier of really, really, good #1's like Greinke, Carrasco, Severino, DeGrom, E Santana, Verlander, etc.

 

So to you only Kluber Sale Kershaw & Scherzer pitched like aces last year? Cause that is my question.

[homer]

How many pitchers were aces in 2017 to you guys?

 

There's "ace" and there's "top of rotation". To me personally, "ace" is reserved for those elite guys listed above (Sale, Kluber, Scherzer, Kershaw). Then there's a next tier of really, really, good #1's like Greinke, Carrasco, Severino, DeGrom, E Santana, Verlander, etc.

 

So to you only Kluber Sale Kershaw & Scherzer pitched like aces last year? Cause that is my question.

 

 

That's how I see it. Others may differ with me.

[TJseven7]

I'd say someone with over half quality starts with WHIP, ERA and strikeout pct all better than overall league average. That probably puts the total list around 20 or 25 in any given season. I'm thinking less than half of those would be considered " aces".

 

Kershaw, Bumgarner, Scherzer, and Sale right now to me are the only "aces" in MLB.

 

Id add kluber and stroman... and last year gio was one. Take out mad last year but the 4 previous years he sure was one. Kuechel strasberg (missed time) verlander (if you dont count playoffs) were just off ace level but really close. Carrasco was up there too.

 

Notice lots of 200 ip sub 3 are what I call ace.

[And That]

I don't necessarily ascribe this to the being my definition of an ace or TOR, but I thought it would be interesting to compare the different versions of WAR and see where they agreed. I took the top 30 pitchers by WAR from FanGraphs, B-R, and BPro, and eliminated anyone who did not appear on all three lists. So in a way, there's some "agreement" that these were the best pitchers last year. Call that ace, or top of the rotation, amazeballs, or nothing whatsoever, but interesting to me nonetheless. And goes without saying last year's best pitchers won't all be next year's best pitchers.

 

There were 17 pitchers who made the cut, descending by average WAR:

 

Corey Kluber

Chris Sale

Max Scherzer

Stephen Strasburg

Zack Greinke

Luis Severino

Justin Verlander

Carlos Carrasco

Gio Gonzalez

Jacob deGrom

Aaron Nola

Clayton Kershaw

Marcus Stroman

Yu Darvish

Jimmy Nelson

Ervin Santana

Michael Fulmer

 

So trade for one of those guys I guess. Except Nelson, the Brewers can't trade for him.

[CheezWizHed]

Sweet, so we drafted and developed an Ace finally! Not bad for a Suppan comp at draft time....