With baseball season quickly approaching, I decided to take a look at all the pitching rotations in the MLB and ultimately create a top-5 list. Before I get that far, I’m going to rank each rotation by their division. First up on the list, the NL West. Let’s get started:

5. San Francisco Giants

Projected Rotation

Johnny Cueto

Jeff Samardzija

Kevin Gausman

Drew Smyly

Logan Webb

It’s going to be a long year for the San Francisco Giants. Pretty much the entire roster is eligible for the AARP. And prepare for their rotation to get rocked all year long. Their anchor, Madison Bumgarner, left for the desert this offseason, leaving Johnny Cueto as their new #1. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Samardzija can be solid at times, but is getting old, and Gausman had a rough year last year in Atlanta. San Francisco residents are already looking forward to football season.

4. San Diego Padres

Projected Rotation

Chris Paddack

Dinelson Lamet

Garrett Richards

Zach Davies

Joey Lucchesi

The Padres have a lot of young talent across their roster, so it’s a shame they can’t feature a better rotation to go along with it. Chris Paddack is the man and really showed his sky-high potential last season. He will be a big name for long time. But after him it gets questionable. Lamet and Davies are nothing to brag about, Richards used to be pretty solid, but hasn’t pitched more than 77 innings since 2015, and Lucchesi I feel like is a wild card. After Paddack, I wouldn’t expect too much from this rotation and it’s a shame for a team that has a very talented roster.

3. Colorado Rockies

Projected Rotation

German Marquez

Jon Gray

Kyle Freeland

Antonio Senzatela

Jeff Hoffman

Fans can expect this Rockies rotation to be another Rockies rotation. They will have some impressive games and they will have some games where they will get shellshocked, and overall their numbers will be average. I give them the benefit of the doubt, however, pitching at Coors for 80+ games, but it’s still hard to trust any of them consistently. They have talent, no doubt, but their offense will still need to score plenty of runs to win. Which, as always, they will do. It’s just too bad the Rockies can never entice premier starting pitching to come to Denver.

2. Arizona Diamondbacks

Projected Rotation

Madison Bumgarner

Robbie Ray

Mike Leake

Luke Weaver

Merrill Kelly

I was shocked to see Bumgarner decide to play in Arizona, but I’m eager to see how well he does with his change of scenery. We all know how good he is and what he is capable of, though. He is a legit frontline starter. Robbie Ray has excellent stuff and can make a LOT of hitters miss, but he has a tendency to let his ERA inflate. Leake has been around a while and you pretty much know what you’re going to get out of him at this point. He’ll keep you in a lot of games and eat innings. And Luke Weaver has potential to be a real solid starter. He had a good year last year until he got hurt, so I’m ready to see what the Diamondbacks get out of his this year.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

Projected Rotation

Walker Buehler

Clayton Kershaw

David Price

Julio Urias

Alex Wood

And of course #1 is the Dodgers. How can it not be? Walker Buehler has Cy Young talent and there’s a decent chance he wins the award this year. Clayton Kershaw could be 50 years old and he will still be the man. So, that’s a great 1-2 punch right there. I’m really interested to see what David Price does this year. We all know his capabilities, but he’s coming off a less-than-stellar year with the Red Sox. Does a change of scenery help him get back on track? The young gun Urias has star potential and Alex Wood is coming back to the team he wants to be on and where he had some very good years after having a year to forget in Cincy last season. The Dodgers roll out the best lineup and rotation in the NL West, which is why they’ll win the division yet again.

Garett

Ranking the Pitching Rotations in the NL West