By Joe Giardina | Wed, 04/01/2015 - 21:39

Francisco Liriano is the Pirates’ Opening Day starter this year, but he is not an Ace. Gerrit Cole will start game 2 of 162, but, despite the expectations that surround the former first-overall pick, he is not an Ace, either.

Not yet, at least.

Finding a starter worthy of Ace status is no easy task these days. Even more rare is finding one who has established himself as such in less than two full seasons at the Major League level.

If polling people within baseball – from front office executives to the players on the field – on who the best pitcher in baseball is currently, the most common response would likely be Clayton Kershaw. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ southpaw has won three of the last four NL Cy Young Awards and has posted back-to-back seasons with a sub-2.00 ERA.

But spanning his first 41 career games, his Ace status wasn’t quite as clear. Through those initial 214.1 innings, Kershaw had a 3.61 ERA, a 1.36 WHIP and a 4.7 BB/9, while never going more than 7 innings in any start. He certainly wasn’t a bust—in fact, his performance was pretty good, especially his 8.6 K/9—but it was nowhere near worthy of his current title of Best Pitcher On The Planet.

Since then? In addition to his aforementioned hardware, Kershaw has thrown 1,164 innings with a 2.27 ERA while striking out more than a batter per inning (9.6 K/9) and nearly cutting his walk rate in half (2.4 BB/9). All this while holding batters to a .205/.262/.300 slash line.

Why the arbitrary endpoint of his first 41 appearances? Because entering the 2015 season, that’s the precise amount of games that the Pirates Ace-in-Waiting Cole has on his major league resume. Spanning his career total of 255.1 innings, Cole has a 3.45 ERA, a 1.19 WHIP and a 2.4 BB/9. And while being painted as a hard-thrower who doesn’t miss enough bats, he’s compiled 238 strikeouts for an 8.4 K/9.

The often-overlooked fact is that becoming an Ace isn’t an overnight transition. It’s not something that is established in the lower levels and then polished once a pitcher reaches the Major Leagues. In reality, it takes more time. Pitchers have to learn how to set batters up, work around fatigue, and, quite simply, face the best hitters in the world – something that can’t be taught or experienced in the lower levels.

For every Steven Strasburg (2.76 ERA; 1.07 WHIP; 11.3 K/9; 2.4 BB/9 in first 41 appearances), there are dozens of starters that develop into legitimate Aces, but for whom it takes a while to put it all together. Note the early work of Cliff Lee (4.97 ERA; 1.46 WHIP; 4.3 BB/9 through his first 41 appearances), or CC Sabathia (4.78 ERA; 1.40 WHIP; 4.6 BB/9 through his first 41 appearances).

Few can argue that just a few years ago, Justin Verlander was arguably one of the best, if not The Best Pitcher On The Planet, before age and workload caught up with him. Yet in his first 41 career appearances, while throwing only one fewer inning than Cole, he had a higher ERA (3.57 to 3.45), gave up 8 more homeruns, walked 14 more batters, and had an astonishing 68 fewer strikeouts.

If Verlander isn’t your Ace of choice, what about Felix Hernandez? King Felix posted a 4.03 ERA with a 1.26 WHIP in his first 41 starts.

John Lester? A 4.25 ERA with a 4.4 BB/9 and a 1.50 WHIP.

Max Scherzer? 3.92 ERA, 1.34 WHIP.

You get the point.

What the examples above represent is a snapshot, albeit an incomplete one, of some of the best pitchers in baseball. What they have in common is the slow process it took to get there. They started out good, but worked their way up to Great.

Certainly there are exceptions, such as Strasburg, or more recently Matt Harvey (36 starts; 2.39 ERA; 0.98 WHIP; 9.9 K/9; 2.2 BB/9), and th ere are other factors, such as age, team, opponents, etc. And, if you want to continue to plays devil’s advocate, there are more advanced stats that better depict a pitcher’s performance than the counting stats.

But the fact remains that it takes time.

Gerrit Cole will become an Ace, perhaps as early as this season.

But if he doesn’t make that jump quite yet, there is no reason to panic.

It will come.