The Pirates? Best rotation in baseball? Better than the Dodgers? Better than the Phillies because even the best in Pennsylvania would probably put you near the top.
The Dodgers: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May and most likely another go round with Clayton Kershaw, perhaps Roki Sasaki as well.
The Phillies who many believe have the best rotation after adding Jesus Luzardo along with the future addition of phenom Andrew Painter. Fronted by Zack Wheeler followed by Aaron Nola, Ranger Suarez and Christopher Sanchez.
Pirates ace in place
No doubt about the very top of the Pirates rotation. Paul Skenes was as advertised. The National League rookie of the year placed third in Cy Young voting. In twenty three starts he allowed four runs once, three runs twice and two or less in the other twenty.
You would think that he’ll no longer be babied after the Bucs held the 2023 first overall pick to just 133 first season innings. Same goes for Jared Jones, the 2020 second round pick out of La Mirada high school in California.
It wasn’t the Pirates that held Jones to twenty-two starts in his rookie season. The righthander missed time after suffering a mid summer lat strain. Many expect a huge breakthrough season coming up and he should fit nicely at the two spot.
The next arriving soon
Those would be Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft and Thomas Harrington. all three can be found on MLB’s top 100 prospects for 2025. More than one publication thinks Chandler can follow Skenes as National League rookie of the year.
Chandler went 10-7 with a 3.08 ERA and struck out 148 batters over 119.2 innings across Double-A Altoona and Triple-A Indianapolis in 2023. That would give Pittsburgh three top end options.
Ashcraft (2nd rd pick) is thought to more likely to end up helping the Pirates bullpen while Harrington (1st round) looks like a perfect fit for the four spot.
Mitch Keller was the first to arrive and while he doesn’t appear to be a top of the rotation force, he’ll fit in nicely. Perhaps as far down as a fifth starter, because there are a pair on the way. Keller at twenty-eight is signed through his age 32 season.
Strong on pitching and much weaker at the plate, reports have the Pirates perhaps trading from the strength to help the weakness and Jones name has been prominent.
The Bucs best be careful with that, they have first hand knowledge how a group of talented young starters can get away from you and leave you in the abyss. This is after all a team that once had Gerrit Cole, Tyler Glasnow, Joe Musgrove and Jameson Taillon.
