Which Team in the AL Central Has the Best Ace for 2025?
Home to the defending AL Cy Young Award winner, let's check out the starting rotations of the AL Central and rank the aces.
The AL Central was the surprise division of the 2024 season. That still feels overlooked in 2025 despite having a real chance at four teams finishing with 81 or more wins. Last year, the fourth-place Twins finished with 82 wins, the most of any fourth-placed team in baseball. The success of this division was largely built off of the pitching on each team.
The Cleveland Guardians managed to finish first in this division. While they did it largely on the back of their pitching, the rotation was largely underwhelming. Having the best bullpen in baseball helped carry them to a division title. The rotation needs to step up if they hope to repeat.
The Tigers on the other hand produced a Cy Young winner in Tarik Skubal. They rode Skubal and his dominant performances straight to the playoffs.
While the Tigers relied heavily on their ace, the Royals spawned a triple-headed monster at the top of their rotation. They had two of their starters finish top-five in Cy Young voting.
Even the White Sox, who were the laughing stock of the league, produced a top-10 pitcher in baseball by fWAR.
If you built a rotation for each division using just one pitcher from each team, in 2024 the AL Central may have had the best rotation in baseball. Some things have changed heading into 2025, but the teams in the AL Central are still going to rely heavily on their pitching.
5. Martin Perez, Chicago White Sox
2024 Stats: 26 GS, 135 IP, 5-6, 4.53 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 4.90 FIP, 7.13 K/9, 3.27 BB/9
Unfortunately for the White Sox, they are in rough shape when it comes to their Ace. After winning a league-worst 41 games in 2024, they swap their Cy Young candidate with an MLB journeyman who has a career 4.44 ERA.
While no one expects the White Sox the be competitive, the rotation is going to make them a hard watch. In his 13 seasons, Perez has just three seasons with an fWAR over 2. He has had an ERA under 4.00 just twice.
One interesting wrinkle in this, is that Perez is just considered the Ace for now. The White Sox have announced that they will be giving the ball to rookie Sean Burke on Opening Day. Burke is the White Sox 14th ranked prospect at Just Baseball. He could potentially take over as this teams Ace if he has a strong start to the season.
Burke has three pitches that perform average or better. His fastball and slider should both play above average with a decent curveball mixed in. However, there is some real concern with Burke. His command could get him into some trouble.
Over 64 innings in Triple-A last year he walked just over five players per nine innings pitched. So far in Spring Training he continues to walk over five per nine. The stuff is loud, he just needs to avoid self inflicted wounds and he will find success.
There are two other exciting arms that the White Sox have in the wings as well. Both Noah Shultz and Hagen Smith have a chance to make their debuts this season. They are ranked 22nd and 34th respectfully in the Just Baseball Top 100.
With all of that said, the White Sox undoubtably have the worst Ace in the division.
4. Tanner Bibee, Cleveland Guardians
2024 Stats: 31 GS, 173.2 IP, 12-8, 3.47 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 3.56 FIP, 9.69 K/9, 2.28 BB/9
This is where the competition really starts to heat up. While there appears to be a clear cut two, three, and four, this order could look quite different by the end of the season. For now, Tanner Bibee finds himself in the four spot.
Bibee has been outstanding over his first two major league seasons. In 315 innings he has a 3.25 ERA with 328 strikeouts. Among pitchers with over 300 innings in the last two seasons, he ranks seventh in ERA, 16th in WHIP, and 16th in K/9.
In 2025, the Guardians are going to rely heavily on Bibee. They have one of the weaker starting rotations in the American League while still boasting arguably the best bullpen in baseball. Luis Ortiz, Gavin Williams, and Triston McKenzie are all fine but if they want to compete for the division Bibee is going to have to step up as the Ace.
They say that pressure makes diamonds, and that could be the case here. Bibee has gotten better each year that he has been in the majors. He is also only 26 years old and likely still has room to get better. There is going to be a lot of pressure on him to perform at the top of this rotation and that could be just what he needs.
He has quickly become one of the better pitchers in baseball. The difference between him and the player that we have ranked ahead of him is the track record. However, if Bibee takes a leap this year, he could very well climb this list.
3. Pablo Lopez, Minnesota Twins
2024 Stats: 32 GS, 185.1 IP, 15-10, 4.08 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 3.65 FIP, 9.62 K/9, 1.99 BB/9
Pablo Lopez finds himself here thanks to his remarkable level of consistency. Over the last five seasons he has performed like one of the best pitchers in baseball. Even in a “down year” last season, he was able for finish with 3.2 fWAR.
Since 2020 among pitchers with over 600 innings, Lopez has competed with the best pitchers in baseball. In that time frame he ranks 18th in ERA, 12th in FIP, 10th in K/9, and 13th in fWAR. He has undoubtably been a top 20 pitcher in baseball over the last five seasons.
What this should really indicate is just how high the floor is. 2024 was the first time Lopez has had an ERA over 4.00 since 2019. Despite his 4.08 ERA last season, his FIP and xFIP indicate quite a bit of bad luck.
A large part of the problem for Lopez in 2024 was where he was locating pitches. It is not often that you say this about a pitcher but he was almost in the zone too much and it was hurting him. There were 58 qualified starters last season. Among them, Lopez ranked ninth in walks per nine innings pitched. He also ranked 41st in home runs allowed per nine innings pitched.
His walk rate was the lowest of his career but his home run rate was the highest of his career last season. That trade off just simply was not worth it for Lopez.
There is no reason for anyone to expect a repeat of 2024. He has the track record to show that he can get right back to 180 plus innings with a mid threes ERA.
2. Cole Ragans, Kansans City Royals
2024 Stats: 32 GS, 186.1 IP, 11-9, 3.14 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 2.99 FIP, 10.77 K/9, 3.24 BB/9
Cole Ragans is a bit of the opposite of Pablo Lopez. Whereas Lopez offers an incredibly high floor, Ragans has a ceiling that is best pitcher in baseball. Where Lopez has track record and consistency over multiple seasons, Ragans has only been an established major league starter for a season and a half now.
Despite only having 53 major league starts under his belt, Ragans has looked like one of the best pitchers in baseball over his last 44. He made nine starts for the Rangers in 2022 before they moved him to the bullpen in 2023. Following a trade to the Royals he has been starting full-time and never looked back.
In those 44 starts for the Royals, he has posted an ERA of exactly 3.00 while striking out almost 11 per nine. Since the 2023 All-Star break, Ragans ranks second in K/9, fourth in ERA, second in FIP, and third in fWAR.
His fastball and changeup combination is one of the best one-two punches in all of baseball. He also features a slider that was great in 2023 but not good in 2024. He lost a little bit of velocity as well as horizontal movement and that likely played a role.
Instead, in 2024 his curveball took a step forward. It was a bit slower than in 2023 but he added some vertical drop and as a result it played well last season. While his four-seam, cutter, and changeup are his bread and butter, one of his slider or curveball is bound to play up as well.
The only reason that Ragans is not the best pitcher in the division is because the best pitcher in baseball is in this division. The reality is however, that Ragans is not far behind and could challenge for that spot this season.
1. Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers
2024 Stats: 31 GS, 192 IP, 18-4, 2.39 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 2.49 FIP, 10.69 K/9, 1.64 BB/9
Finally, the best pitcher in baseball resides in the AL Central and he plays for the Detroit Tigers. Tarik Skubal is coming off of an absolutely dominant 2024 season. He was the unanimous Cy Young for the American League collecting all 30 first place votes.
There were times last season where Skubal felt like a one man army. In 17 of his 31 starts, he left the game having allowed just one run or less. In 23 of his 31 starts he left the game having allowed just two runs or less.
The Tigers knew that in 75 % of his starts, the worst case scenario was being down two runs when he left the game. Every single time he was on the mound the Tigers could have the confidence that they were the better team regardless of who they were facing.
Everyone saw the run that the Tigers made to end the season. They were able to effectively come back from the dead and make a run in the playoffs. While AJ Hinch certainly deserves some credit for how he managed the team down the stretch. Skubal deserves some as well purely from a morale boost perspective.
Knowing that you have one of the best players in all of baseball on your team can do wonders for morale. Everyone on this Tigers team stepped up down the stretch, including Skubal. In his last eight starts of the season he pitched to a 1.85 ERA. The Tigers went 6-2 in those games.
Not only was Skubal the best pitcher in baseball last year, there was no more important player to any team in all of major league baseball. He led major league pitchers in win probability added (WPA) at 4.29. Only six position players finished the season with a higher WPA as well and they are playing almost every day compared to Skubal who gets the ball only every fifth day.
In 2025 expect Skubal to remain as the best Ace in this division. Yes, Ragans may challenge him but at the end of the day, I like Skubal to fend him off. We could very well see our first back to back Cy Young winner since Jacob deGrom did it in 2018-19.
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Growing up in Baltimore and Minneapolis/St. Paul, Harrison has been around baseball his whole life. He attended Northern State University as well as Oklahoma State University…