Which Team in the AL East Has the Best Ace for 2025?
The AL East is home to some of the best starting pitchers in MLB. Of all these talented names, who holds the best ace for the 2025 season?
The AL East has been one of Major League Baseball’s more successful and tightly competitive divisions in recent history.
All five ballclubs within it have made a postseason appearance in the past five seasons, four of which have made multiple, and it features two of the last five AL pennant winners.
Such success comes at the hands of great players, especially within the respective starting rotations, as some of the leagues deepest staffs reside in the AL East.
Leading these rotations in 2025 are a group of five aces who vary from high potential future stars; to crafty veterans; to Cy Young-caliber arms.
So, as Opening Day continues to rapidly approach, let’s dive into ranking the aces of the AL East to determine who holds the divisions’ best ace for the upcoming campaign.
5. Grayson Rodriguez, Baltimore Orioles
2024 Stats: 20 GS, 116.2 IP, 13-4, 3.86 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 3.66 FIP, 10.03 K/9, 2.78 BB/9
It’s easy to look at Baltimore’s rotation and feel underwhelmed, especially in the immediate aftermath of losing a former Cy Young award winner and consensus Top 10 pitcher in MLB in Corbin Burnes.
However, as much as their rotation may be full of somewhat middle-to-low-end-rotation arms at the moment, especially with Kyle Bradish still on the shelf, we can’t discount the fact that they have one arm in particular that possesses ace-upside in Grayson Rodriguez.
Despite a few trips to the IL in 2024, he took strides to improve upon a less than stellar rookie campaign in 2023, where he didn’t necessarily live up to the top-tier prospect status with a mid-4.00s ERA.
In 116.2 innings across 20 starts last season though, the 25-year-old righty threw to a respectable 3.86 ERA, 3.66 FIP and 1.24 WHIP with 10.03 K/9.
His swing-and-miss capabilities continued to trend upwards, as his K-rate, whiff rate and chase rate all ranked above the 70th percentile.
His fastball has the right characteristics to thrive, with a just a .241 xBA and an 81st percentile AVG velocity. He pairs that with a changeup that caused hitters fits last season, as they were held to just a .161 BAA and .306 SLG against it.
There are other names to consider in this rotation. When healthy Bradish has is capable of sub-3.00 ERA performances and could make a real impact in the top-half of this rotation, should he be able to make his return to the mound in 2025.
Then there’s Zach Eflin, who’s coming off another impressive mid-3.00s ERA campaign, where he tossed to a 2.60 ERA and 1.12 WHIP with O’s after being dealt to them at last summer’s deadline.
The main hurdle Rodriguez will need to jump to truly embrace his ace status is avoiding injury, which to this point he’s already found himself behind the 8-ball on, as manager Brandon Hyde has ruled him out for Opening Day with an elbow injury, as per Jake Rill of MLB.com.
However, if Rodriguez can return healthy, continue to develop his heater, as well as bring his curveball and slider closer to how his main secondary offering in the changeup is performing, then there’s a real chance he can be better than any other name in this staff and take this rotation by storm as the ace in 2025 as a potential All-Star-caliber arm.
While Rodriguez may have the upside to challenge for a higher spot on future renditions of this list, it’s safe to say that there’s a lot still to be proven before he narrows the gap between him and the more proven arms on the other four teams.
4. Kevin Gausman, Toronto Blue Jays
2024 Stats: 31 GS, 181.0 IP, 14-11, 3.83 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 3.77 FIP, 8.06 K/9, 2.78 BB/9
Speaking of All-Star-caliber arms, Gausman will look to return to the 5.0+ fWAR pitcher he was in both 2022 and 2023, after a less than ideal 2024 campaign.
Last season the 34-year-old right-hander went from a low-3.00s ERA, high-2.00s FIP and 5.1 fWAR arm in 2023, to a high-3.00s arm in both ERA and FIP with an accompanying 2.9 fWAR. He also saw a drop below 10.00 K/9 (8.06) for the first time since 2018.
There’s a lot of reasons why one season can’t completely put us off from viewing Gausman as the Blue Jays’ ace though. He’s still only a year removed from an AL Cy Young finalist finish, five straight seasons above 10.00 K/9, and three consecutive years with an ERA no higher than 3.35.
While we can’t take him out of the ace category after one bad season, we can be a bit concerned on the fact he’s entering his mid-30s off his worst year since 2018. That age and performance combination is what keeps him lower than the three names ahead of him in these rankings, despite knowing what he’s capable of at his peak.
Should 2025 be another down year for Gausman, José Berríos on the back of another mid-3.00s ERA year could be a top-end name to watch.
And after the remarkable final stretch to 2024 that Bowden Francis had, with a 1.05 ERA and 41 WHIP in August and a 2.16 ERA and 0.72 WHIP in September, if he can find a way to build on that momentum right off the hop in 2025, he makes a strong case to be considered the ace in Toronto in the future.
For now though, Gausman has to be given the benefit of the doubt after just one down year with a Blue Jays squad that, as a whole, didn’t live up to expectations. Still, it’s definitely enough to rank him in the lower half of this list.
3. Shane McClanahan, Tampa Bay Rays
2024 Stats: DID NOT PITCH
McClanahan is such a intriguing name heading into 2025, as with the losses of Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow in recent years, he’s clearly the go-to guy in Tampa Bay, even coming off a missed year in ’24 due to Tommy John.
While this Rays staff is full of other young names with immense potential like Taj Bradley, Ryan Pepiot and Shane Baz, McClanahan has proven he’s on another level when fully healthy.
The 27-year-old southpaw has never thrown to an ERA higher than 3.43. He also holds a fastball that sits in the mid-to-upper 90s with a couple of electrifying secondary offerings in a changeup and curveball that both held hitters under .200 in his last full season of work.
Then there’s the fact he’s a master at inducing whiffs, with 92nd percentile rates or better in his last two seasons.
Just looking at McClanahan at the peak of his powers in 2022, there’s not may arms that can say they’ve thrown to a 2.54 ERA, 3.00 FIP, 0.93 WHIP, .222 BAA and 10.50 K/9 in a signle season.
The obvious elephant in the room with McClanahan is the fact he’ll be coming off a missed 2024 with a 150.0 inning limit in 2025, according to President of Baseball Operations Erik Neander.
However, if he manages to meet his innings quota in 2025, it’s very easy to see a rebound back into one of the league’s best arms, hence why he still managed to crack our Top 25 Starting Pitcher rankings this season.
Considering he falls third on this list speaks wonders to how strong the top two names on this list are.
2. Max Fried, New York Yankees
2024 Stats: 29 GS, 174.1 IP, 11-10, 3.25 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 3.33 FIP, 8.57 K/9, 2.94 BB/9
At the start of spring training we were having a different conversation when it came to identifying the ace of the New York Yankees.
However, now that Gerrit Cole has undergone season-ending Tommy John surgery, the ace title has shifted to the new guy in town in Fried.
While he may not be Cole, that doesn’t diminish how good an arm Fried has been in recent seasons.
He’s the ideal blend of results and durability.
Since he became a full-time major league starting option in 2019, he’s managed to make at least 28 starts and throw 165.0+ innings four times in that six-year span. And one of those seasons outside of that threshold was the 2020 COVID-shortened season where he still managed 56.0 innings over 11 starts.
On the results side, Fried has thrown to an ERA no higher than 3.25 in the past five seasons, giving him an overall five-season ERA of 2.81, which places him third amongst qualified starters in that span, only trailing Brandon Woodruff and Clayton Kershaw.
Carlos Rodon is another name to take note of in the upper half of this rotation in Cole’s absence, however his hit-or-miss tendencies year-over-year as well as a spotty injury record makes him more of a solid top-end complimentary piece and less an ace.
For someone to be as reliable with the numbers Fried has is a major testament to just how dominant the top name on this list is.
1. Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox
2024 Stats: 32 GS, 146.0 IP, 6-12, 3.58 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 2.69 FIP, 12.88 K/9, 2.03 BB/9
On the surface, Crochet’s numbers can be deceiving, as a 6-12 record at a mid-3.00s ERA likely isn’t the first thing that comes to mind if you were think of an ace.
When you take into account that he was throwing for the 41-121 White Sox and then dive deeper into the more underlying metrics, it becomes clear that this is as good a pitcher as MLB has to offer.
While his ERA may’ve been a little more inflated than other names that top their respective divisions’ in ace conversations, when you isolate just his pitching performance by looking at his FIP, a 2.69 FIP tells an entirely different story. This mark placed him third in all of baseball amongst starting arms with at least 140.0 innings pitched, trailing only the two Cy Young award winners of 2024 in Tarik Skubal and Chris Sale.
Then when you pair that with a Top 10 finish in WHIP (T-10 at 1.07), a Top 15 finish in BAA (T-15th at .221) and league best 12.88 K/9, then suddenly we’re talking about a Cy Young-caliber arm.
While Boston has done a good job surrounding their newfound ace with names capable of being top-end arms in recent years such as existing ones like Tanner Houck, as well as other new faces such as Walker Buehler, they aren’t at the same level Crochet is at currently.
He’s simply on a different level than most big league starters.
Now that he has no innings limitations, a better lineup capable of more than adequate run-support, a better defense behind him and frankly a better overall atmosphere in Boston, the sky is the limit for Crochet as he enters his prime years.
Written by