Andy McCullough shares where Cubs' starters land in The Athletic's rankings (Hour 4)
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What are the rankings of the best aces in MLB according to The Athletic?
In my delivery, sometimes I can get too fast or I can get too slow, robotical. And so it's just about finding that happy medium of being athletic but not rushing down the mound. And I felt really good today with that. I felt like my fastball had some life to it. And I felt like I was getting my foot down on my off speed.
That was Cade Horton. He is part of the Cubs starting rotation. And this is Rahimi Harrison-Grote on 104.3 The Score. The reason we want to talk about pitching is because of our next guest. He is Andy McCullough at By McCullough on X, senior writer for The Athletic covering Major League Baseball. And it is a story about pitching tiers. It is called the 2026 Aces Project. Major League Insiders ranks starting pitchers, who's just a guy, and who's number one. He also joins us on Twitch, twitch.tv slash thescorechicago. Thanks for coming on, Andy. We appreciate it.
Yeah, no problem. How are you guys doing?
We are good. It's funny because we just had Mike Sando on earlier today, and he does the quarterback tier story, so we're sticking with the theme and doing pitching tiers. What has inspired you to put this together?
Yeah, that's funny. I've been doing this, I think this is year seven that we've been doing this project. And initially I thought Sando ripped me off, but it turned out I ripped him off many years ago. I was like, that guy Sando, he just took our idea. It's like, no, no, this is, he's been doing it for much longer and he's very, very good at his job. So yeah, so at The Athletic, we've kind of gone through various incarnations of doing it, but basically the way it works is we get a panel of 20 executives, scouts, analysts. We send them a list of like 90 pitchers. That's how many it was this year. And we ask them to rate everyone on a scouting scale of a number one starter through a number five starter.
And it's always just trying to figure out like, okay, who are like the unanimous number ones? Who are the guys that everyone agrees are the best in baseball? There were two unanimous number ones this year, probably not a shock to anyone, but Tarek Skubal and Paul Skeens. And then we had three other guys who sort of met our criteria as number ones, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Garrett Crochet, and Christopher Sanchez. And so it's just like a fun exercise, you know, to kind of bring in a lot of different diverse opinions and just figure out like, okay, like what is it that all these different people in baseball can agree on?
I think it's a good concept. And yeah, it's no shock that Scooble and Skeens are in the top. But the way you guys stratify this is also different from the norm. Like, for example, as I go through the list, it is an extensive story here. But tier one is the unanimous. Then you've got the aces. That's the guys who were graded in the 99.5 to 90 range. doorstep knockers pitchers who might one day call themselves aces are 89 and a half to 80 79 and a half to 60 number twos and number threes lower ceilings but still elevated floors and those guys are awesome at baseball and then everybody else is 59 and a half and below are there anybody who you think could move up a tier maybe not to the unanimous number ones because i feel like that is still elite company but from the doorstep knockers to that to that next tier just underneath
Yeah, I think Hunter Brown with the Houston Astros is someone to watch over the next year or so.
How is the 2026 Aces Project structured and who participates?
He put up a really, really strong season in 2025, kind of really put everything together. So I suspect if he repeats that, he might vault in to the No. 1 tier. I think there's a lot of younger guys who have a really high ceiling, but their floor is kind of uncertain, like Jacob Mizorowski with the Brewers. Yeah, that guy could be a No. 1, or he could be a 7th inning guy. You know, it's kind of unclear where he ends up. You know, Nolan McClain maybe has a higher sort of floor, Nolan McClain with the Mets. And so, yeah, it's interesting. It's like it's hard sometimes to, you know, rate out those guys who have the really high ceiling with guys who have just been doing it really well for a long time at, you know, as like just a straight number three starter, like a Luis Castillo, you know, or like a Kevin Gossman is like a number two, number three.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What are the rankings of the best aces in MLB according to The Athletic?
0:01–3:28
2
How is the 2026 Aces Project structured and who participates?
3:28–9:58
3
Who are the unanimous number one starters in the MLB rankings?
9:58–14:07
4
What criteria are used to rate MLB pitchers in the rankings?
14:07–16:48
5
Who could potentially rise in the pitching tiers this season?
16:48–21:47
6
What is the significance of Cade Horton in the Cubs' pitching lineup?
21:47–40:35
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Rahimi & Grote Show
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