Top starting pitchers of the 21st century
There’s a way to simplify our selection of the best starting pitcher of the first 21 seasons of the 21st century. Just count up the Cy Young Awards.
Forty-two Cys have been handed out since 2000 — 21 in the American League, 21 in the National — with 10 men earning multiple honors.
Randy Johnson, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer top the list with three awards apiece. They certainly have to be in the conversation. Another seven starters hold a pair of Cys, with Jacob deGrom and Justin Verlander the most recent to join that group. They have to be considered, too.
But how do we make the final choice?
I’ve used a 10-part formula since October, as you may recall, to choose the century’s best position players:
The formula can’t be the same for pitchers, but the concept is a familiar one.
I assessed the pitchers in 10 statistical categories, including totals that rewarded longevity (games started, wins, strikeouts, and wins above replacement) and rates that reflected consistent quality (earned run average, batting average against, slugging average against, bases allowed per out, strikeouts per nine innings, and wins above replacement per 200 innings).
The competition is open not only to the 10 multiple Cy Young winners, but to anybody who started at least 162 games between 2000 and 2020. That’s 213 pitchers in all, ranked on a scale that assigns 100 points to the champion and zero to the last-place finisher. Positions for everybody else are determined by relative performance.
All statistics, of course, are limited to the current century, even if a pitcher began his career — and enjoyed his most fruitful years — in the 1990s.
The final standings aren’t as close as you might expect.
Clayton Kershaw, who has taken the mound for the Dodgers since 2008, leads in four rate categories. He also ranks among the 10 best starters in four of the formula’s other six statistics. The result: Kershaw is No. 1 overall, holding a healthy lead of 83 points over runner-up Justin Verlander (16 years with the Tigers and Astros) and a broad margin of 140 points over third-place finisher Max Scherzer (13 seasons with the Diamondbacks, Tigers, and Nationals).
Below are my profiles of the 10 highest-rated starting pitchers, followed by the rest of the top 75. (There seems to be no reason to list all 213.) Each profile includes a player’s score, his cumulative stats for the century, and a few pertinent notes.
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Score: 1,000 points
WAR: 67.0 total, 5.7 per 200 IP
Averages: 2.43 ERA, .208 BA, .319 SLG, .498 BPO
Strikeouts: 2,526 total, 9.7 per 9 IP
Totals: 354 GS, 175 W
Notes: Several stats clearly identify Kershaw as the century’s toughest pitcher to hit. He posted the lowest ERA among the 213 men in these ratings, as well as the lowest BA, the lowest SLG, and the lowest BPO. He has won the Cy Young Award three times, coupling his most recent Cy with the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2014.
Score: 917 points
WAR: 72.3 total, 4.8 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.33 ERA, .228 BA, .365 SLG, .588 BPO
Strikeouts: 3,013 total, 9.1 per 9 IP
Totals: 454 GS, 226 W
Notes: Verlander is the leader among active pitchers with 226 wins. (Only the recently retired CC Sabathia amassed a higher total since 2000, 251 victories.) None of the century’s pitchers has exceeded Verlander’s 72.3 WAR. His trophy case includes a Rookie of the Year Award, an MVP, and a pair of Cy Youngs.
Score: 860 points
WAR: 60.6 total, 5.1 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.21 ERA, .223 BA, .374 SLG, .596 BPO
Strikeouts: 2,784 total, 10.6 per 9 IP
Totals: 368 GS, 175 W
Notes: How many pitchers accumulated more than 2,000 strikeouts after 1999, while averaging at least 10 per nine innings? Just three. Scherzer is the highest-rated member of that group, joined by Chris Sale and Randy Johnson. He has won three Cy Young Awards — one in the AL, two in the NL — and finished among the top five votegetters four other times.
Score: 815 points
WAR: 67.1 total, 4.6 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.37 ERA, .245 BA, .388 SLG, .597 BPO
Strikeouts: 2,689 total, 8.2 per 9 IP
Totals: 459 GS, 208 W
Notes: Greinke is the only active pitcher besides Verlander with more than 200 wins on his bottom line. He owns a pair of ERA crowns, one in each league. His value and durability are documented by his 67.1 wins above replacement (second only to Verlander this century) and his 459 starts (surpassed by only three post-1999 pitchers).
Score: 805 points
WAR: 62.0 total, 3.5 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.74 ERA, .251 BA, .392 SLG, .643 BPO
Strikeouts: 3,093 total, 7.8 per 9 IP
Totals: 560 GS, 251 W
Notes: There’s already talk about the Hall of Fame for Sabathia, who won’t be eligible for induction until 2025. He piled up an impressive total of 251 wins, tying him for 47th place on the all-time list with the immortal Bob Gibson. But his ERA and BPO might be too high for Cooperstown, ranking as only the 45th and 43rd best, respectively, among the 21st century’s starters.
Score: 786 points
WAR: 45.4 total, 5.6 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.03 ERA, .218 BA, .351 SLG, .553 BPO
Strikeouts: 2,007 total, 11.1 per 9 IP
Totals: 232 GS, 109 W
Notes: Batters have hit just .218 against Sale. Only Kershaw and Pedro Martinez have racked up lower averages from 2000 onward. His strikeout rate of 11.1 per nine innings is equally splendid. Yu Darvish matched it, but nobody this century has done better. Yet Sale has never won a Cy Young, despite finishing among the top six votegetters seven times.
Score: 764 points
WAR: 45.6 total, 6.2 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.01 ERA, .216 BA, .345 SLG, .561 BPO
Strikeouts: 1,620 total, 9.9 per 9 IP
Totals: 227 GS, 112 W
Notes: These stats leave off the first eight seasons of Martinez’s Hall of Fame career. He went 107-50 with a 2.83 ERA from 1992 to 1999. He slowed a bit in the new century — his SO/9 slipped ever so slightly from 10.2 in that initial span to 9.9 over the final 10 years. But he still performed at a higher level than all but six starters in the post-1999 era.
Score: 742 points
WAR: 51.3 total, 5.4 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.34 ERA, .231 BA, .378 SLG, .614 BPO
Strikeouts: 2,182 total, 10.4 per 9 IP
Totals: 281 GS, 143 W
Notes: This is another case of a Hall of Famer who may have been on the downside of his career, yet remained one of the game’s great starters. Johnson notched 160 wins through 1999, then 143 thereafter. But his Cy Young numbers actually improved with age, bringing two awards in the previous century and three in this one.
Score: 740 points
WAR: 35.9 total, 6.1 per 200 IP
Averages: 2.61 ERA, .219 BA, .334 SLG, .535 BPO
Strikeouts: 1,359 total, 10.5 per 9 IP
Totals: 183 GS, 70 W
Notes: Wins have been devalued in this analytics-driven age, yet it remains striking that nine of the century’s top 10 starters have at least 100 victories, while deGrom has a mere 70. His other stats are considerably more impressive. He’s the only starter since 2000 who combined 10-plus strikeouts per nine innings with at least 6.0 WAR per 200 innings.
Score: 738 points
WAR: 58.4 total, 4.3 per 200 IP
Averages: 3.43 ERA, .240 BA, .389 SLG, .638 BPO
Strikeouts: 2,560 total, 8.5 per 9 IP
Totals: 422 GS, 163 W
Notes: Only five of the century’s pitchers have started at least 400 games and struck out more than 2,500 batters. You’ve already met three: Verlander, Greinke, and Sabathia. Hamels is the fourth. (And the fifth? Look just below for Felix Hernandez.) Hamels posted 121 wins in his first 10 seasons, but added only 43 victories after 2015.
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