2. Tanner Bibee, Cleveland Guardians
Despite deploying a pretty banged up rotation for the majority of 2024, the Guardians found a lot of success on the mound on their way to an American League Central division crown. Tanner Bibee was the face of that rotation, logging both the most starts with 31 and innings with 173.2.
Last year was arguably Bibee's "breakout" season (depending on how you view the term), following an impressive rookie campaign in which he finished second in American League Rookie of the Year voting.
Bibee has been a very solid starting pitcher, but hasn't quite entered that upper-tier of American League starters such as Tarik Skubal, Gerrit Cole, or Logan Gilbert. Among the 30 qualified AL starters, Bibee hovered around the top-10 in multiple categories last year. He ranked 11th in ERA (3.47), 10th in FIP (3.56), 11th in WHIP (1.12), 7th in K-BB% (20.1), and 11th in fWAR (3.3). He's also one of just six pitchers in the AL with back to back 3.0 fWAR seasons.
Since his debut, Bibee has the lowest barrel% among AL starters at 6.6, and also ranks within the top 10 with a 37.5 hard-hit% and an 88.6 average EV. Along with Bibee, there are only two other qualified AL starters that can say they have a sub-league-average barrel%, hardhit%, and average EV, paired with an above-average K-BB% (Pablo Lopez and Hunter Brown).
Bibee has nearly an identical arsenal to Pepiot, but it's his cutter that is elite. His cutter was one of the more valuable pitches in all of baseball, yielding a BAA of .141 which ranked third among all pitch types, only behind Framber Valdez's curveball and Tanner Scott's fastball. Paired with a four-seam fastball, changeup, slider, and curveball, Bibee has the arsenal to dominate across a full season.
His 2024 performance was quite consistent with his rookie year, leaving any concerns about regression to the wayside. Bibee also just turned 26, so if anything, he's only going to get better.
He has a great combination of ability to strike out a lot of hitters while limiting a large amount of walks and inducing a lot of soft contact. If all of those skills can click at a high level in the same season, the ceiling for Bibee is a Cy Young-caliber campaign.