Best Pitchers By Half-Decade: 2000-2024

As a historian, I like to have a record of which players and teams excelled in a given time period. I'm making this available in case other people care about those records, too. Focusing on half-decades, I looked up the top five pitchers in FanGraphs' fWAR and RA9-WAR. For those of you who prefer bWAR, it's usually pretty close to RA9. I'll add some minimal commentary, but this isn't a deep dive where I went back and, like, broke down film of Roy Oswalt.

Previous articles:

Best Pitchers of 1900-24
Best Pitchers of 1925-49
Best Pitchers of 1950-74
Best Pitchers of 1975-99

2000-2004

Top 6 fWAR:

1. Randy Johnson, 40.1
2. Pedro Martinez, 34.6
3. Curt Schilling, 33.3
4. Mike Mussina, 27.0
t5. Javier Vazquez, 23.9
t5. Roger Clemens, 23.9

Three of these six players are Hall of Famers. Of the three who are not, everyone knows that Schilling and Clemens were great, and both would obviously be in Cooperstown absent their own atrocious decision-making. Javier Vázquez is one of the most underappreciated pitchers of all time. He was an All-Star only once, and he got Cy Young votes only once, finishing 4th in 2009. He never won more than 16 games in a season, and retired at 165-160. The only stats in which he ever led his league were shutouts (3 in '01) and hits allowed (243 in '02).

But Vázquez won double-digit games for 12 years in a row, and from 2001-10 and 2002-11, he led the majors in strikeouts. He ranked among the top five in his league in strikeouts 6 times, and his 2,536 career strikeouts rank 36th all-time. He wasn't the caliber of Johnson, Martinez, Schilling, Mussina, and Clemens, but he was a consistently good pitcher.

He was also a decent hitter, .204 / .237 / .241, who had over 100 sacrifice bunts, and once led the majors (20 SH in 2009).

Vázquez struck out more batters in his career than Bartolo Colón, Félix Hernández, Jon Lester, Andy Pettitte, Adam Wainwright, Roy Halladay, Johan Santana, Mark Buehrle, Roy Oswalt, Cliff Lee, or Tim Lincecum.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Pedro Martinez, 37.3
2. Randy Johnson, 37.2
3. Curt Schilling, 34.8
4. Tim Hudson, 28.9
5. Greg Maddux, 26.6

Hudson ranks higher than his Moneyball teammates Barry Zito (24.1) and Mark Mulder (20.3). Zito is 6th, followed by Mike Mussina, Bartolo Colon, Roger Clemens, and Javier Vazquez to round out the top ten.

Leaders

Innings: Liván Hernández, 1,171
Wins: Randy Johnson, 86-40
Strikeouts: Randy Johnson, 1,468

Best RHP: Pedro Martínez
Best LHP: Randy Johnson
Best Non-HOF: Curt Schilling

Randy Johnson has the most wins of the early '00s, but he is just barely ahead of Curt Schilling (85-40), Greg Maddux (84-48), Bartolo Colon (82-53), Roger Clemens (81-30), Tim Hudson (81-37), Mark Mulder (81-42), and Russ Ortiz (81-47). Pedro Martinez and Johnson are pretty easy calls as the premier right- and left-handed pitchers of this era, respectively. Schilling is next among righties, and I'd vote for Barry Zito (72-40, 3.41) among lefties, slightly ahead of his teammate Mulder.

Livan Hernandez, the 1997 World Series MVP, was an All-Star in 2004 and 2005. In this time frame, he went 68-67 with a 4.01 ERA, and led the majors in complete games, as well as hits allowed, runs allowed, and earned runs allowed.

2005-2009

Top 5 fWAR:

1. CC Sabathia, 28.2
2. Roy Halladay, 27.4
3. Johan Santana, 26.5
4. Roy Oswalt, 24.2
5. Javier Vazquez, 23.7

This is a transitionary period in the annals of pitching. The greatest pitchers of the '90s were still very good in the early '00s, with players like Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Mike Mussina still among the best in the majors. By the late '00s, none of them were still elite pitchers, and Pedro Martinez bowed out early, leaving a void that took a while to fill. Among these five, Sabathia and Halladay are in the Hall of Fame, and Santana might have a chance one day — though not via the BBWAA — but historically, there's a dip in this time period.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Johan Santana, 32.7
2. Roy Halladay, 32.6
3. CC Sabathia, 28.5
4. Roy Oswalt, 27.3
5. Dan Haren, 25.1

It is such a shame that Johan Santana went one-and-done on a stacked HOF ballot. He did not have a long career, retiring with a career record of 139-78. That's fewer wins than Sandy Koufax (165-87) or Dizzy Dean (150-83). It's fewer than Dennis Eckersley (197-171) or Hoyt Wilhelm (143-122), fewer than Dwight Gooden (194-112) or Bret Saberhagen (167-117), fewer than Félix Hernández (169-136) or Roy Oswalt (163-102).

But Santana has a better winning percentage (.641) than any of them except Koufax and Dean, and he had a remarkable peak. Santana led the majors in ERA twice, also leading his league in innings pitched both years. He led the AL in strikeouts and WHIP three years in a row (2004-06), winning two Cy Young Awards and finishing 3rd the other year. His Cy Young finishes were 1st, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th. Joe Posnanski once pointed out that Santana "posted a 156 ERA+ over his six dominant seasons. By comparison, that's precisely the same ERA+ Sandy Koufax posted over his six dominant seasons."

If Santana had stuck around on the HOF ballot, I think the writers would have inducted him, 139 wins or not, but the irresponsibility and malice of the voting body in the 2010s filled the ballot with too many worthy names, and doomed Santana to hope that the Contemporary Baseball Era committee will consider him in the future.

Leaders

Innings: CC Sabathia, 1,113 1/3
Wins: CC Sabathia, 82-46
Strikeouts: Johan Santana, 1,070

Best RHP: Roy Halladay
Best LHP: Johan Santana
Best Non-HOF: Johan Santana

I'm going to retire the "Best Non-HOF" category after this, because most of the best players from 2010 on have yet to appear on the ballot. Most fans assume that Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander will be elected, probably without much fuss. Beyond that, it's hard to say. Pitcher usage has changed significantly over the decades, and has changed rapidly in the past 20 years or so. Sportswriters have been suggesting for nearly a hundred years that 300-game winners would go extinct, but that finally seems to be true. Verlander is at 266, while Greinke, Kershaw, and Scherzer are all in the 220s. It's hard to make confident HOF predictions about Felix Hernandez or Cole Hamels, never mind Gerrit Cole or Tarik Skubal or whoever.

Santana is a close call over Sabathia as best southpaw of the late '00s. I don't think anyone is particularly close to displacing Halladay as the top right-handed pitcher.

2010-2014

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Clayton Kershaw, 33.1
2. Felix Hernandez, 30.3
3. Justin Verlander, 28.1
4. Cliff Lee, 26.1
5. David Price, 23.0

We're getting close to the present now. Kershaw and Verlander each made more than 20 starts in 2025.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Clayton Kershaw, 36.8
2. Felix Hernandez, 30.2
3. Cole Hamels, 27.1
4. Justin Verlander, 26.7
5. Jered Weaver, 25.3

Let's address a pair of players I thought might make the leaderboards in this era.

Roy Halladay was the best pitcher in baseball in 2010 and 2011, but he was ineffective in partial seasons the next two years, and he was retired in 2014, so he misses the top five in this time period. Halladay won the NL Cy Young in 2010 and was second to Kershaw in 2011.

Zack Greinke is 8th in fWAR and tied (with Halladay) for 19th in RA9-WAR. His best seasons were 2009 and 2015, both of which fall one year outside of this time period. Greinke was an All-Star in 2014, and he received NL Cy Young votes in '13 and '14, though he placed 8th and 7th, respectively. '09 was Greinke's only Cy.

Leaders

Innings: Félix Hernández, 1,155 2/3
Wins: Justin Verlander, 87-46
Strikeouts: Clayton Kershaw, 1,160

Best RHP: Félix Hernández
Best LHP: Clayton Kershaw

Clayton Kershaw was obviously the best left-handed pitcher of the early 2010s, but Cliff Lee, David Price, and Cole Hamels are southpaws, as well. Over these five seasons, Kershaw led all lefties in wins, innings, complete games, shutouts, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP, as well as several minor stats. He was the NL Cy Young winner in 2011, 2013, and 2014. Roy Halladay (2010) and R.A. Dickey (2012) were the other winners.

The American League had five different Cy Young winners during this time period: Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, David Price, Max Scherzer, and Corey Kluber. Scherzer ranks 7th in fWAR (22.4) and 9th in RA9-WAR (21.3) from 2010-14.

2015-2019

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Max Scherzer, 32.5
2. Chris Sale, 28.3
3. Jacob deGrom, 27.9
4. Clayton Kershaw, 26.2
5. Justin Verlander, 25.7

Here's some weird trivia: deGrom, the NL Cy Young winner in 2018 and '19, is the only one among this quintet not to win a Cy Young Award outside of this time frame. Scherzer won in 2013, Sale in 2024, Kershaw in 2011, 2013, and 2014, and Verlander in 2011 and 2022.

Kershaw and Sale did not win the Cy from 2015-19, though Kershaw was in the top 5 three times (2015-17) and Sale four times (2015-18). Both were All-Stars in four of the five years.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Max Scherzer, 34.8
2. Justin Verlander, 31.6
3. Clayton Kershaw, 30.4
4. Jacob deGrom, 29.3
5. Zack Greinke, 28.7

Scherzer has a lot of black ink over these five seasons. He led the NL in wins twice, innings twice, and WHIP, strikeouts, and K/BB three times each, as well as some minor stats. Over the full five years, he leads in IP and SO, but Greinke has the most wins, and Kershaw leads in WHIP and K/BB.

Leaders

Innings: Max Scherzer, 1,050 2/3
Wins: Zack Greinke, 82-33
Strikeouts: Max Scherzer, 1,371

Best RHP: Max Scherzer
Best LHP: Clayton Kershaw

Scherzer is an easy call as the top righty of the late '10s. Compared to Verlander, he has more innings, more complete games, more shutouts, more wins, fewer losses, a lower ERA, a lower WHIP, more K/9, and fewer BB/9.

There's an argument for Sale over Kershaw among lefties, but I don't think it's a strong case. Kershaw's ERA is almost a full run lower, and he has more wins and fewer losses than Sale. Sale's argument is based on FIP and on pitching 59 more innings.

Greinke is the first wins leader in this project without a 20-win season. In these seasons, he went 19-3, 13-7, 17-7, 15-11, and 18-5. It doesn't affect the pitching record, but he also won a Silver Slugger and all five Gold Gloves.

2020-2024

Top 5 fWAR:

1. Zack Wheeler, 24.6
2. Corbin Burnes, 21.7
3. Kevin Gausman, 20.2
4. Aaron Nola, 19.6
5. Logan Webb, 18.4

Have the Phillies squandered the best years of Wheeler and Nola? Over these five years, those two pitchers were 110-76 (.591), while the club was 272-250 (.521) in its other games. The Phillies lost the 2022 World Series in six games, the 2023 NLCS in seven, and lost in the NLDS in 2024 and '25.

Corbin Burnes (2021 AL) is the only Cy Young winner in this group.

Top 5 RA9-WAR:

1. Zack Wheeler, 25.3
2. Corbin Burnes, 23.2
3. Max Fried, 20.2
4. Framber Valdez, 19.8
5. Gerrit Cole, 19.5

Beyond his win in 2021, Burnes got Cy Young votes in all five seasons of this cycle, also making four All-Star Games (2021-24). I'll write more about Wheeler below.

Leaders

Innings: Aaron Nola, 850
Wins: Framber Valdez, 60-33
Strikeouts: Aaron Nola, 953

Best RHP: Zack Wheeler
Best LHP: Max Fried

From 2015-19, Zack Greinke led the major leagues in wins, going 82-33. Five years later, Framber Valdez had the same number of losses, but led the majors in wins at 60-33. There have been innumerable commentaries on the decline of starting pitching — the quantity, moreso than the quality — related to injuries and the ballooning usage of fireballing relievers, and the COVID pandemic certainly didn't help. Nola is the first five-year innings leader in this project with fewer than 1,000, and he's got, like, way fewer than 1,000.

Wheeler is a straightforward pick as the greatest right-handed pitcher of the early '20s. He's 2nd in innings, 2nd in wins, and he, Burnes, and Fried are the only full-time starters (500+ IP) with sub-3.00 ERAs. Wheeler had a sub-3.00 ERA in four of these five seasons. He was the NL's Cy Young runner-up in both 2021 and 2024.

2000-24

Who were MLB's greatest pitchers over the first quarter of the 21st century?

Top 10 fWAR:

1. Justin Verlander, 82.1
2. Clayton Kershaw, 76.5
3. Max Scherzer, 73.1
4. Zack Greinke, 66.6
5. CC Sabathia, 66.5
6. Roy Halladay, 64.5
t7. Félix Hernández, 54.0
t7. Chris Sale, 54.0
9. Randy Johnson, 52.9
10. Roy Oswalt, 52.6

Top 10 RA9-WAR:

1. Clayton Kershaw, 87.3
2. Justin Verlander, 87.0
3. Max Scherzer, 75.7
4. Zack Greinke, 74.0
5. CC Sabathia, 67.3
6. Roy Halladay, 67.3
7. Cole Hamels, 61.8
8. Tim Hudson, 60.3
9. Mark Buehrle, 59.9
10. Félix Hernández, 55.4

The same six players comprise the top of both lists, and by fairly large margins over seventh place. They're even in the same order apart from Kershaw and Verlander flipping. I think it would be very difficult to mount a compelling argument that these are not the six best pitchers of the century so far. King Felix, the only other pitcher to make the top 10 in both iterations of WAR, probably has the best argument.

I thought Johan Santana might make one or both lists, but he's 19th in fWAR (45.6) and 12th in RA9-WAR (54.6). Chris Sale has the highest K/9 (11.1) and K/BB (5.31) of this era, but with fewer than 2,000 innings pitched.

Tim Hudson has the biggest fWAR vs. RA9-WAR differential, 45.2 to 60.3. That's over 3,000 innings, far too many for random chance, and suggests the combination of a repeatable skill and a great defense behind him.

Hudson's RA9-WAR is 33% higher than his fWAR, Zito's is 24% higher, and Mulder's is 16% higher. Those are huge, Jim Palmer-esque differences*. All three show the same pattern: RA9-WAR > bWAR > fWAR, which is consistent with having great fielders behind you. This runs contrary to the Moneyball narrative, teaching Scott Hatteberg to play first base on the fly and putting Jeremy Giambi in the field because he'll take a walk and all of that, but what we see is that all of Oakland's aces significantly outperformed their peripherals. It's settled: the early 2000s A's had a magnificent defense.

However, Hudson played for the Athletics from 1999-2004, and in those six seasons he amassed 27.5 fWAR and 32.8 RA9-WAR. He actually had a bigger differential with the Braves from 2005-13: 19.7 fWAR and 29.6 RA9-WAR. His craziest season is 2010. Hudson went 17-9 with a 2.83 ERA and finished 4th in NL Cy Young voting, but with an underwhelming 1.88 K/BB ratio. He allowed a BABIP of just .249 and stranded 81% of all baserunners. FanGraphs credits him with 4.7 wins from BABIP and sequencing that season.

So, Zito and Mulder, notwithstanding, I don't think Hudson's remarkable FIP-RA differential is about the fielders behind him. It's the sinkerball. Hudson generated a lot of ground balls and a lot of weak contact, so that balls in play against him just weren't as dangerous as they are for most pitchers. One of the fascinating things about baseball is the myriad of different ways in which players can succeed.

* No, they aren't. Palmer (56.6 fWAR, 91.6 RA9-WAR) is a unicorn.

Leaders

Innings: CC Sabathia, 3,577 1/3
Wins: Justin Verlander, 262-147
Strikeouts: Justin Verlander, 3,416

Greatest RHP: Justin Verlander
Greatest LHP: Clayton Kershaw

With all due respect to CC Sabathia, no one needs to be convinced that Clayton Kershaw is the greatest left-handed pitcher of the 2000s so far. Kershaw had a Koufaxian peak, but he has more wins and a better winning percentage, even if he doesn't match Sandy's postseason heroics. Kershaw went 212-94 during this time period, with over 2,700 innings pitched, and his ERA during these years was 2.50. No one else with 100 wins has an ERA under 3.00, and no one else with at least half as many IP does. Jacob deGrom (84-57, 1,367 IP), Pedro Martinez (3.01 ERA), and Chris Sale (3.04 ERA) are the closest.

There are some people who might argue for Scherzer or Greinke over Verlander as the top RHP, though I'm sure they'd acknowledge that it's close.

Scherzer has a lower ERA than Verlander, with more K/9 and fewer BB/9. Verlander is ahead in WAR because he pitched almost 20% more innings. I'm going with Verlander, but it's not a slam dunk.

Greinke is the best fielder and best hitter among the trio, but to me, he's the third-best righty of the last quarter-century. We all know pitching is evolving, and starters' workloads and pitching patterns have changed a lot since 2000, but it's encouraging that we still have playerss like Greinke, Kershaw, Scherzer, and Verlander, all of whom are clearly all-time greats, and would have been in any era.

Want to see all of the five-year leaders in one place? Best MLB Pitchers By Half-Decade: Conclusion.

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