Despite a push from the Atlanta Braves, the top of the power rankings remains unchanged, which doesn’t mean we have a shortage of topics to address—particularly fresh off the news that the Tigers will be without Tarik Skubal for a lengthy period as the southpaw undergoes surgery to remove loose bodies in his throwing elbow.
Every week, the Pitcher List team will publish an update to our power rankings, highlighting three teams among the different tiers of contention. As always, the full rankings can be found at the bottom of this article, but where’s the fun in that?
Contender
No. 4 Chicago Cubs
It’s hard to come up with a more surprising theme early on in the 2026 season than the fact that all five NL Central clubs sit with a record above .500 in early May. For that to happen to any division—regardless of how strong it is—it’s a bit of an anomaly, and if we had to guess which one it would be, the NL Central certainly wouldn’t be at the top of the list. Leading the charge right now, you have a Chicago Cubs team that just recently survived the gauntlet of a California trip that didn’t involve facing the last-place Giants, splitting six games against the Dodgers and Padres.
Nearly as exciting as the Cubs’ current record is also their ability and expectation of growth moving forward. One look at this lineup that’s currently terrorizing National League pitching to the tune of a 127 OPS+, and you see that a few of the core hitters of this team have yet to truly take off. Pete Crow-Armstrong hasn’t been the same electric player of last year, Alex Bregman is still finding his footing in Wrigley Field, and Michael Busch is off to a horrendous start. I bet if you heard all of those things would be true by this time, you wouldn’t have been so optimistic about the Cubs offensive prowess ahead of this season. One can always argue that the production from those underperforming hitters will level out with the likely decline of current hot bats, but regardless of which way you slice it, this Cubs offense is menacing and has no plans to change that in the near future.
So much time spent on the offense is a requirement because for this team to occupy the current spot it does on the power rankings, its lineup needs to carry the load. Even with the breakout of Edward Cabrera and Shota Imanaga, reminding us of his rookie campaign that saw him finish fifth in the NL Cy Young voting, this pitching staff, particularly the starting rotation, doesn’t necessarily qualify as one of the best in the game. Matthew Boyd showed signs of life with a quality start on Sunday against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and he probably holds the key to a turnaround for this rotation. Boyd himself is off to a horrendous start in 2026 and yet is unpunished by it with a 2-1 record and a 6.00 ERA, all because of a great offense.
The Middle
No. 13 Cleveland Guardians
There aren’t many certain things in life, but two of them seem to be that José Ramírez is ageless and the Cleveland Guardians will manage to scrape their way towards a serviceable, albeit unspectacular, record. The Guardians had a pretty uneventful run last week, splitting six games against a pair of competitive teams in the Rays and Guardians. So why are they being highlighted here? Well, because that’s just the sort of thing you’d expect from Cleveland, which is likely going to compete for this AL Central title until the end, perhaps now with the upper hand since the Tigers will miss Tarik Skubal for an extended period. And even in the chance that Detroit manages to outlast the Guardians, it’s difficult to see three other teams doing so for the Wild Card spots, particularly when the quality of the AL Central leaves a lot to be desired with two rebuilding teams and an underwhelming Royals club.
The bit about Ramírez being ageless had less to do with what he’s shown with the bat this season and more to do with his numbers on the basepaths, as the third baseman leads the AL with 13 stolen bases and has yet to take an off day. With Ramírez far off his best offensive output, though, this attack has been carried by none other than Chase DeLauter, an early favorite for best rookie bat in the American League. Once Ramírez inevitably settles in and goes on a run, this offense can inflict a lot more damage. Speaking of underperforming bats, Steven Kwan is another one of them, currently hitting .217, and that’s not even the most surprising stat in this league-average-ish attack—that’s reserved for Austin Hedges, whose .310 batting average leads the club.
As much as we can talk about the offense, what gets anyone excited about this current Guardians team is the duo at the top of the rotation in Gavin Williams and Parker Messick. Decreasing his four-seam fastball usage from last year, Williams is off to an outstanding start, with the lowest hits per nine innings in the American League at 5.2 and a strikeout rate over 30% —the crazy thing is that he might not even be the most impressive pitcher in this rotation. Messick didn’t have his best start last time out, but those three home runs against the A’s would’ve added up to a lot more damage than just four earned runs over five innings had Williams and his high walk rate been pitching. Messick may not be quite so imposing, but he’s also far less exposed, keeping runners off the basepaths as one of the more impressive left-handers in the American League.
Wait ‘Til 2027
No. 29 Los Angeles Angels
It’s 2026, and once again, we can utter what was once upon a time a notorious phrase in baseball: “The Angels are wasting the greatness of Mike Trout.” It’s not that the Angels had been good recently, but whether due to injuries, simple decline, or maybe a couple of off years, Trout hadn’t really produced in a while to generate that kind of outrage about what this team is systematically unable to accomplish despite rostering such a talented player. Early on in 2026, Trout has looked as great as he has in years, and the Angels have nothing to show for it. That starts with the likes of Zach Neto and Jo Adell significantly underperforming, but it also goes through several hitters simply meeting low expectations.
What’s even more baffling is that if we turn our attention to the rotation, the exact same thing is happening as you have José Soriano pitching out of his mind, and yet the pitching staff numbers as a whole fail to reflect that. Signed to be a steady veteran presence in the bullpen, Drew Pomeranz is off to a horrific start, and only the Houston Astros have walked more batters than the Angels in the American League, a problem not so easily fixed.
For as great as his season numbers are, Soriano is likely to take a step back, and his last two starts seem to indicate that, twice losing to the White Sox while allowing multiple home runs in each of those games. Going back to the start of last week, the Angels are 1-6 against the White Sox and Mets, scoring three or fewer runs in five of these seven matchups.
