MLB playoff rotation tiers: Ranking October pitching options - ESPN

We're just about a week away from the start of the 2025 MLB playoffs, and that means this year's top contenders are lining up their rotations with hopes of making a deep October run.

With that in mind, we decided to rank the starting pitching options for the teams currently in the playoff field with an eye for how they will be used in the postseason.

These rankings are weighted based on how often a team is likely to use its pitchers in a seven-game series. That means the No. 1 and No. 2 starters get much more impact than the others since the playoffs are often about riding your best pitchers and then figuring out the rest as you go.

I ranked 14 teams in light of the Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds making late charges for playoff spots, so two of the teams listed below won't qualify for the postseason.

The candidates: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Shohei Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw, Emmet Sheehan

Remember when a bunch of people were already talking about Yamamoto being a bust when he lasted one inning in his first big league start and registered a 4.50 ERA through his first five starts last season? Since then, his ERA (and every ERA estimator) has been under 3.00, driven by above average strikeout, walk and ground ball rates. He is seventh in baseball in pitcher WAR this season and is in the mix for being named an ace and receiving Cy Young votes. He's a big reason the Dodgers are in the top spot.

To that point, Yamamoto has thrown 60 more innings than any other Dodgers starter this season, so the rest of the rotation isn't crystal clear — but there's a ton of talent. You'd have to think Glasnow and Snell would be in the top four with Kershaw as the likely fourth option and Ohtani and Sheehan