2020 Preseason PBA Power Rankings: No. 1 Jason Belmonte

No. 1 Jason Belmonte

Career Titles: 22 (11 majors)
Age: 36
2019 Earnings: $288,290 (rank: 1)
2019 Points: 36,590 (rank: 1)
2019 Peak Ranking: 1
2019 Low Ranking: 8

2019 Season

The 2019 Player of the Year gets the automatic No. 1 spot in our preseason rankings. Among four titles, Belmonte’s third Tournament of Champions triumph tied him with Earl Anthony and Pete Weber with 10 major championships. Then Belmonte’s second World Championship gave him sole possession of the all-time majors record, adding a little extra history to what is debatably Belmonte’s best season to date (many will argue 2017 was better). Incredibly, Belmonte’s four wins in 2019 equal the number of times he finished outside the top 10 all season. Although all his titles came before May, he led the Tour in points and earnings (banking the most he ever has on Tour) and earned his fifth Player of the Year award, trailing only Walter Ray Williams Jr. (seven) and Earl Anthony (six) in that category.

2020 Outlook

It looks like more of the same in early 2020. Belmonte is coming off a fourth-place finish in the U.S. Open – the one event standing between him and the Triple Crown, Grand Slam and Super Slam – and he’ll have another shot at that in just over a month. While he has won five out of the last seven Player of the Year Awards, he hasn’t won back-to-back awards since 2014 and 2015. In 2020, there will be a lot of motivated players challenging for Belmonte’s top spot.

Preseason PBA Power Rankings

1. Jason Belmonte
2. Sean Rash
3. Bill O’Neill
4. Anthony Simonsen
5. EJ Tackett
6. Jakob Butturff
7. Dom Barrett
8. Kyle Sherman
9. Kris Prather
10. AJ Johnson
11. Kyle Troup
12. Marshall Kent
13. Tom Daugherty
14. Chris Barnes
15. Dick Allen
16. Jesper Svensson
17. Tommy Jones
18. Norm Duke
19. Francois Lavoie
20. Jason Sterner