It’s been a big week for Dylan Cease.
The Blue Jays right-hander, an eight-year veteran, not only was named to his first All-Star team, but also started Tuesday’s game in Philadelphia. In the national spotlight and even mic’d up on the FOX broadcast, Cease struck out Kyle Schwarber, Juan Soto and CJ Abrams, working around a two-out walk to Freddie Freeman. With the AL having scored three runs in the top of the first, Cease was named the winning pitcher in a 4-0 victory.
Not surprisingly, Cease is making a big charge up the Starting Pitcher Power Rankings, too. Unranked in our last poll, he has now busted into the top three, per the votes by a panel of MLB.com experts.
He might have been unavailable to pitch in the All-Star Game, but Miz still made an impression on the red carpet. He’s of course been making a big impression all season long, and while the Brewers are planning to take it slow with him as the second half begins, that wasn’t nearly enough reason for our voters to knock him out of the top spot. Misiorowski, in his first full MLB season, leads the Majors with a 1.62 ERA and 167 strikeouts. A whopping 90 of those K’s have been on pitches 100-plus mph — or about 60% of the total for all MLB starters this year.
His season got off to a late start as he recovered from thoracic outlet decompression surgery, but Wheeler has looked as good as ever since returning, even at age 36. He has a 2.13 ERA in 15 starts, and the resurgent Phillies have gone 13-2 in those games, including six wins in a row. In July, Wheeler has struck out 34 batters and walked three in 17 2/3 innings, and he finished his first half with an absolute gem on Sunday at Detroit.
Cease’s dominant performance in the All-Star Game was just a continuation of where he’s been for most of the season, and especially of late. Since returning from a short IL stint for a hamstring strain on June 9, Cease has made six starts and posted a 1.73 ERA, .144 opponent batting average and 39.2% strikeout rate. Critically for the struggling Blue Jays, five of those six starts have been wins for Toronto, including Cease’s final outing of the first half, in which he no-hit the Giants until a ninth-inning single and struck out 11.
If there was concern that Schlittler’s spectacular season was about to take an unfortunate turn after a rough outing against the Tigers on June 30 (four innings, four homers, six runs), that has proven to be unfounded. Schilttler was right back on top of his game in his next start, shutting down the AL East-leading Rays on the road (eight innings, one run). In his final outing before the break, he tamed a Nationals offense that is tied for the MLB lead in runs scored, in another Yankees road win. In fact, Schlittler has been sensational away from Yankee Stadium all season, with a 1.18 ERA in 12 road starts.
What had been a dream season for Sánchez has taken a bit of a turn lately, leading to a small drop in our rankings. The lefty has a 5.56 ERA over his past six starts, allowing at least four runs three times, including a nine-run outburst from the last-place Royals on July 6. Sánchez did work around 10 hits for a solid first-half finale on Saturday at Detroit (seven innings, two runs), but then he took the loss in the All-Star Game on his home field, allowing three runs in the first inning. Despite that, he still leads MLB in Baseball-Reference’s pitching WAR (5.4), while ranking second in FanGraphs’ version (4.0).
Sale has been spectacular this year (2.20 ERA), and really, what he’s done since arriving in Atlanta before the 2024 season is an incredible achievement. Coming off a five-year stretch marred by injury and subpar performance, Sale has a 174 ERA+ from 2024-26. Among all pitchers who have made at least 60 starts during their age 35-37 seasons, that is tied with Hall of Famer Lefty Grove for second behind only the great Randy Johnson (184). Two of Sale’s contemporaries, Justin Verlander (172) and Max Scherzer (156) come in close behind him.
The only thing holding back Ohtani on the mound is his light usage, which is, of course, an understandable byproduct of his unique two-way role and the Dodgers’ careful handling of their unicorn of a superstar. Ohtani’s 85 2/3 innings this year are tied for 88th most in the Majors and below the threshold needed to qualify for league leaderboards. If he did qualify, Ohtani’s 1.79 ERA would rank second only to Misiorowski. However, that’s jumped up from 0.74 over a four-start span (24 2/3 innings, 25 hits, 12 earned runs) in which Ohtani finally has looked a bit mortal after his untouchable first 10 outings.
Like Wheeler and Sale, the 36-year-old Gray just keeps on doing his thing even after reaching his mid-30s. He has a 3.40 ERA in 133 starts since his age-32 season and has been even better than that this year, after coming to Boston from St. Louis in an offseason trade. Following a somewhat rocky beginning to his Sox tenure, Gray is 9-0 with a 1.98 ERA in his past 12 starts since the beginning of May. He’s also allowed no more than one run in four consecutive outings, one big reason why Boston has fought its way back into AL Wild Card contention.
An All-Star for the second straight season, Ryan is having his best year yet, with a 2.85 ERA in 20 starts. That includes a 2.39 mark in his past 12 starts, since May 9. As has become standard for the right-hander, he is excelling at both racking up strikeouts (86th percentile in K-rate) and limiting free passes (90th percentile in BB-rate).
The third Phillies pitcher on this list, Luzardo has reached this point despite enduring a rough (and, frankly, unlucky) beginning to the season. Through eight starts, he had a 5.77 ERA (fourth-highest among qualifiers) despite a 2.94 FIP (16th-best), thanks in part to a .386 BABIP allowed (second highest). Since that point, Luzardo has righted the ship: a 2.03 ERA and comparable 2.77 FIP over 11 starts. The Phillies have won 10 of those games, vaulting back into the NL East race.
Others receiving votes: Chase Burns (Reds), Max Meyer (Marlins), Tarik Skubal (Tigers), Paul Skenes (Pirates), Parker Messick (Guardians), Drew Rasmussen (Rays), Foster Griffin (Nationals), Shane McClanahan (Rays), Logan Webb (Giants), Eduardo Rodriguez (Diamondbacks), Logan Gilbert (Mariners), Nolan McLean (Mets)
Voters: Theo DeRosa, Jason Foster, Jared Greenspan, Brian Murphy, Max Ralph, Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru, Andrew Simon
