In preparation for my annual Top 400 Starting Pitchers ranking article in February 2026, I spend the fall and winter months thoroughly reviewing every team’s rotation, taking the time to analyze every piece of the pitcher and write my analysis months in advance. I usually don’t share these publicly until then, and the last two years I elected to share them exclusively with PL Pro members.
PL Pro members get four major benefits inside these articles:
1. Early Ranking Access
As I go through each team, I rank each pitcher relative to the other pitchers I have already covered inside a Google Spreadsheet. While I often change these throughout the winter even after completing their write-up, PL Pro members have access to view the progress of those rankings before they are made public.
2. 2026 Player Projections, powered by PLV
At the start of each write-up, you can view each player’s Pitcher List player projection for 2026, powered by PLV. These projections matched hitters alongside BatX in 2025, and performed exceptionally well across the Top 200 SP. They even beat me in the daily streamer challenge by one. So close.
3. Nick’s Starting Pitcher Sheet – The One Sheet for all Pitcher Research
With the help of Kyle Bland, I have a Team SP one-sheet that provides all the relevant data on every pitcher for each team featured in these articles. Here is the example for the Arizona Diamondbacks:
It’s the ultimate resource for your personal SP research. I cannot express enough how helpful it is to have everything in one place.
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Expected Starters
Cristopher Sánchez (LHP)
2025 Stats: 202.0 IP | 2.50 ERA | 1.06 WHIP | 26.3 K% | 5.5 BB%
Sánchez was dope and made us feel dope. After a high WHIP season with few strikeouts, Sánchez improved his sinker and slider, returned more strikeouts, which reduced the hit rate, and thus lowered his ERA and WHIP. So when we consider Sánchez for 2026, we have to ask: Will he still hold a 26% strikeout rate?
The sinker and slider gains are likely here to stay. Sánchez not only added a tick of velocity to his fastball, but he found an extra three inches of vertical depth on the pitch, turning the pitch into a whiff offering to LHB at a 12% clip. Pretty bonkers considering that his previous career high was just 8%. Yes, its putaway rates shot through the roof as well (33% to LHB?!) and we should see some small reduction in strikeout efficiency here.
His breaking ball was far easier to watch, too. Sánchez fought with the pitch to land down-and-away to LHB in prior seasons, but tightened its range in 2025, dotting the corner often and doubling its putaway rate to LHB, boosting its SwStr from 16% to 23%, and dropping its ICR to a stupid good 19%. Yeah, that’ll catalyze a breakout season, alright.
Meanwhile, the changeup is still a dominant offering, and it exploded in 2025. Its reduction of use to LHB in favor of sliders allowed him to become more efficient with the pitch in two-strike counts, letting its putaway rate balloon from 27% to 39%, while carrying a 31% SwStr to LHB. That’s absurd. Its two-strike efficiency also improved against RHB, where the slowball labored with a sub 20% putaway rate in 2025, and finally became the finisher it was meant to be, boasting a 29% putaway rate against RHB for the season. It all came together.
Before I go on, I have to mention the forearm soreness that gave us all a scare and led to a reduction of velocity for about a couple weeks. Place whatever health risk you want on that, I’m going to generally ignore it and still consider Sánchez a fantastic play for 2026.
I personally don’t believe those putaway rates are here to stay, but I also don’t believe Sánchez is a 20% strikeout arm. I’ll do the lazy thing and split the difference, suggesting he’ll live around a 23-24% rate, which will raise his WHIP north of 1.10 and ERA close to 3.00. There is a Logan Webb-esque worry that the strikeouts and hit rate will oscillate, but there is one major difference between Webb and Sánchez: One is a SWATCH and the other can only watch with envy.
Quick Take: Sánchez is unlikely to maintain the same two-strike efficiency that catalyzed a 26% strikeout rate, but his increase in velocity and drop on his sinker, merged with an improved slider to LHB allowed his changeup to soar for 200+ frames. Assign whatever regression you’d like, let it be ratios, strikeouts, or innings, at least we can agree his quality-per-start will still be elite.
Jesús Luzardo (LHP)
2025 Stats: 183.2 IP | 3.92 ERA | 1.22 WHIP | 28.5 K% | 7.5 BB%
Sinkers inside to LHB is great. Four-seamer is still rough. Sweeper helps, changeup is still solid to RHB, and he’s destined for peaks and valleys every season. Injury history does him few favors, though. Riskier than it looks.
For some reason, the Marlins don’t like their southpaws throwing sinkers inside to LHB, and I was thrilled to see the Phillies take care of it. The sinker addition allowed his four-seamer to return 13% SwStr to LHB after failing to eclipse a 7% clip since 2020. The new sweeper was as effective as the old slider, too, and his changeup is still an effective offering to RHB. It’s all great except for one major problem with Luzardo’s approach that will continue to haunt him: His four-seamer to RHB is terrible. It’s the root of his volatility and while the sweeper over slider helps the problem (his slider is easier to hit when he made mistakes with it over the plate), the core problem remains: It’s a deadzone four-seamer at 96/97 mph that looks like 94/95 mph with Luzardo’s horrific extension. The pitch allowed 8 HR to RHB alone last year – equal to all other pitches combined against LHB and RHB, including the same four-seamer to LHB. Rough.
It’s why Luzardo has a history of being a volatile arm. As much as I want to say “He was a stud outside of two games where he allowed 20 ER! And he might have been tipping!”, Luzardo has always been this way. Stud outings followed by a blowup that ensures the ERA doesn’t fall under 3.00. Luzardo’s hit rates are also consistently elevated due to his consistent unravelling and I heavily suggest looking past the HOTEL of a high BABIP and LOB rate. There’s more at play here (The BABIP has always been high despite decent ICR marks and his LOB Rate looks absurdly unlucky at sub 70% last year, but then you see he’s had a LOB rate under 70% more than not, and just once in five seasons did he hold a LOB rate above 72%. It’s a problem.).
Volatility comes in multiple forms. His start-to-start performance, his inning-to-inning performance (the aforementioned unravelling), but also in health. Luzardo has a storied track record of hitting the IL and the short term does look favorable of pitching 32 games in two of his last three seasons, but it would be unwise to believe he doesn’t have injury risk.
Luzardo should be a benefit to 12-teamers when he’s the mound, more as a Cherry Bomb than as a HIPSTER, though his volatility through both quality and health have me electing others around his ADP. He’s the second coming of The Great Undulator and I like to preserve my mental health. If I can grab him as an SP #4/#5, I’m game, but I highly doubt that’ll happen.
Quick Take: Luzardo’s 2025 was bliss save for two horrendous starts of 12 ER and 8 ER, but I don’t suggest ignoring those outings, acting as though the true Luzardo is removed from devastating volatility. The new sinker approach to LHB and shift to a sweeper are both beneficial changes, but the four-seamer is still a major liability that is sure to keep both his hit rate and your blood pressure up. He’s a Cherry Bomb with a great strikeout rate. I should have just written that.
Aaron Nola (RHP)
2025 Stats: 94.1 IP | 6.01 ERA | 1.35 WHIP | 24.0 K% | 6.9 BB%
I’m in on Nola for 2026. No, not because of EVEN YEAR NOLA, but because I see 2025 as a bit of a lost season where he was disrupted a ton, while his skillset is still intact. He’s the perfect example of a Holly that you can get for incredibly cheap in drafts after a terrible season that clearly stands out as an outlier. This is actually as simple as telling you how Nola’s K-BB% was essentially the same, and his HOTEL was horrificly unlucky (62% LOB rate, 31% HR/FB, 19th percentile BABIP lol). But fine, I’ll give you more.
The sinker command is a little weird and I don’t fully know why he doesn’t jam more RHB with the pitch and save his four-seamer as a two-strike weapon upstairs. His curveball is still Sir Dope McGee and he could just play the sinker/breaker card with high heaters when needed. Don’t overcomplicate this with that backdoor sinker stuff. Quick, easy fix. It’s not like he doesn’t have the command to do it.
His four-seamer was commanded stupid well to LHB last year and was far-and-away the best pitch he had. He either went up-and-in or down-and-away with little in between, returning just a 33% ICR and .163, though the rare times good contact was made, it left the yard (32% HR/FB). That’s not going to stick. The curveball also failed him against LHB despite throwing essentially the same offering as he always has. Hitters performed far better than expected against it and it just seems wrong. It’s the same strong skills he’s always had.
Sure, I could hope his changeup improves to LHB or that he puts more trust into the cutter he utilized just 6% of the time last year (it did get hit harder than expected, so I get it), but really, we just need a healthy Nola and he should have a decent WHIP, a sub 4.00 ERA, and a 23%+ strikeout rate for a winning team. That’s a Holly worthy of your time, who you will not drop all year. Sign me up.
Quick Take: It’s time to once again Live Every Day Like Nola Day. His skills are still intact, and I’m blaming luck and a lack of rhythm for his ghastly 2025 numbers. He’s still a 23-25% strikeout rate arm who will constantly go six frames for a winning team, flirting with 180+ frames with good enough ratios. Go for it.
Zack Wheeler (RHP)
2025 Stats: 149.2 IP | 2.71 ERA | 0.94 WHIP | 33.3 K% | 5.6 BB%
I’ll make this quick. Wheeler is dope and makes us feel dope. If he were fully healthy without question, he’d be in Tier 1. Sadly, Wheeler was diagnosed with mild Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, which is known to destroy careers, but his particular version of it is believed to have less effect than the version told in campfire stories. While I cannot tell you he will be 100% Wheeler when he does start, the fact that he has already announced his retirement at the end of the 2027 season tells me he is going to do everything in his power to get on the field and stay there, giving everything he has for these final two seasons. The current ETA is something around June 1st (we don’t really know, but it is highly unlikely to be in April) and Wheeler is part of the core four IL stashes to consider, along with Cole, Rodon, and Jones (Burnes/Steele are returning later, Snell isn’t drafted like a stash). Whenever you plan to go for one of them, the uncertainty about the effect of Wheeler’s surgery has me tussling, unsure if he’s the best choice of the lot. Go with your gut, all of them should be great.
Quick Take: Wheeler is a stud, but he’ll start the season on the IL recovering from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery. It’s unclear how much his quality will dampen post-surgery, though you should still consider him as a prime IL stash during your drafts, with a loose ETA of June 1st. I cannot envision a version of Wheeler that is detrimental to your teams once he returns to the mound.
On The Fringe
Taijuan Walker (RHP)
2025 Stats: 123.2 IP | 4.08 ERA | 1.41 WHIP | 16.0 K% | 7.8 BB%
How does this continue to happen. The Phillies are immune to finding SP depth, apparently, and it’s forcing Taijuan to become a regular member of their rotation for yet another season. He’s even their SP #4 out of the gate! But he did well last year! A 4.08 ERA across 123.2 IP is fantastic for a depth piece. You know what, yeah, it was. I remember many picking him up during a hot stretch of 3 ER in three starts of 18.2 IP. It, of course, followed with 20 ER across his next five starts, and I feel like I need a term for this. A term that says, “Look, every pitcher is going to have a few good games in a row and a few bad games in a row. That means A) You can get unlucky/lucky if they have the opportunity and B) Don’t change your tune unless there’s pitch data that backs it up”. I’ll workshop some ideas.
ANYWAY, Taijuan actually did do something to benefit him last season. He found a cutter he liked and threw it to both LHB and RHB for a combined 30% usage, over 20 points more than he did in 2024. And look at that! It was a good strike pitch! Not the greatest, but miles better than the fastballs. Wait, so you like him? Oh, no I don’t. Unfortunately, there’s nary a whiff pitch to be found in the group. Just this strike cutter with a splitter, blegh slider, and mid sinker for some sub 40% ICR to RHB, with the four-seamer and curve showing up to LHB and performing terribly. He’s a QS flier for a winning team, hoping he doesn’t destroy your ratios as you preemptively accept you’re not getting more than four strikeouts. You do what you gotta do.
Quick Take: Walker’s lean into his cutter was a great shift in 2025, but he still lacks a proper whiff pitch to take him out of the rare-streamer pool. The good news? He’ll continue to get an opportunity in Philly as long as Wheeler is out, and he could even stick around after considering the high frequency of pitching injuries (or the chance Painter fails as a starter…). If you desperately need Wins or QS, then Walker could be a solution. I’d hate to be in that situation.
Andrew Painter (RHP) – Watch Video
2025 stats (In Triple-A): 106.2 IP | 5.40 ERA | 1.55 WHIP | 23.4 K% | 9.7 BB%
I don’t know what to make of him. For all the assumptions that Painter will have a great camp and be fantastic, I have to let y’all know that he struggled in Triple-A last year in his first season back from TJS. Well, he struggled after the first two months, and held close to a 2.60 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, and over a strikeout an inning in his seven starts. But hot dang was it bad after that, ending the year with a 5.40 ERA and 1.55 WHIP. Yikes.
Looking into why, it’s important to know how he had so much hype in the first place. Painter has velocity – 96/97 mph on his cut-action four-seamer – but low extension, a steep attack angle, and mediocre vert. The real skill was his feel for spin and phenomenal control, before he got TJS, of course. It was a 2022 season of a 39% strikeout rate with a 6% walk rate in 22 starts between Single-A and Double-A, before we had to wait two years for him to get back on the bump.
With that in mind, Painter’s final four months of 2025 came with a regression of his skills. The fastball lost 1.5 inches of vert from 17″ to 15.5″, and he kept tweaking his slider, curve, and change, even testing a sinker that he can locate inside to RHB, but comes with poor movement that I question if it’s worthwhile (probably?).
It looks like there’s now a sweeper in the mix that is messing with the data on his slider and curve, while a kick-change may be here as well as he found shocking drop on some of his changeups. So he’s not a finished product. Precisely. I worry he still needs to figure himself out and know what his traditional attack is with his arsenal. The 96+ mph velocity is good, but it needs more for success in the majors. The 90mph cutter with a two-plane 83 mph curveball + a 87 mph slider and/or sweeper? Now we’re talking. I just wish he could have shown it to us consistently before possibly getting plopped into the rotation the first week of April. I wonder if the Phillies even call him up until he proves it in Triple-A first. But what if he has a phenomenal spring? That would do it, and J.T. Realmuto is certainly fanning the flames of the hype train’s engine, but I’m not holding my breath.
Quick Take: I’m still waiting to see the Painter that was promised. 96+ mph four-seamers is a good start (even without anything solid under the hood) and he’ll need his old command to locate it well + he’s lost faith in his secondaries after tinkering and tweaking them throughout 2025 in the minors. I can see how it comes together if the feel for his arsenal is back to how it was – that 90mph cutter is filthy and the two breakers can miss a ton of bats – but I’m worried he won’t be there in the spring and require more time in the minors first.
Names To Know
Alan Rangel (RHP)
You know, this may actually be the #5 SP out of camp for the Phillies. Rangel is an ultra over-the-top right-hander, and I mean that. His 72 degree arm angle is eight degrees more than Tong. It means he gets 19″ of vert, but it’s also incredibly expected, which doesn’t generate the whiffs you want, especially at 92/93 mph. However, his changeup comes in over 10 mph slower and is a fantastic counterpoint + the massive low-70s curveball was able to return a 61% expected zone rate in Triple-A last year, which is the exception to the “Too big to win” rule for massive -20″ vert hooks. There’s also an 85 mph slider in the mix that works well enough, and voila, you have a decent starter that PLV loves. Huh. I love that changeup, but the heater/slider/curve make me worried there isn’t enough juice to consider for 12-teamers, but I can see him being a streamer in 15-teamers as the Phillies figure out what they do with this rotation. Or maybe he doesn’t start after all and this is all for nought. WE’LL SEE.
Bryse Wilson (RHP)
The Phillies don’t have a whole lot of SP depth ready to go, which may put the burden on Bryse to provide a few starts this season. Say what. I know. I’m just as shocked as you are that he’s found another possible opportunity to get starts, despite his rough career (hey, 2023 was pretty cool as a reliever!). The stuff isn’t exciting, and if he gets a start once or twice, you really can’t do this to yourself.
Tucker Davidson (LHP)
Davidson hasn’t been effective for a while, and left to sign in the KBO last year and was released (for Vince Velasquez, fun fact). The Phillies gave him a minor league deal and it really will be dire straits if they need him to start. You cannot believe in this.
Relevant Prospects
Thanks to MLB.com and Eric Logenhagen’s work at FanGraphs for many insights into these prospects. I also used our PLV Minor League Player App for additional data I couldn’t find elsewhere.
For pitchers in Triple-A, our PL Pro MiLB app was an invaluable resource, gathering all velocity, movement, extension, and HAVAA marks with ease. For example, here’s Kohl’s Drake’s Triple-A slider card this season inside the app. Unlock this app and many more with PL Pro.
Jean Cabrera (RHP, 24, AA) – Watch Video
Cabrera isn’t the darling prospect you’re looking for. If the Phillies fail to add another starter this winter, Cabrera’s strike-throwing ability with good feel for his slider and changeup make him a likely choice if the Painter experiment doesn’t work (or maybe it’s Bryse or Tucker…yikes.), but without a strong fastball, I’m not willing to go for it.
Yoniel Curet (RHP, 23, AAA) – Watch Video
I thought I was going to like Curet under the hood, but I really don’t. He was sinker/cutter last year at 96+ mph and upper 80s on the breaker, but neither of them has a whole lot going for them outside of their velocity. It’s not exceptional fastball movement, and the “cutter” is a worse gyro slider with more lift than we want to see. This isn’t fair to Curet, though, as he produced over 300 strikeouts in 2023 and 2024, and kicked off 2025 with a shoulder injury, and was far from his old self when he returned. It’s possible he reclaims his ability this season as the distance grows from the injury, though he has a lot of climbing to do.
Moises Chace (RHP, 22, AA) – Watch Video
Man, I was so pumped for Chace this time last year. His four-seamer looked legit and I was hoping he’d get a crack at the rotation during the year. Then his velocity plummeted while his walk rate inflated, and the worst news came shortly after in May – Tommy John Surgery. It marks Chace out until 2027 at the earliest (he’ll need innings in the minors later this year if he returns in time), and here’s to hoping he has his old fastball with good control on the rest of his arsenal.
Gage Wood (RHP, 22, A+) – Watch Video
The dude threw a 19-strikeout no-hitter in the College World Series last year, and was the first round pick for the Phillies. Given the lack depth in the farm system, it wouldn’t be the wildest thing to see Painter flounder, and instead of throwing their highly questionable depth arms every five days, the team elects to push Wood into the limelight quickly. Then again, he’s a two-pitch arm via fastball and curve (both stellar, though), with a cutter and changeup still in the works. That’s a better Ben Brown (maybe reversing the heater and curve efficacy), though, and hopefully the cutter can be a reliable third pitch to trust him as a starter and not carry similar reliever risk.
