Rotographs Midseason Rankings – Starting Pitcher

We made it to the mound. After touring the diamond for the position players, we finally reach the starting pitchers for our midseason rankings. I’m not sure any rankings are more disparate than pitching rankings. There aren’t too many ways to interpret Paul Goldschmidt’s success. He’s raking and just all-around dominant. Dallas Keuchel is doing the pitching equivalent of raking, but he isn’t universally seen as a top-flight, no-questions-asked pitcher in the fantasy baseball world just yet. Keuchel might not be the best example as he didn’t fall further than 12th in any of the four ranking sets (with a peak of 6), but what about somebody like Carlos Martinez?

He is pitching brilliantly and showing why he was so heralded as a prospect coming up with the Cardinals, but as of July 21st he already has a career-high 111.3 innings (99 last year, 104 in the minors back in 2012 as a previous career-high) and they’ve already shown how much they value protecting him by keeping him in the bullpen for virtually all of his 2013 MLB time and for 50 of his 57 MLB appearances last year. How far will they take him in the regular season?

The Cards have 70 games left which leaves approximately 14 turns left for Martinez or at least his spot. Even at 5 IP/start, that’s another 70 right there, let alone the fact that he’s averaging 6.3 IP/start so it’d be in the 85-90 range if he held that average and we’re talking almost 200 innings at that point which is not going to happen for the 23-year old righty. He is a remarkably tough rank for these reasons before you even touch his performance projections. A 23-year old hitter who is breaking out won’t get stopped at any sort PA limit so you just have to decide if you buy the performance or not, but with young arms there is so much more to factor in, especially in this era where the protection of arms is foremost on the minds of front offices.

Martinez is a special case with some interesting ramifications tied to his previous handling and age, but there are cases that aren’t loaded with those contextual factors, but still yield markedly different results in the rankings just because of how each ranker views the pitcher. There is no debate about Felix Hernandez as a stud and thus his four-spot split between his high and low rankings means nothing. I don’t look at Zach & Jeff’s #4 ranking for him and question it just because I have him at #7 myself. However, guys like Jason Hammel, Tyson Ross, and A.J. Burnett (among many others) get looked at very differently from ranker-to-ranker.

There is disparity among our rankings at every position, but nowhere is it more plentiful and disparate than starting pitchers. If you have any questions about where someone is ranked, please let us know in the comments. If you feel someone got severely over/under ranked, don’t hesitate to let us know, but state your case for the pitcher in question as well. I realize it’s fun to snarkily dismiss a ranking you disagree with, but it will drive the discussion more if you at least support the snark with some points (or just skip the snark, that’s cool, too, I promise!).

Small scheduling update: the reliever ranks will be out THURSDAY with the Bullpen Report crew and myself doing those.

For this update, you will have the rankings from me, Zach Sanders, Jeff Zimmerman, and Dan Schwartz. Mike Podhorzer is currently on vacation. A 136 from me is essentially an unranked, it’s 127 for Zach, 120 for Jeff, and 97 for Dan.

Other positions:

• Catcher
• First Base
• Second Base
• Shortstop
• Third Base
• Outfield