To prepare my Top 400 Starting Pitchers for 2025 article, I thoroughly review every team's rotation and write the blurbs you see in February. I usually don't share these publicly until then, but I wanted to give another benefit to those who support us with PL Pro. Y'all are the ones who keep the lights on for us. Y'all rock.
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Huge thanks to Josh Mockensturm for creating these tables and finding video for all these players.
Expected Starters
Gilbert had one of those seasons akin to Burnes' 2023. You thought it was good, but rostering him felt a bit uneasy at times, and suddenly you see he had a...0.89 WHIP in 200+ frames?! How. What baffles me about Gilbert is his four-seamers' inability to earn whiffs and massively suppress hard contact (38% ICR), yet it carried fantastic results. With a near 70% strike rate and sublime .204 BAA, Gilbert relied on the pitch inside the zone to set up his elite slider, making a one-two punch good enough for him to experiment with splitters in two-strike counts (it succeeded in its role and explains the strikeout rate jump), curveballs early or saved for a strikeout against RHB, and cutters against LHB to keep them honest.
Thing is, that four-seamer should be a harbinger of destruction. Gilbert's well-documented 7.5+ feet of extension on the pitch is the best in baseball and paired with 96/97 mph and decent enough VAA and movement, we should see 15%+ SwStr rates and suffering. And yet, it returned the same clip as Zack Litell's four-seamer at 9.3%. Yeah. Gilbert's command of the pitch is more about "get it over the plate" and less of "let's hit the corners" or "elevate with a purpose." In fact, the pitch had an 81% loLoc and you can understand my concern that Gilbert just had a peak season with the pitch and will regress next year.
While reading my notes on Mariners pitchers, you'll hear me constantly mention their home-field advantage. If you're unaware, T-Mobile park sported a 22% increase in strikeouts, while boasting the lowest park factor of any MLB ballpark at 89. That's 11% less offense vs. a neutral location. The general belief is that it has to do with the batter's eye in centerfield and I can't ignore the possibility that Seattle will change their stadium before the start of the year, even if Opening Day is creeping closer and closer. Treat that chance more as a tiebreaker than as a decider, but understand that it explains home/road splits for many of these Mariners pitchers, while also explaining how Gilbert's four-seamer vastly overperformed last year (and could again if the park stays the same!).
Back to Gilbert's skillset, I have to mention the slider that turned into the #1 PLV slider of the season. His elite extension merged with fantastic feel of the pitch down in and out of the zone helped it return a near 60% STR-ICR rate, which essentially says "The dude hurled sliders over the plate and they couldn't hit them." It doesn't seem as though there is much room for growth with the pitch after featuring it over 30% of the time for the second year in a row, but if there's one thing to bank on, it's likely Gilbert's slider excelling once again.
Quick take: Gilbert's volume and extension make him a safe arm entering the year. His four-seamer is likely to regress and prevent a sub 1.00 WHIP, but his elite slider (#1 slider PLV in 2024!), solid cutter (even if it took a step back in the second half), and two-strike splitter have kept the strikeouts flowing. I question the command that prevents him from being a clear-cut Top 5 SP, while his floor remains far higher than most in the Top 20. The counting stats are what you're going for here.
