Which Team in the NL East Has the Best Ace for 2025?

Last year, the NL East was well-represented come October, as three of the six playoff teams in the National League came from within this division. The Philadelphia Phillies finished atop the division, thanks in large part to one of the best rotations in baseball.

The Atlanta Braves dealt with a ton of injuries throughout their starting lineup, but a rotation headlined by the NL Cy Young winner was enough to keep them afloat enough to narrowly clinch a playoff berth.

Meanwhile, the New York Mets survived the loss of their ace due to injury, only to get surprise production up and down their rotation that helped propel them into the playoffs, and on a deep run to Game 6 of the NLCS.

What all three of these teams showed us last year, is that the only way to make the playoffs is through having a solid starting rotation. And as we all know, every great rotation starts with an ace.

As we begin to preview the 2025 season, let’s take a look into each team in the NL East and determine who is their ace on Opening Day, and how they rank amongst their peers in this division.

5. MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals

2024 Stats: 32 GS, 166.1 IP, 10-12, 3.90 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 3.53 FIP, 9.79 K/9, 3.52 BB/9

We can file this time under the category of still trying to find out exactly who their ace is.

Last year, Jake Irvin led the Nationals in innings pitch by a fairly wide margin, making 33 starts and racking up 187 2/3 innings pitched. While Irvin was the primary workhorse, MacKenzie Gore was a bit more effective, pitching to a 3.90 ERA across 166 1/3 innings pitched.

Gore is a bit of an enigma for the Nationals, as it is hard to complain about the production he gave them last season. And yet, there is still room for so much more.

MacKenzie Gore over his last 3 starts:

19 IP
0.47 ERA
0.63 WHIP
23 Kpic.twitter.com/gqf2dcsay3

— Kirk Snyder (@dynastyinfo411) September 29, 2024

Before we talk about the stats, let’s talk about the arm.

We are talking about a 6’2″ southpaw, who throws absolute fuzz. He gets seven feet of extension toward home plate, and last year, Gore averaged 96 MPH on his heater.

Gore pairs his fastball with two breaking balls that got whiffs about a third of the time, giving him a devastating mix to make life difficult on lefties. Gore has a fourth pitch with his change-up, which he threw exclusively to righties last year, picking up whiffs over half the time.

Across his first 75 big league appearances, Gore has been remarkably consistent in terms of getting strikeouts and has seen his walk rate decline each season. After dealing with a bit of a home run problem in 2023 (1.78 HR/9), Gore got things under control in 2024 (0.81), and turned in his first full season with an ERA under 4.00.

Gore just turned 26 years old, and has progressed very well for a young starting pitcher in the big leagues. With that said, there might be another gear that Gore can get to, which would give the Nationals a bona fide ace they can go to war with as they try to open up a window to contend.

Long-term Gore might just be a really dependable No. 3 starter, and that would be a great outcome for both him in the Nationals. Right now though, he is the best this team has to offer so they are going to need to see him step up to truly be considered an ace to build around in the future.

4. Kodai Senga, New York Mets

2023 Stats: 29 GS, 166.1 IP, 12-7, 2.98 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 3.35 FIP, 10.93 K/9, 4.17 BB/9

Last year, the Mets were without Kodai Senga for all but one start in the regular season.

Senga was scratched from the rotation in spring training when he suffered a shoulder strain. The injury kept him out until July 26th, when Senga triumphantly took the mound in a division battle against the Atlanta Braves.

Less than a week before the deadline, a Mets team vying for the playoffs watched Senga strike out nine Braves across five innings before returning to the mound to pitch the sixth. Senga recorded one out in that sixth inning, a pop-up, which he hurt his calf trying to get out of the way of.

Senga would miss the rest of the season, and the Mets rode newfound ace Sean Manaea to a playoff berth and to Game 6 of the NLCS. The Mets rewarded Manaea with a three-year, $75 million contract this offseason, hoping to finally pair him with Senga atop the rotation.

Had both been healthy, going into 2025, it may have been a toss-up deciding who the Mets ace would be. Instead, it is now Manaea who is set to start the season in the IL, as the left-hander has a strained oblique.

With Manaea out, the Mets ace title falls on Senga’s shoulders to start the season.

Senga is (knock on wood) healthy so far this spring, and will look to pick up where he left off in 2023 when he was an All-Star and finished second place in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. There is no doubting the frontline stuff with Senga when he’s right, we just haven’t seen him “right” for much more than a single night in July across the past calendar year.

If Senga is not able to stay on the mound, Clay Holmes is a bit of a wild-card worth mentioning.

Holmes has posted gaudy numbers this spring and is looking well-prepared to make a smooth transition from great reliever into above-average starting pitcher.

Asking Holmes to be the Mets ace is a tall order, but so was Manaea fitting into that role last season.

The first few months of the season, Holmes may fire out of the gates like a rocketship, similar to how we saw Reynaldo Lopez and Garrett Crochet in their transitions to starting last season. That production could taper off as the innings pile up, but if that serves as a bridge to Manaea returning off the injury list, that could be all the Mets need.

Still, when comparing the Mets to the other two teams atop this division, there is a clear gap between the best they have to offer in their starting rotation.

3. Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins

2023 Stats: 28 GS, 184.2 IP, 7-12, 4.14 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 4.03 FIP, 7.36 K/9, 2.34 BB/9

Before we get to two of the pre-season favorites to win the NL Cy Young, let’s talk about a former Cy Young who is a dark horse to return to his prior form this season.

Sandy Alcantara is coming off a lost season after missing all of the 2024 campaign rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Alcantara has been out so long, that many have forgotten that he gave the Marlins 184 2/3 innings back in 2023, playing a key role in them making the playoffs despite him being unable to contribute once there.

When looking at the numbers in 2023, Alcantara saw dips across the board, yet he still took the ball and was an absolute workhorse for the Marlins. In a lot of ways, Alcantara’s last few seasons have shown us both his ceiling and his floor.

In 2022, Alcantara pitched to a 2.28 ERA, leading the league with 228 2/3 innings pitched, finishing with an MLB-best 8.0 bWAR. Despite pitching for a 69-win team, Alcantara was unanimously named the NL Cy Young.

Whether Alcantara pitches to a 2.28 ERA or a 4.14 ERA, there is no doubt that countless teams around baseball will be calling the Marlins at the deadline if he proves to be healthy.

2. Chris Sale, Atlanta Braves

2024 Stats: 29 GS, 177.2 IP, 18-3, 2.38 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 2.09 FIP, 11.4 K/9, 1.98 BB/9

One year ago if you told a Braves fan that their team’s ace won the Cy Young, nobody would have been surprised that Spencer Strider took home his first award. Unfortunately for Braves, Strider went down after just two starts, which cleared the way for Chris Sale to win the award instead.

Sale not only won the Cy Young, but he also took home the pitcher’s Triple Crown, leading the NL with 18 wins, a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts. If those awards weren’t enough, Sale even took home his first Gold Glove award.

This year, Sale once again returns to headline this rotation, but Strider’s comeback from elbow surgery looms as well, giving the Braves a potential lights-out 1-2 punch.

Beyond Sale and Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach will look to build off a strong rookie season in 2024, and Reynaldo Lopez will once again take on a starter’s workload, coming off an All-Star season in that role last year.

The Braves have a plethora of starting pitchers who can shoulder frontline duties in 2025, and they will need every one of them after losing both Max Fried and Charlie Morton in free agency this winter.

Right now, Sale enters the season as the reigning Cy Young and the clear top dog in the Braves rotation. Still, he is not considered the best pitcher in the NL East, which speaks volumes of the final guy on our list.

1. Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies

2024 Stats: 32 GS, 200.0 IP, 16-7, 2.57 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 3.13 FIP, 10.08 K/9, 2.34 BB/9

How many pitchers in baseball are truly better than Zack Wheeler?

If you check out our ranking of the top 25 starting pitchers in baseball, you will see that for my money, no pitcher in baseball is better, but our panel ranked him at No. 2.

The one pitcher we ranked ahead of Wheeler won the Cy Young in the other league, while Wheeler finished seven slots ahead of Sale, who came in at No. 9.

The separation between Wheeler and Sale is not based on what we saw last season, but on what we have seen over the past few seasons. And over the past four seasons, few pitchers have been better in Major League Baseball than Wheeler.

Wheeler trails only his teammate Aaron Nola and Giants ace Logan Webb in innings pitched, while he bests both of them in ERA at 2.94. Wheeler numbers since 2021 are nearly identical to Corbin Burnes, who has also pitched to a 2.94 ERA, with over 750 innings pitched.

In 2021, Wheeler lost out to Burnes in the NL Cy Young even though they each took in 12 of the 30 first place votes. Max Scherzer took six votes away from those two, and the second-place votes decided it in favor of Burnes.

Now after his narrow defeat to Chris Sale last year, Wheeler has two Cy Young runner-ups on his resume. Maybe 2025 is finally the year that Wheeler stands alone to win his first Cy Young award. Or maybe it’s the year he can win a World Series MVP.

Wheeler has proven in both the regular season the playoffs that he is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Game for your life, how many pitchers are you handing the ball to before Wheeler?

The answer, is not many at all.