The List 6/12: Ranking The Top 100 Starting Pitchers Every Monday

Every Monday during the season, I will be releasing “The List” where I rank the current value of the Top 100 pitchers in fantasy baseball for the rest of the season. Use these rankings to help understand what to expect from pitchers for 2017 and as a tool to gauge trade value in your fantasy leagues.

Let’s see how the SP landscape has changed:

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Notes

• I’m seeing four distinct tiers this week, often separated by injured players. Outside of the power trio of Kershaw, Scherzer, and Sale, there’s one at #22/#23 with Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard. Then there is a distinct drop at Ervin Santana where it begins to become a free-for-all of upside vs. banking on rebounds. That slows down around Gerrit Cole and Kyle Hendricks at #52 with a number of middling options that are slightly more depending than what’s on your wire. A mini-group of injured arms returning soon (Jon Gray, Tyson Ross, Carlos Rodon) is the last gap that separates the rosterable and the waiver wire options. At this point, I’m looking short-term where I’m adding now and asking questions later, with the rest of the Top 100 sifting through possible streaming options that I wouldn’t bank on being consistent producers or have plenty of question in the amount of starts they get ROS.
• Plenty of shuffling in the Top 20. James Paxton is slowing down giving him a few steps back, Dallas Keuchel is expected to miss 2-3 starts, Carlos Carrasco isn’t looking like himself, while Luis Severino and Carlos Martinez deserved bumps (Severino at #8!). Lance McCullers would have reached higher but missing the next start (maybe more?) forces me to dock him a point or two.
• Chase Anderson’s velocity jump is extraordinary, averaging over 94mph suddenly across his last four starts. His ceiling is capped with his walk rate, but his current hot streak is well earned.
• With more and more disappointments in starters (Justin Verlander, Kyle Hendricks, Gerrit Cole, Jose Quintana, etc.) more surprising names are popping up into ranks I had zero expectations they would see. Jimmy Nelson jumps into the Top 40, Jeff Hoffman climbs all the way to #42 (even with his uncertainty!), and pitchers that weren’t on people’s radar last week are suddenly Top 70 worthy (Jacob Faria, Sean Newcomb).
• Speaking of which, Buck Farmer joins Faria and Newcomb as young arms getting playing time in the rotation. I see Faria as having the most polished repertoire of the bunch, with Newcomb having the most legitimate strikeout ability in his Curveball (a lack of third pitch concerns me). Farmer has flashed the K upside with his Changeup, but he’s still a bit of an unknown at the time and I question if he has the same ceiling as the other two.
• Other new additions this week are Robert Gsellman, Jesse Hahn, Jaime Garcia, and Joe Ross who have all pitched well enough as of late to become a desperate choice for streams. Mike Montgomery also joins the ranks as a short term option with Kyle Hendricks on the DL.
• Leaving The List this week are Nate Karns, Francisco Liriano, Jharel Cotton, Kenta Maeda, Chris Tillman, Kevin Gausman, Matt Andriese,  and David Paulino. We don’t know when Andriese, Karns, and Maeda will get time on the hill again, Paulino’s time is limited and he is far from dependable enough at the moment, while Cotton, Gausman, Tillman, and Liriano aren’t pitching well enough to keep them in the Top 100.