Welcome to the final week of the season, everybody. As several playoff races are undecided, it can be easy to overlook the excellent player performances this year in favor of the teams. That brings up why I’m here yet again. However, there is a change in this exercise. Last time, and all the times previous, power rankings were broken up into starters and relievers. Now, though, I’m gearing up for my top 100 pitchers of 2021 to come right after season’s end. This means all pitchers get ranked together now, and that this article is a top 50 rather than top 30. I also made a very slight tweak to the formula I use for these rankings, which impacted movement. Onto the top 50 pitchers of 2021 with just a week remaining in the season:
Author’s Note: Rankings are done entering play on Monday, September 27
| Rank | Name | Score | Sept. 17 |
| 1 | Corbin Burnes | 84.2 | 1 (▲/▼0) |
| 2 | Zack Wheeler | 70.0 | 2 (▲/▼0) |
| 3 | Max Scherzer | 67.1 | 4 (▲1) |
| 4 | Gerrit Cole | 64.7 | 3 (▼1) |
| 5 | Brandon Woodruff | 60.9 | 6 (▲1) |
| 6 | Walker Buehler | 58.0 | 5 (▼1) |
| 7 | Robbie Ray | 57.8 | 7 (▲/▼0) |
| 8 | Kevin Gausman | 56.9 | 8 (▲/▼0) |
| 9 | Jacob deGrom | 56.8 | 9 (▲/▼0) |
| 10 | Julio Urías | 51.9 | 15 (▲5) |
| 11 | Charlie Morton | 51.6 | 13 (▲2) |
| 12 | Nathan Eovaldi | 49.5 | 10 (▼2) |
| 13 | Sandy Alcantara | 49.4 | 11 (▼2) |
| 14 | Freddy Peralta | 49.0 | 16 (▲2) |
| 15 | Carlos Rodón | 48.7 | 14 (▼1) |
| 16 | Adam Wainwright | 47.5 | 12 (▼4) |
| 17 | Logan Webb | 46.3 | 19 (▲2) |
| 18 | Lance McCullers Jr. | 45.2 | 23 (▲5) |
| 19 | Joe Musgrove | 45.0 | 20 (▲1) |
| 20 | Lucas Giolito | 45.0 | 24 (▲4) |
| 21 | Aaron Nola | 44.9 | 25 (▲4) |
| 22 | José Berríos | 42.2 | 22 (▲/▼0) |
| 23 | Frankie Montas | 41.5 | 29 (▲6) |
| 24 | Clayton Kershaw | 41.4 | 30 (▲6) |
| 25 | Trevor Rogers | 41.3 | 27 (▲2) |
| 26 | Tyler Mahle | 41.2 | 28 (▲2) |
| 27 | Dylan Cease | 40.5 | 37 (▲10) |
| 28 | Max Fried | 39.4 | 32 (▲4) |
| 29 | Lance Lynn | 39.1 | 17 (▼12) |
| 30 | Marcus Stroman | 38.6 | 18 (▼12) |
| 31 | Chris Bassitt | 38.0 | 26 (▼5) |
| 32 | Luis Castillo | 37.0 | 31 (▼1) |
| 33 | Luis Garcia | 36.1 | 36 (▲3) |
| 34 | Ranger Suárez | 36.1 | NR (DNQ) |
| 35 | Tyler Glasnow | 36.0 | 33 (▼2) |
| 36 | Yu Darvish | 35.1 | 43 (▲7) |
| 37 | Shohei Ohtani | 35.0 | 42 (▲5) |
| 38 | Germán Márquez | 35.0 | 21 (▼17) |
| 39 | Jordan Montgomery | 34.6 | 39 (▲/▼0) |
| 40 | Sean Manaea | 33.7 | 38 (▼2) |
| 41 | Shane Bieber | 33.0 | 44 (▲3) |
| 42 | Sonny Gray | 32.8 | 41 (▼1) |
| 43 | Alex Wood | 32.2 | 51 (▲8) |
| 44 | Raisel Iglesias | 31.1 | NR (RP) |
| 45 | Kyle Gibson | 31.1 | 34 (▼11) |
| 46 | Emmanuel Clase | 31.0 | NR (RP) |
| 47 | Anthony DeSclafani | 30.8 | 40 (▼7) |
| 48 | Eduardo Rodriguez | 30.3 | 45 (▼3) |
| 49 | Josh Hader | 30.3 | NR (RP) |
| 50 | Framber Valdez | 30.0 | 50 (▲/▼0) |
