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
- It may be shocking to see James Paxton, Jimmy Nelson, Aaron Nola, and Zack Godley all in the Top 11, but given the way they’ve performed, Luis Severino’s inevitable innings limit and the inconsistencies of Chris Archer and Carlos Carrasco, there wasn’t much of a choice.
- The move to L.A. does wonders for Yu Darvish in multiple ways and set the tone against the Mets, erasing some major concerns we had about his recent trends. It’s still a bit overcast, but it’s hard to deny him a Top 10 spot again.
- Tons of pitchers falling this week outside the Top 20, making a lot of names suddenly rising with others making dramatic falls. Sean Manaea, Jose Berrios, and Michael Fulmer taking hits this week. Manaea and Berrios simply haven’t been pull their weight in the second half, while Fulmer is on the DL with a few starts to miss.
- I can’t say I expected to find myself placing Danny Salazar in the Top 25 again, but here we are as he’s exploded in his three games back in the majors. I can’t say that this will stick here on out, but given the amount of warts that begins in the Top 20, he forced the issue with 28 Ks in three starts.
- If you’ve been reading the roundup, you won’t be shocked by Collin McHugh’s sudden jump. His Slider is looking better than it has in his entire career and he deserves to be picked up in all leagues, especially when there is so little to be attached to outside the Top 50.
- Just like McHugh, Kevin Gausman has made major strides, in this case by improving the command of his Four-Seamer. He’s on a great roll and is an easy add in your league.
- As long as Hyun-Jin Ryu gets time in the rotation, he will help 12-teamers, especially when he plays teams like the Padres this week. Other new additions are rookies Anthony Banda and Brandon Woodruff. I don’t have high hopes for either of these arms, but they are at the very least intriguing at this point and are a better stash than others.
- Ian Kennedy, A.J. Griffin, and Jhoulys Chacin are all reluctant adds this week as they replace other questionable productive names in the Top 100. Don’t get comfortable with them on your teams, but they can conceivably help as long as you pick your spots wisely.
- Despite my distrust of consistency, I have to acknowledge that Kendall Graveman is back from the DL and could help as a streamer down the stretch.
- Leaving The List this week are Mike Clevinger, Luis Perdomo, CC Sabathia, Sal Romano, Parker Bridwell, Jordan Montgomery and Luke Weaver. Clevinger has been pushed to the bullpen and only has a few more chances to start remaining (not to mention his recent performances don’t inspire confidence), Perdomo, Bridwell, Sabathia, and Romano simply aren’t impressing enough to remain in the Top 100, and The Bear + Weaver have been demoted to Triple-A. Bummer.
There you go! Keep the Taijuan Walker bumps coming. He’s a beast.
One question, are you dropping Kenta because youre worried he’s gna lose his spot in the rotation? Just wondering because his recent performances have been awesome so I doubt they are the cause.
Hey Max. Alex here, co-host of the On The Corner Podcast w/ Nick. You hit the reasoning right on the head. Once that rotation gets healthy it seems as if Kenta Maeda will be the odd man out despite his recent great performances. If you want, Nick and I talk about this a lot in the last episode. There’s also a time stamp on the podcast page if you wanna jump right to that conversation.
Great list, but what in the world does Lance Lynn have to do to get in the top 30? All he’s done is pitch lights-out for 6 straight starts.
Hes been great all year. He is not an xstats darling I guess.
Please excuse me from copying and pasting this from my comment on Reddit who also asked about Lynn:
The guy is sporting a 3.12 ERA that is so far removed from him 4.85 FIP and 4.60 xFIP. He’s needed a .221 BABIP – the lowest among all qualified pitchers – to achieve that ERA. He’s sporting a poor 3.32 BB/9 that will spell a terrible WHIP as his BABIP normalizes. His 7.73 K/9 is pedestrian and doesn’t spell a high ceiling.
I mean, yeah he’s had a good year thus far. Totally fair and if he had been living up to his FIP/xFIP, he wouldn’t even be near his current ranking at 52. However, even if you cut the difference – let’s even say a 3.80 ERA – that’s pretty replaceable with his sub 8.00 K/9 and a WHIP that will be much worse than its current 1.12 mark (he needs that .221 BABIP with his poor walk rate).
Pick 2 ROS, H2H
– Salazar
– Tanaka
– Carrasco
That’s what this list is for Ryan!
Carrasco + Salazar.
Holy Wade Boggs’ mustache, Verlander at #26?! I dropped him for Nelson, but still have Fulmer, McCullers and Manaea who all rank below him now :(
Also, how do Fulmer and McCullers’ rankings change once they are back from the DL?
I have both and Taillon, Duffy and Faria are all currently ranked above them and available. But I have to think that both Fulmer and McCullers are ranked higher than all them once off the DL…
They will both be pushed up a ton, but this late in the season I have to drop both McCullers and Fulmer a good amount for their lost time.
It depends on your needs. Do you need help from now til the end or can you wait it out a little?
In regards to Verlander, he’s been great in 11 of his last 12 starts. About time for him to get the boost.
I’m firmly in 2nd and have a playoff spot all but guaranteed, so I’m going to wait it out.
Good sign getting notifications today that both of them will resume throwing this week.
Just speculating but I would bet that several of the major swings look a bit goofy within a few weeks. Things really don’t change that quickly unless guys get hurt.
Things definitely swing quickly when it comes to perceived value.
Not to mention players finally having enough data to suggest a major swing one way or another. Or players past the rosterable point that are trending in the right directions. Or injuries. Or playing time changes.
I could go on. Instead of calling my rankings goofy as a whole, feel free to tell me which players in particular you think I’m wrong about and why. It’s a lot more fun that way.
What I am hearing from deisel: real value does not tend to change as much as we think it does in a week. Even when a great start is backed up by a pitch mix change/pitch break change/velocity uptick/change in opportunity, usually the spike in value we perceive in a week is not as severe as reality shows. Guys like Biagini, Estrada and Clevenger (and more) come to mind as guys who look radically different, just to go back to closer to their older performance levels. I think one of things to add to this conversation is that a weekly list requires this kind of overreaction. Usually we only have 1 start to pull from, and then you are being asked to project RoS projections off of that one start. Despite my love for all the content on this site (where else can you get daily pitcher writeups!), the weekly ranking is hard to do right. It might make more sense to do something more like monthly, while still calling out the guys you like a lot in the daily writeups. That way, you don’t end up seeing guys like Danny Salazar and Collin McHugh oscillate 30+ spots in a week. Just thoughts. Thanks for creating lots of thoughtful content.
Actually a little surprised to see Taillon drop a few spots, even though you love him and said he’s back after he put together a great start (yes, against the Padres). What was your thinking?
Well, he also had a 9 ER clunker since last week’s edition.
There’s also the fact that Tanaka/Salazar/Verlander/Sonny Gray have all turned it on in a big way and deserved the leap over Taillon.
I would say in general the biggest swings are the first few weeks and the last month or so. These are rest of season rankings. Take what should be two mid 40s pitchers – one is finishing the season with two games against the Dodgers and a game against the Nationals, the other has a game in Petco and then two games against the Phillies in his last three starts. Suddenly we have a top 20 guy and #80.
No Jake Odorizzi? Thoughts on his return Wednesday?
How should we view Reynaldo Lopez in Dynasty/Keeper leagues? Does he have top end of the rotation potential? Is there any indication that he can get his control issues… well, under control?
I think we have to wait and see a bit. I’m curious what his mechanics are looking like, what pitches he’s relying on, how his Changeup has come along, etc.
I will say that what I say last year hinted at a major upside arm. Great lively Fastball that he has better-than-normal command of with a breaking ball that will miss plenty of bats.
Changeup had good movement (I believe it was a split-change grip, typical to see exaggerated movement there), but far from the command he would need to excel with it.
I’ll have more to report when I watch him on Friday, but for now he’s a solid stash in 12-teamers and definitely dynasty formats.
Someone in my league offered me Kershaw for Severino straight up. Am i missing something here or should I take this trade and run? 10 team standard with 2 keepers