What a strange time it is for the art of starting pitching in Major League Baseball.
The narrative in recent years has been the loss of its primacy as a star attraction. Fewer innings go to starters in general, and no starters carry the epic workloads of their forebears. When the World Series is decided, if a starter is on the mound, it's because he came out of the bullpen, as Walker Buehler did when he locked down the Los Angeles Dodgers' championship in late October.
One hundred years ago, starting pitchers accounted for around 91% of all innings pitched and averaged just over eight innings per outing. Last season, starters threw 59% of all innings and averaged 5⅔ frames.
And yet, financially speaking, it has never been a better time to be a bedrock starting pitcher. Just tally up the numbers from your favorite free agent tracker, like the one at FanGraphs.
As of New Year's Eve, the total outlay for free agents was around $2.6 billion. It's a rough figure that ignores exigencies such as opt-outs, but let's go with that as a measure of potential aggregate contract value. Of that total, $1.2 billion has gone to starting pitchers. If you take Juan Soto out of the equation, starters have gotten 1.9 times more than all other positions combined.
Let's put two and two together and make an outlandish suggestion: Even in 2025, baseball teams still value starting pitching. Its demise has been exaggerated, even while debates abound about how to restore the art to its former glory.
Most of the key dominoes in free agency have fallen now that Corbin Burnes has joined the Arizona Diamondbacks. Most, but not all: Possible impact starters such as Jack Flaherty, Japanese sensation Roki Sasaki and others are still out there.
Let's take stock of the current rotation landscape in baseball, while keeping in mind that there is still plenty that can change. As with our look at offenses in the aftermath of the winter meetings, this is an in-the-moment snapshot of baseball's top 10 rotations.