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Top 10 Pitchers and Hitters RIGHT NOW
We’re wrapping up our Top 10 battle vs. MLB Network and getting ready for the baseball season with a 70% off sale! Also, some important talk about Tarik Skubal.
Joe Posnanski
February 24, 2025
OK, we’re wrapping up our Top 10s today. We’re going to veer a bit away from MLB Network because they chose their Top 10 starters and relievers but did not choose the Top 10 designated hitters. I see absolutely no value in trying to predict who the top relievers in baseball are since they change every year. And I don’t see how in today’s game you can do Top 10 lists without including designated hitters since, I don’t know, like maybe the BEST PLAYER IN THE GAME is a designated hitter.
Here are links to all the other positions
And away we go! Let me begin by saying that starting next week, we’ll be doing our month-long baseball preview, which I am very excited about. I’m always excited about getting the baseball season rolling, but this year, I’ve got some especially fun ideas. For one, I’m using the survey thousands of you took* so that YOU will actually be making the predictions. I think you will get a real kick out of it.
Anyway, to celebrate the start of baseball, I’m offering a limited-time sale — 70% off the regular price for the first month! Just click on the upgrade button below and then click under “Monthly” in the JoeBlogs Premium box.
*There’s still time to take the survey, if you’d like to be a part of this. It’s just five questions — shouldn’t take you more than 30 seconds — and it’s kind of fun, I think. All you have to do is click here.
You rarely hear people complain about the designated hitter these days. Oh, sure, there are still purists out there (a lot of them in St. Louis, I have found) who long for those halcyon days when pitchers bunted runners over and occasionally socked a surprising hit that made everybody smile. So many of the rhythms and twists of baseball revolved around the pitcher’s spot and when it was up next.
But this will mark the fourth season with the universal DH, and DH complaining is probably at a 50-year low. You can understand it: With batting averages and balls in play going down while strikeouts and the number of relief pitchers go up, it sure seems like the LAST thing baseball needs right now is pitchers hitting.
But I was talking to somebody in the game I respect the other day who thinks that pitchers hitting again is EXACTLY what baseball needs. I’m not saying that I agree with him — in fact, I will tell you that my instincts are to utterly disagree with him — but I find his reasoning interesting. Here’s what he believes …
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