No matter how much baseball is changing at the moment, the value of the top tier of starting pitchers is immutable. So, let's take a look at the top starters in baseball right now, with some of my opinion included but mostly that of eight scouts and front office executives I polled going into the new season.
The concept of an ace comes up a lot in baseball conversations, often without a specific definition. In scouting, it has a bit more of a specific meaning -- but that can vary from person to person. The basic idea, in a scouting sense, is that an ace is part of the top tier of starting pitchers across the sport and that this tier is more than five or six pitchers but fewer than 15 -- with most scouts and executives putting it at eight to 12.
Rather than one ace per team, think of it more as roughly one per playoff team, with the newly expanded 12-team playoffs representing the high end of the range. I've done a number of these over the years, and while a couple of names have been on every version of this list, there's a good bit of movement with every new edition.
This is a ranking for this season, rather than projecting into the future, so think of this as who you would want pitching for your team during a playoff run -- but you have to make the list now. Any pitcher who is still recovering from surgery isn't eligible, so Walker Buehler (No. 5 on my list at this point last season) is a perennial candidate who won't be listed this time.
Here are baseball's true aces of 2023, along with those who have the best chance to make the leap this season.
