Why Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto is ranked higher than Cristopher Sanchez in ace rankings
· Yahoo Sports
Why Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto is ranked higher than Cristopher Sanchez in ace rankings originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Visit betsport.cv for more information.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have one of the better pitching staffs in all of Major League Baseball, with World Series hero Yoshinobu Yamamoto leading the rotation with Shohei Ohtani and plenty of other great starters behind him.
But, when it comes to Yamamoto's standing across baseball among other aces, his ranking is an interesting one. While he isn't in the same tier as Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal, Yamamoto is still a highly ranked starter.
According to ESPN's Kiley McDaniel, Yamamoto is ranked fourth in MLB's ace rankings, behind only Skenes, Skubal, and Garrett Crochet. But he is ahead of Philadelphia Phillies ace Cristopher Sanchez, and McDaniel explained why.
Why Yamamoto is ranked slightly better than Sanchez
"Yamamoto gets a slight nod over Cristopher Sanchez because he's two years younger and evaluators have a little more confidence in what he'll look like in the medium term," McDaniel writes.
The Dodgers righty is one of the better pitchers in baseball and is only 27 years old, compared to Sanchez, who is 29 years old.
Both starters have recently emerged as the aces they are, as Yamamoto was pitching in Japan while Sanchez wasn't a starter for most of his career before 2023.
More: Shohei Ohtani deemed more valuable than Aaron Judge in recent ESPN discussion piece
Last season, Sanchez posted a 2.50 ERA in 32 starts across 202 innings pitched with 212 strikeouts, a WHIP of 1.064, and 8.0 bWAR. Yamamoto had a 2.49 ERA in 30 starts across 173.2 innings pitched with 201 strikeouts and a 0.990 WHIP and 4.9 bWAR.
Both pitchers were among the best in all of Major League Baseball, with Sanchez being the runner-up in NL Cy Young voting to Skenes and Yamamoto finishing third.
However, evaluators believe that Yamamoto is the better pitcher in the medium-term, if only slightly. It's a close race between the two aces, and they're both easily within the second-tier of aces behind Skubal and Skenes.
But, Yamamoto, the Dodgers World Series hero, has the slight edge over Sanchez, the lefty Phillies starter who is one of the best starters in baseball.
More MLB news:
- Braves predicted to trade Bryce Elder for Lars Nootbaar
- Jacob DeGrom is only 149 strikeouts from 2,000 for his career
- Three ways Pirates' Paul Skenes could lose NL Cy Young Award
- Giancarclo Stanton has an absurd 2-for-4 streak going on for Yankees
- Mets didn’t want to trade Brett Baty while White Sox didn’t want Mark Vientos in Luis Robert Jr. trade
- How Blue Jays' Kazuma Okamoto is connected to Rockies' Tomoyuki Sugano
- Marlins suggested to sign Max Kepler after Phillies’ OF was suspended for 80 games
- Red Sox never close on Astros’ Isaac Paredes trade