How many pitchers in all of baseball would you put ahead of Sánchez at this point?

Whether they draw the Dodgers or Reds, the pitcher the Phillies send out for Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday isn’t just their top healthy arm, it’s a lefty who made a case this season as the best starter in all of baseball.

Yes, by some measures, Cristopher Sánchez was the best of the best in 2025, the third consecutive season he ascended beyond realistic or even optimistic expectations.

Last season, Sánchez surpassed 180 innings; this year, it was 200. Only he, Logan Webb and Garrett Crochet reached the now-elusive milestone.

Last season, Sánchez’s ERA was 3.32; this season, it was an even 2.50, fifth in the majors.

Last season, his WHIP was 1.24; this season it was 1.06, resulting in a substantial decrease in the number of high-stress pitches thrown by Sánchez over a six-month season. He shaved more than a full pitch per inning off his mark from last year, reducing his average from 15.4 to 14.3.

Beyond the efficiency, he gave away far fewer pitches early in counts and early in innings. That was one of Sánchez’s few issues in 2024 — leadoff men hit .335 with six of the 11 homers he allowed all year. This season, they hit .251 with only three homers. Sánchez doesn’t just pump strikes, he throws a high number of quality strikes, one of the attributes that has separated Zack Wheeler from the pack throughout his own prime.

Baseball Reference and Fangraphs have two different versions of WAR. At Baseball Reference, Sánchez led the majors in 2025 at 8.0, ahead of Paul Skenes’ 7.6. At FanGraphs, he was third behind Tarik Skubal and Skenes, who started the All-Star Game. (BR’s formula incorporates runs allowed while FanGraphs uses FIP — to simplify, BR factors in more of what actually happened, while FanGraphs removes the variable of defense.)

Who in all of baseball would you put ahead of Sánchez at this point? Skenes, sure. A healthy Wheeler. Skubal. Crochet. Is that it? It might be. Webb has been a quality start machine the last four seasons but hasn’t been better than Sánchez the last two. Nor have Framber Valdez, Max Fried or Yoshinobu Yamamoto — they’re all close but haven’t taken down the same workload as Sánchez since the start of 2024 or done so with quite as high a level of run prevention.

None of this means that Sánchez will be the best starting pitcher in the 2025 playoffs, of course. Everything basically resets now.

It does mean, though, that the Phillies are well set up with one of the only workhorses left in any rotation. And better yet, the 6-foot-6, 200-pound Sánchez is just entering his peak years with a team-friendly contract.

Before accounting for the numerous bonuses Sánchez will earn this season and beyond, the deal he signed last June guarantees him $22.5 million through the end of 2029. Sánchez is set to earn $3M in 2026, $6M in 2027 and $9M in 2028. The Phillies hold club options for 2029 and 2030. The 2029 option is for $14M but could increase to $15M based on Top 10 Cy Young finishes, and the 2030 option is for $15M but could rise to $19M based on the same criteria.

So if the Phillies were to play out that whole deal with Sánchez, it would be at most $56.5 million over six years, a number he might find over two years on the open market. That was, of course, the benefit of extending Sánchez as early as the Phillies did last summer, when he still had arbitration years remaining and his breakout was less than a year old but already accompanied by numerous signs of sustainability.

“I didn’t see him getting to this point, so I don’t know where it’s going to end up,” manager Rob Thomson said of Sánchez’s ceiling last summer. “But if you grade his stuff out, it’s as good as anybody we’ve caught as far as fastball velocity, fastball command, the changeup is the best on the team.

“To where he is now, I wouldn’t be able to even envision that. His command is outstanding, his fastball is starting to get more velocity and his secondary pitches are really, really good — especially that changeup. He’s gone from the super power guy with no command to still a power guy with command and stuff. It’s really remarkable.”

That quote was from 15 months ago, before Sánchez added even more velocity. His sinker the last three seasons has risen from 92.1 mph to 94.5 to 95.3. His slider this season was 3 mph harder than it was in 2023, giving hitters less time to identify it out of hand. No starting pitcher features a better changeup, as demonstrated by traditional stats, advanced metrics and most importantly, hitters’ swings.

By improving his arsenal, maturing physically and growing mentally, Sánchez made another leap. His opponents hit just .227 with a .595 OPS compared to .258 and .659 a year ago.

In 2024, lefties hit .247 against Sánchez. In 2025, lefties slugged .233 against him.

Remaining at the level of 2024 would have been sufficient but Sánchez refined everything, and now it takes just one hand to name the arms ahead of him league-wide.

Will it transfer into October? Bear in mind that Sánchez was excellent this season against everyone, bad teams and good. Losing teams hit .227 against him and so did clubs over .500. He went 8-3 with a 2.73 ERA against teams that finished with winning records and allowed even fewer baserunners per inning than he did to those below .500.

The Dodgers’ lineup is loaded with postseason experience and would pose an obvious challenge in the NLDS, but even with only 7 1/3 playoff innings under his belt, Sánchez won’t be overmatched. He’s faced them four times the last two seasons and the Phillies won all four games. Freeman is 1-for-11 against him. Ohtani is 4-for-16 with six strikeouts and no extra-base hits. Other threats loom like the right-handed Teoscar Hernandez (5-for-12, two doubles, two homers), Andy Pages and Mookie Betts, but this lineup would enter the NLDS with as much respect for Sánchez as the lefty has for it.

The Phillies this time around won’t have the advantage provided by Wheeler early in every playoff series since 2022, but they will have a lefty certain to finish in the Top 3 of Cy Young voting. And unless the NLDS ends in a sweep, they’ll be able to use that lefty twice on regular rest.