Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
It has not been a very good year for pitchers aspiring to reach the Hall of Fame. Two of the four starters widely perceived to have sealed the deal have yet to throw a single pitch in the majors thus far — one hasn’t even signed and may in fact be done — and the starter who entered the year with the most momentum didn’t debut until June 19 due to (gulp) an elbow injury.
Just one Cy Young Award winner from the past decade has pitched a full season, while four are in various stages of recovery from Tommy John surgery. Meanwhile, the three most-likely relievers have all been erratic to some degree or another; one of them isn’t even his team’s regular closer.
With the Hall of Fame Induction Weekend circus having left Cooperstown following Sunday’s festivities to honor Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Jim Leyland, and Joe Mauer, it’s a good time to ponder which active players are on their way. But particularly since the last time I took stock about a year ago, the picture is less rosy for just about every starter except Paul Skenes, and it’s far too early to talk about him.
Even at a time when pitching seems to be winning the daily battle — scoring and slugging percentage are near their lowest marks in the last decade, and batting average is in a virtual tie (with 2022) for the fourth-lowest mark since 1900 — pitchers are losing the war against longevity.
This isn’t exactly a new topic, of course, and while I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how Hall voters will adjust their standards in the coming years, and how we might differently evaluate pitchers through tools such as S-JAWS (which reduces the skewing caused by the heavy-workload pitchers of the 19th and early 20th-centuries) and rolling WAR leaders, I don’t have a clear answer.
The main problem is that if we decide to lower the standards by which we judge more recent starters, we are left with literally dozens of pitchers from past eras with similarly impressive resumés, and logistical roadblocks to honor an equitable share of them.
If the recently retired Adam Wainwright (45.2 career WAR/36.5 adjusted peak WAR/40.7 S-JAWS) is worthy of a spot in Cooperstown, then how do we reckon with the careers of Luis Tiant (66./41.3/53.7), David Cone (62.3/43.3/52.8), Dave Stieb (56.4/41.8/49.1), and Johan Santana (51.7/45.0/48.3) — to name just a few aces from the past half-century?
Given the ability to fit just eight candidates on an Era Committee ballot, with Negro Leaguers, managers, and executives also in the pre-1980 mix, and the deck generally stacked against candidates who fell victim to the Five Percent Rule, there’s little chance of catching up anytime soon.
All of that is a problem for another day — and perhaps even another decade — particularly given that the upper tier of active starters still measures up favorably next to those already enshrined. For now, we can zoom in for a closer look at the relevant active pitchers, their progress to date, and their rest-of-season ZiPS projections.
Within each group, the pitchers are listed in order of S-JAWS or R-JAWS. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version.
Starting Pitchers
Category Career WAR Peak WAR Adj. S-JAWS
Current 81.5 50.1 65.8
Projected End 2024 82.0 50.1 66.1
HOF Standard SP 73.0 40.7 56.8
When the 41-year-old Verlander reported to the Astros’ camp in February, he said that when he resumed throwing over the winter, his shoulder “didn’t feel so great,” so he was a couple of weeks behind schedule. He started the year on the injured list due to shoulder inflammation, didn’t make his season debut until April 19, and made just 10 starts with a 3.95 ERA and 4.97 FIP before landing on the injured list due to neck discomfort. His rehab has been slow; at last report, he threw 40 pitches in a bullpen session on Saturday. If his next bullpen session goes well, he’ll face live hitters, but at this point he’s probably looking at an August return.
With 260 wins, 3,393 strikeouts (10th all-time), and 65.8 S-JAWS (18th all-time) to go with his three Cy Youngs, three no-hitters, and two championships, Verlander is a lock for Cooperstown if he never throws another pitch. Since he’s going to fall short of the 140 innings needed as one condition of his $35 million player option (a clean bill of health for next Opening Day is the other, but the point is moot), he’ll be a free agent this winter. We’ll see whether he intends to put his body through another season.
Category Career WAR Peak WAR Adj. S-JAWS
Current 79.7 49.7 64.7
Projected End 2024 80.6 49.7 65.2
HOF Standard SP 73.0 40.7 56.8
After undergoing surgery to repair the glenohumeral ligaments and capsule of his left shoulder — an injury that was kept under wraps last year until a few weeks after his sad exit from the Division Series opener against the Diamondbacks — Kershaw appeared to be ahead of schedule when he began a rehab stint with Single-A Rancho Cucamonga on June 19. Renewed soreness led the Dodgers to pump the brakes on his return; after starts for Triple-A Oklahoma City on July 13 and July 19, he’s scheduled to take the hill for the Dodgers against the Giants on Thursday.
Like Verlander, the 36-year-old Kershaw has numbers that would make for an easy first-ballot entry even if he had packed it in last fall. He’s got 210 wins, 2,944 strikeouts, three Cy Youngs, a championship, the fourth-highest ERA+ of any pitcher with at least 1,000 innings (157) — and he’s first once you get past 1,500 innings — and the 21st-highest S-JAWS. He’d climb to 20th with just 0.2 WAR, and he needs just 56 strikeouts to become the fourth southpaw to reach 3,000 after Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson, and CC Sabathia. The ZiPS rest-of-season forecast projects him to get 53 of those strikeouts in 53 innings over 10 starts.
He’s got a player option worth between $5 million and $20 million for next year depending upon how much he pitches (he’d max out if he reaches 10 starts or three-inning relief appearances), but the pursuit of a milestone is far less likely to drive his decision than the pull of family and the condition of his body.
Category Career WAR Peak WAR Adj. S-JAWS
Current 77.5 48.4 62.9
Projected End 2023 77.5 48.4 62.9
HOF Standard SP 73.0 40.7 56.8
After a solid performance in 2022, Grienke returned for another go-round with the Royals last year, but it was a tough one to watch. He went 2-15 with a 5.06 ERA and 4.74 FIP in 142.1 innings. His agent told teams in December that he was preparing to pitch in 2024, but no contract ever materialized. In May, he reportedly worked out at Salt River Field, throwing live batting practice to Diamondbacks hitters and offering a typically Greinke-esque status update: “My arm feels decent at the moment,” Greinke said. “I was trying to get as good as I could at golfing the past two months, and I was like, ‘Why am I trying to be a pro golfer when I’m already kind of a pro baseball player?’ So I figured I’d throw a little and see how it goes.”
It’s unclear whether the 40-year-old Greinke discussed a contract with the Diamondbacks (for whom he pitched from 2016–19), but long story short, he remains unsigned, and by the look of the calendar, he’s running out of time for 2024. His numbers as they are (225 wins, 2,979 strikeouts, and the no. 25 ranking in JAWS) make him election-worthy, and he’s even closer to the 3,000-strikeout milestone than Kershaw. Still, it would be thoroughly in character if he decided to forgo further pursuit.
Category Career WAR Peak WAR Adj. S-JAWS
Current 75.3 47.5 61.4
Projected End 2024 76.3 47.5 61.9
HOF Standard SP 73.0 40.7 56.8
After making just 50 starts in 2022–23 due to injuries, and throwing just 9.2 innings across three postseason starts during the Rangers World Series run…
