Skip to content

2017’s Best Starting Pitchers

I may sound like a broken record but there are dozens of ways to evaluate a pitchers ability. I prefer using advanced metrics because, while the math may be biased towards a skill or set of skills it removes individual preferences (I stubbornly like Tom Seaver over Sandy Koufax or vice versa, regardless of what numbers tell me). Below is a list of the best pitchers from the 2017 season based on ERA+. Take a look at the names and the numbers and see if you agree.


  • T – 9. Marcus Stroman

  • Marcus Stroman
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    149 5.8 33 13 9 3.09 201 2 0 0 82 69 62 164 7.3 1.308

  • T – 9. Zack Greinke

  • Zack Greinke
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    149 6.0 32 17 7 3.20 202.1 1 0 0 80 72 45 215 9.6 1.072

  • 8. Gio Gonzalez

  • Gio Gonzalez
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    150 6.6 32 15 9 2.96 201 0 0 0 69 66 79 188 8.4 1.179

  • 7. Luis Severino

  • Luis Severino
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    152 5.3 31 14 6 2.98 193.1 0 0 0 73 64 51 230 10.7 1.040

  • 6. Chris Sale

  • Chris Sale
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    157 6.0 32 17 8 2.90 214.1 1 0 0 73 69 43 308 12.9 0.970

  • 5. Robbie Ray

  • Robbie Ray
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    166 5.0 28 15 5 2.89 162 1 1 0 57 52 71 218 12.1 1.154

  • 4. Stephen Strasburg

  • Stephen Strasburg
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    176 6.5 28 15 4 2.52 175.1 1 1 0 55 49 47 204 10.5 1.015

  • 3. Max Scherzer

  • Max Scherzer
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    177 7.3 31 16 6 2.51 200.2 2 0 0 62 56 55 268 12.0 0.902

  • 2. Clayton Kershaw

  • Clayton Kershaw
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    180 4.6 27 18 4 2.31 175 1 0 0 49 45 30 202 10.4 0.949

  • 1. Corey Kluber

  • Corey Kluber
    ERA+ WAR GS W L ERA IP CG SHO SV R ER BB SO SO/9 WHIP
    202 8.0 29 18 4 2.25 203.2 5 3 0 56 51 36 265 11.7 0.869

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: