Cooperstown Notebook: The 2024 Progress Report, Part I

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

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.

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.

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.

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 last fall — the last of which he exited due to back spasms — Scherzer underwent surgery to fix a herniated disc in mid-December. That delayed the start of his season, and then after making a single rehab start for Triple-A Round Rock on April 24, he dealt with a nerve issue that originated in his right thumb and moved up his arm, resulting from gripping the ball too hard.

Scherzer didn’t return to the majors until June 23; so far he’s made six starts with a 3.99 ERA and 4.44 FIP, and now he’s battling arm fatigue. With 215 wins, 3,391 strikeouts (11th), three Cy Youngs, two championships, and the no. 27 ranking JAWS, he’s a lock for election, though he has the lowest peak score of this group. He’ll turn 40 on July 27 and will be a free agent this winter; while he has yet to address the possibility of retirement, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

From the 27th-ranked Scherzer, one has to scroll all the way down the S-JAWS leaderboard to 94th to find the active starter with the fifth-highest ranking, but finally, we have some good news. The 35-year-old Sale, who was traded from the Red Sox to the Braves on December 30, is in the midst of a career renaissance. His 110 innings is his highest total since 2019, and he made his seventh All-Star team, his first since ’18. His NL-leading total of 13 wins has lifted his career total to 133, and while 3.1 WAR doesn’t seem like a lot to write home about, it’s in a virtual tie for sixth in the league alongside Andrew Abbott (his 3.7 fWAR leads the NL). If he hits his ZiPS projection, he’ll get extra traction by raising his peak score and climbing to 84th in the rankings, four spots below Andy Pettitte (47.2) and six below Mark Buehrle (47.4).

Sale has never won a Cy Young award, but he’s placed among the top five six times; per Baseball Reference, his 1.88 Awards share ranks 27th all-time, ahead of one-time winner CC Sabathia (1.84) and two-time winner Blake Snell (1.77). He’s got a championship from 2018, though his postseason resumé (1-3, 6.35 ERA) isn’t pretty. But if he can hold on long enough to add another 10–12 WAR — and yes, that’s a big if — he’ll push his S-JAWS above 50.0 and into the vicinity of Sabathia (50.8), which I believe would give him a real shot at election, even with fewer than 200 wins. For what it’s worth, in June, Dan Szymborski projected him to add 50 wins and 10.2 WAR from 2025–29; anything close to that will make him look very good relative to those following in his wake.

Once upon a time, the two-time Cy Young-winning deGrom appeared as though he might overcome a late start to his major league career and make a strong case for himself on the basis of his dominance, a “Koufax-like exception,” given what projected to be low counting stats for a Hall candidate. But with just 32 starts over the three and a half seasons since I wrote that, deGrom has probably missed his shot. He’s 36 and coming off his second Tommy John surgery, with career totals of 84 wins and 1,652 strikeouts; Sale, who’s nine months younger, has 49 more wins, 677 more strikeouts, and 5.4 more WAR, and those margins figure to increase since deGrom, who underwent his surgery in June 2023, still appears to be about a month away from returning. As I pointed out regarding Verlander’s 2022 return from TJ, the track record for pitchers 35 and over coming back isn’t a particularly promising one, and that’s for first surgeries, not second ones.

If there’s good news, it’s that for S-JAWS purposes, so much of deGrom’s peak value is concentrated in so few seasons. Including his offensive contributions, his seven best seasons in descending order of WAR are 10.0, 7.8, 5.4, 5.1, 4.6, 3.5 and 3.5. In other words, he can still improve that peak score if he’s healthy and effecctive. Supposing he finishes his contract with the Rangers by reeling off three straight seasons of 5.0 WAR — stop laughing, it could happen — he’d climb to 59.8/43.3/51.6, good for 53rd in JAWS between Bob Feller and Jim Bunning, three spots above Sabathia; while his counting stats would still be on the low side, he’d be a viable candidate.

After four top-five finishes in the Cy Young voting, including runner-up finishes to Verlander in 2019 and Robbie Ray in ’21, Cole finally brought home some hardware last year, and was one of just two pitchers to tally at least 200 innings in both ’22 and ’23. He paid the price, missing over two and a half months of this season due to nerve irritation and edema in his right elbow. While his 4.60 ERA and 4.72 FIP are rather ugly, he’s allowed two runs or fewer in four of his six starts, and has a 2.95 ERA and 2.63 FIP over his past four, which included a pair of six-inning, one-run efforts against the Orioles and Rays.

Though this season won’t do much for his Hall case, the 33-year-old Cole has banked 148 wins and 2,186 strikeouts, and he would appear to have a legitimate shot at the 200-win, 3,000-strikeout combo that’s going to carry Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander, and perhaps Greinke into Cooperstown. As far as his S-JAWS goes, he’s 159th right now, with a peak score comprised of four seasons of 5.0 WAR or better and then seasons of 4.4, 2.7 and 2.6; a trio of 5-WAR seasons would carry him to 56.6/39.8/48.2, tied with Cole Hamels for 71st all-time, 0.1 below Santana and 0.1 ahead of recent BBWAA candidate Tim Hudson.

As for other active starters, Phillies teammates Aaron Nola (33.6/30.3/31.9) and Zack Wheeler (32.0/30.0/31.0) are the next two in the rankings. They’re 31 and 34 years old, respectively, and neither has won a Cy Young, though Wheeler did finish second in 2021. The former has 101 wins, 1,702 strikeouts, and a 113 ERA+, the latter 97 wins, 1,527 strikeouts, and a 118 ERA+. Both must remain exceptionally durable to retain a shred of a chance; to these eyes, they’re aspiring members of the Buehrle/Hudson/Pettitte cluster that’s received tepid support from voters.

Sonny Gray (31.3/28.1/29.7) is 34 and has more wins (108) than either Nola or Wheeler, with a strikeout total that falls in between (1,652), a pair of top-three Cy Young finishes, and a lower WAR and S-JAWS. I like the run prevention and skill sets of 30-year-old Max Fried (23.0/22.8/22.9, with a 143 ERA+ thus far) and 31-year-old Luis Castillo (23.3/22.2/22.7, with a 122 ERA+ thus far), but both need a couple of monster seasons before we really have anything to talk about.

Relief Pitchers

In 2021, after a few years of using it on an experimental basis in the context of Billy Wagner’s Hall of Fame candidacy, I formalized R-JAWS for relievers, using Baseball Reference’s versions of WAR, Win Probability Added (WPA) and its leverage-adjusted version, variably called situational or context-neutral wins (WPA/LI). R-JAWS is the average of those three, and the leaderboard is now on Baseball Reference.

Since I last checked in a year ago, Jansen has gained 1.3 points of R-JAWS relative to Craig Kimbrel, climbing to 10th; Wagner is sixth behind Hall of Famers Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley, Hoyt Wilhelm, Rich Gossage, and Trevor Hoffman, and after missing election by just five votes on the 2024 ballot, has a shot at election this coming winter, when he’ll make his 10th and final BBWAA ballot appearance. Jansen is 2.7 points behind Wagner, but he surpassed Wagner’s 422 saves early this season and now ranks fifth at 439, one behind Kimbrel.

The 36-year-old converted catcher isn’t as dominant as he used to be, but he remains productive and effective. Last year, he made his fourth All-Star team, and despite allowing five runs in his last four innings this year — including three in one inning at the hands of the Dodgers on Sunday — he currently owns a 3.06 ERA and 2.89 FIP with a 27.6% strikeout rate in 35.1 innings. His career 35.5% strikeout rate is first among pitchers with 800 innings (he has 849), surpassing Wagner’s 33.2% (in 903 innings). Despite the lingering memory of being bypassed in favor of Julio Urías to close out the Dodgers’ 2020 World Series clincher, Jansen owns a 2.20 ERA and 37.6% strikeout rate with 20 saves (second all-time) in 65.1 postseason innings. He’ll have a real shot at Cooperstown if the electorate feels generous towards relievers, but that’s no given.

Now pitching for the Orioles, his fifth team in four seasons, Kimbrel has climbed to fourth in saves (440) while delivering a 2.72 ERA and 2.93 FIP with 23 saves. However, he’s blown five saves already — matching his highest total since 2011 — and is in the red as far as WPA (-0.4) goes. Including his rough second half with the Phillies last year (-0.85 WPA), he’s gained just 0.1 points of R-JAWS relative to my last check-in and now ranks 13th, a full point behind Jansen and half a point behind 11th-ranked Jonathan Papelbon.

The 36-year-old Kimbrel is just 6.1 innings from reaching the 800-inning threshold, at which point his 39.3% strikeout rate would surpass Jansen by nearly four full points. His postseason line (4.50 ERA and 10 saves in 30 innings) is nothing to write home about, but like Jansen, he could benefit if the electorate is in an inclusive mood.

If Kimbrel has spun his wheels on the R-JAWS front over the past year, the 36-year-old Chapman has backslid, losing 0.3 points. In the wake of his 2022 bridge-burning with the Yankees, which included a 4.46 ERA, an infected tattoo on his leg, and a no-show for a mandatory postseason workout, he’s no longer a primary closer. He saved just six games for the Royals and Rangers last year, and has four for the Pirates so far, accompanied by a 3.93 ERA and 3.99 FIP. His 325 saves ranks 20th, and he seems unlikely to earn back enough trust to reach 400 or even 378, which would put him in the top 10.

Like Kimbrel, Chapman tops the strikeout rate leaderboard at a lower cutoff, with 40.1% in 735 career innings. But between that, his relative shortage in the saves department, and the additional baggage he carries due to his 2016 suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy, his chances for election to the Hall are slim to none.

Leaving David Robertson (19.6 R-JAWS) and Josh Hader (12.7) aside, there’s still one active Hall-relevant pitcher to discuss, but as Shohei Ohtani isn’t pulling double duty this year following his second UCL repair, I’ll examine his case in a later installment.