Either of the “Sk Boys” are viable in the 1-spot and I’m leaning toward Tarik Skubal because of the Tigers though still unrelated to my fandom of them. In fantasy baseball, team context matters it’s still clear that the Tigers give Skubal more win potential than the Pirates offer Skenes. Wins are still unpredictable, though, so Skubal could have 12 and Skenes 15 by season’s end… again, it’s a coinflip at the 1-spot.

It is worth noting that Paul Skenes easily has the best ERA in baseball the last two seasons (min. 100 IP) with a tiny 1.96 mark in 321 IP. Only Jacob deGrom (120!) tops his 116 Pitching+ (Skubal, Zack Wheeler, and Corbin Burnes are tied at 116) in that same time. In short, he’s amazing and if he’s your #1 SP, it’s perfectly justifiable.

All the talk of the “Sk Boys” as the unquestioned top 2 guys might be overlooking Garrett Crochet as a viable #1 in his own right. His 2024-25 combined numbers aren’t as strong because his ERA was relatively high for an ace in ’24 (3.58) but his 2.72 SIERA is the best of the trio as are his 33% K and 27% K-BB rates. He’s also the only one of them to deliver a 200+ IP season. Addtionally, the Red Sox were the best of these three teams last year and likely will be again in 2026. I didn’t expect this write-up to go this way but it’s a firm 3-way battle for the top spot. Taking Crochet is every bit as viable as the “Sk Boys”… maybe it’s time to start calling him “Skcrochet” so he’s firmly in the group!

I had Yoshinobu Yamamoto as the lock #4 after the regular season and after his amazing playoff run, that is now consensus. I wasn’t out on some super risky limb so I’ll chill on the back-patting, I was just surprised that it was being seen as a lock 3 and then wide open despite what we had just seen in 30-start season from Yamamoto. He did still only amass 174 IP (28th) and I’m left wondering if that’s about his cap or a step toward 200+.

It’s easy to see the Dodgers having no real incentive to push any starter so they have juice for October to do exactly what Yamamoto just did. Conversely, he was their first 30-start pitcher since Julio Urías in 2022 and both Urías and Walker Buehler in 2021 so maybe he is going to be the one steady workhorse while they massage the rest throughout the year. His pitches per gm went up from 90 to 99 in the second half followed by the exquisite playoff run that saw three counts at 105+ including the back-to-back CGs. Let’s plan for more of the same and be pleasantly surprised if the Dodgers let him in the upper reaches of pitches per game.

Can Logan Gilbert’s 131-IP season be the final nail in the “safe innings” coffin? It’s fugazi, it’s a whazy. It’s a woozie. It’s fairy dust… no, that doesn’t mean I think some rookie has the same IP cap as a Gilbert or Logan Webb, etc… but rather that you’re deluding yourself in thinking that pitchers are inherently bankable. They all carry *extreme* injury risk. That’s no shade on Gilbert, either, as I fully believe in his talent. It was just the repeated refrain that he was a lock 30+ starts.

Draft Gilbert because he had a 5 pt. jump in K% to a career-best 32% thanks to his 3rd-ranked 16% SwStr rate. The 144 Stf+ on his splitter was far and away the best in baseball and he leaned on it more with a 20% usage rate. I’d also like to be clear that I’m not suggesting there is no value to Gilbert pitching 32-33 starts in all three seasons from 2022-24. It shows Seattle’s confidence in him and makes clear that they’ll let him go when healthy and upright, a right not afforded to all starters. My disconnect came with using Gilbert’s workload as the reason to take him over guys like deGrom and Crochet despite acknowledging that they’d almost certainly be better on a per-inning basis. In today’s lower inning landscape, I just want the most talented arms and I’ll let the innings play out.

I was steering clear of Hunter Greene last year and even shared concerns of a real downside season. I was of course dead wrong and despite his HR rate jumping back up to 1.3, his ERA moved all 0.01 while his WHIP tumbled to a career-best 0.94, albeit in just 108 IP. He’s only reached 150 IP once, averaging just 124 IP over his four seasons, but he made the most of his short 2025 sample thanks to a sharp 3 pt. drop in BB% to 6%. Maintaining that will be key to surviving the homers, assuming he doesn’t improve that issue this year. There is legitimate #1 overall SP upside here as hopefully the 26-year old can stay fully healthy and deliver his first 30-start campaign.

It was a huge breakthrough season for Cristopher Sánchez where both his excellent walk and homer rates held firm while adding 6 pts to his K%. We now have 483 IP of great work from Sánchez (3.00 ERA/1.13 WHIP/18% K-BB) and I think we could see a full season of his 2023 numbers: 3.44 ERA/1.05 WHIP/20% K-BB.

It was an injury washout for Cole Ragans as he managed just 62 IP, but his skills were fantastic (30% K-BB) and neither the 64% LOB nor the .354 BABIP feel like his true skill level so I absolutely expect a performance closer to his 2.52 SIERA than 4.67 ERA.

While Max Fried lacks the premium strikeout capability of his peers here in this tier, he makes up for it with good walk rates and a consistent penchant for limiting homers thanks to his groundball lean. His 0.65 HR9 is 4th in MLB since 2022 (min. 300 IP) thanks to a groundball heavy approach (54% GB is 9th). He did also have a career-best 95.8 mph fastball last year (93.9 career), too, and it’ll be interesting to see if he holds those gains in 2026.

Hunter Brown leveraged some small skill improvements and a tiny .262 BABIP into an ace season. His SIERA dropped from 3.74 to 3.39 thanks to a 3 pt. K% boost and a couple fewer walks (-0.6%). He will likely push closer to his career .299 BABIP but if it comes with a 18-20% K-BB rate, he can front a fantasy rotation.

Bryan Woo made it through the rotation 30 times, but he was injured late and unavailable for most of the playoffs. Health has been the only real hangup, well that and a bit of a homer issue. Pitchers who never walk anyone (5% career BB%) usually allow a few more longballs and given how hard he’s been to consistently hit (.246 BABIP, .208 AVG), some extra solo shots just haven’t hurt him. Betting on hit suppression can be dangerous so heed his 3.47 SIERA against that 2.92 ERA the last two years. The real key will be holding the strikeout gains (+6 pts to 27%).

Dangit, I fell for the timeline on George Kirby. The reports were positive and because I like him, I neglected to add the customary extra weeks to the timeline. Instead of being back 3-4 wks into the season, he debuted on May 22nd. From there, he had some sharp ups and downs thanks to 4 Duds (5+ ER) in 23 starts. He opened with two before ripping off 2.84 ERA and 22% K-BB in 76 IP. Then two 7 ER bombs in his next four ensured a 4.00+ ERA for the year despite his best efforts with a 2.95 ERA and 36% K-BB in his last four. I still think all the elements are there for a massive ace season from Kirby, combining his 2025 K% (26%) with 2023-24 WHIP (1.05) to deliver a career-best ERA… perhaps even sub-3.00!

It’s just so hard to know where to rank Shohei Ohtani as a starting pitcher-only without some insights on how much they plan to use him on the mound in 2026. Plus he’s a true 2-way asset at most outlets so you’re buying the bat with the pitching sprinkled on top. He was excellent when pitching and was allowed to throw 6 IP in 3 of his 4 postseason starts. As long as he’s a consistent 5-6 IP guy, he’s awesome and it becomes a really interesting choice each week of how to deploy him, especially if you land some extra hitting to where you’re less reliant on Ohtani’s dominance at the dish.

We now have three straight seasons of at least 30 starts for Freddy Peralta with an average of 172 IP that peaked this year at just under 177. He has shown he can hold up over a full season multiple times now, but it does seem the Brewers are content to take the 5-and-dive and turn it over to their usually strong pen. It didn’t keep him from logging an NL-best 17 Wins and he’s reached 200 strikeouts in each of the three seasons, so the primary reasons you’d want to ding him for the lower volume are covered. Well, the strikeouts are covered… just because he won 17 this past season doesn’t mean he will do it again, but the point is that he isn’t destined to 10-12 every year as a 5-and-dive.

Joe Ryan has been walking the HR tightrope for his whole career, usually with flying colors as his 4.51 ERA in 2023 is the only real blemish on his record. This is why missing bats and limiting walks is so important. Despite the 9th worst HR9 (1.5), his 6th best K-BB (23%) guides him to a palatable 3.83 ERA and excellent 1.07 WHIP. There is ERA blowup potential, but bankable WHIP and Ks keep him ranked high.

Pitchers like Blake Snell are usually quite divisive in the fantasy world. You’re either all in or all out… rarely do I see fence straddlers with him. He has just 104 and 61 IP the last two years but then of course two Cy Youngs the two times he managed 180+ so the upside is amazingly rich. And it’s not like the partial seasons are all downside. He has a 2.83 ERA/1.13 WHIP/22% K-BB in those 165 IP and you get to replace him, so his numbers plus the fill-in(s) is what you’re getting out of the draft slot.

Maybe Chris Sale is just an ace even at 37 years old. Sure, he only pitched 126 innings after his Cy Young win in 2024, but he was every bit as good. I don’t have any real concerns about his skills… draft him based on your tolerance for an older pitcher with some recent health issues.

I was so in on Jacob deGrom last year hoping that his late-season flourish in 2024 was a harbinger. Emphasis on hoping because I certainly didn’t know the 37-year old righty would take 30 turns and throw 173 IP. It’s awesome that it went so well, but I’m left with an agonizing feeling of essentially “cashing out” or staying bought in. I don’t think he collapses regardless of what happens as we generally expect the innings to be good, we just don’t know how many he’ll throw. A year older now and a rather disconcerting 1.4 HR9 which was masked over by the .194 AVG and 6% BB leave me a bit cautious about the rebuy.

An elbow fracture ended Spencer Schwellenbach’s season in late-June which makes him a tougher rank, but I’m going to lean high. I’ll circle back around for more analysis as we get news throughout the remainder of the winter. On the field, he followed up his breakout rookie year with another 111 strong innings of work so unless we get bad news on the injury, I’m in. More later.

I know it was only six starts, but I’m back in on Kyle Bradish! In fact, he only has 14 starts the last two years and yet he’s given us no reason to think he can’t get back to his 2023 output (2.83 ERA/1.04 WHIP) and possibly with much better skills, though I know we can’t expect his 26% K-BB to necessarily hold up for a full season, but even cracking 20% would be an improvement on 2023’s 19% mark.

We all know the deal with Tyler Glasnow. He’s entering his age-32 season with just 3 seasons over 100 innings and a max of 134. You’re buying 90 elite innings and taking anything else as a bonus. Since 2021, he has a 3.24 ERA/1.01 WHIP/24% K-BB in ~88 IP/season and that includes a 7-inning flameout in 2022. Only Strider & Sale top him in K-BB rate during that run (min. 400 IP), tied at 25%.

A pair of ~90-IP seasons with an injury rehab season mixed in between is all we’ve seen from Eury Pérez and yet he’s regularly going as a Top 25 starter. Miami took time ramping him back up from TJ with a month of sub-5 IP starts in June before letting him go at least 5 IP in 9 of his next 10. Back-to-back Duds down the stretch (12 ER in 4.7 IP) all but locked a >4.00 ERA (4.25 in 95 IP) while his WHIP (1.05) and K-BB (19%) were both excellent. He even racked up 7 Ws in those final 16 starts.

He leans on the fastball-slider combo 83% of the time but he does run a legitimate 4-pitch arsenal against lefties with a 13% curve and 11% changeup added to the mix. As such, he’s been better against lefties in his short career with 84-point platoon split. He’s not a completely finished product yet as both his 8% BB and 1.3 HR9 rates could use work but even just 140-150 IP of the Pérez we’ve seen is still very valuable.

After missing all of 2024 to shoulder surgery, Brandon Woodruff picked up right where he left off with a sharp 12-start run. His 27% K-BB was the best we’ve seen from him, but it was still just 65 IP so I’ll lean on his 23% career mark for a 2026 outlook. We have seen homers bubble up in his last 2 samples (~65 IP in both 2023 and 2025) at 1.2 and he also lost 3 mph off his fastball to 93.1 mph. To compensate, he used it a career-low 31% while incorporating a new cutter that he used 16% of the time, including a surge to 24% in his final 4 starts. If his K% hadn’t gone up (SwStr% held firm), I’d be more concerned about the velo drop but the severe arsenal shift also shows that he’s isn’t just trying to push through with a limping heater. I shifted him to the PIM tier as I wonder if Milwaukee will aim to limit him and save some juice for October given his lengthy injury history.

Is there value in pushing for another 150+ IP season or aim for 125ish and take the reins off in October? A third of the Top 30 SPs had fewer than 150 IP last year so while an IP mgmt program would make him tougher to manage in-season, it simply does not preclude from being a premium starter in today’s game. I will likely reiterate this point multiple times throughout these profiles because I know people jump around and don’t always read every single entry (which I totally understand, especially with this post-and-update structure that we run throughout the winter).

I jumped back on the Shane Bieber train much quicker than expected as I originally thought he might just use 2025 as a tune-up for a real push in 2026. Instead, he was excellent immediately upon returning with 7 strong starts followed by nearly 20 more quality postseason innings. The budding HR issue brings some ERA risk if it’s here to stay, but he shouldn’t carry a 1.7 all year (career 1.0 in 883 IP).

Drew Rasmussen was essentially a 5-and-dive pitcher this year with 150 IP in 31 starts, going more than 5 IP just 11x and never topping 6 IP. His pitches/start jumped 4 to 77 in the second half but that only moves him from last to 2nd-to-last so we just have to be comfortable with a 150-inning cap. If the Rays surprise us and give him 80-85 pitches/start, great… but don’t hold your breath. The downside with that volume is the potential impact on wins. He can’t even get one if he doesn’t go 5 IP, of course, and then has to hope his bullpen holds for 3-4 IP when he does leave with a lead. You’re paying for impact ratios here and his are consistently good enough to make a major impact even without qualifying for the ERA title.

Nick Pivetta wasn’t the best fit for the Per Inning Monsters category so I moved him here. While he is just 54th in IP since 2023, he vaults to 16th when we expand back to 2021 with 805 IP and he’s also coming off a career-high 182. The back-to-back 140-something seasons in 2023-24 also weren’t health-related so 170+ is always on the table if he’s good enough to take 30+ turns (which he’s done 4x in his career).

His career-long HR issue was managed for the first time ever, dropping to a career-best 1.1 HR9 thanks to a 5-point dip in HR/FB rate, down to 10%. He will likely push back toward his 1.5/15% career marks so plan for some ERA regression while enjoying his K%/WHIP foundation (8th in both since 2023, min. 400 IP). I’d be remiss to gloss over the sparkling .235 BABIP (v. his .292 career mark) which brings some WHIP regression concern though I think we can live with a backslide to his 2023-24 level of 1.12. I was a hater until late in the 2025 draft season and now I’m in even at his new premium price tag.

I usually like to buy the dip on Dylan Cease, betting that his consistently strong core skills (20% K-BB in ’25; 19% career) will bring more good than bad as he battles the volatility of things both in (pitch command) and out (BABIP) of his control. With three straight years of a not-so-nice 69% LOB rate, it might start looking like a problem specific to Cease and his effectiveness with runners on but his K-BB rate drops just a point to 18% in the L3 years once facing traffic while his BABIP surges 40 points to .331, including an insane .376 in 2025. He may in fact be doing something out of the stretch that causes this problem but why doesn’t it show up at all in his other skills?

As for the dip, the market isn’t budging. After rebounding from an equally rough season in 2023, the market believes the newest Blue Jay starter will rebound toward something in line with the 3.58 SIERA we saw amidst his 4.55 ERA. The tough part with Cease is that when it goes south, he’s usually slamming both ratios so the Ks have to be worth it. He has also made 32-33 starts for five straight seasons which gets spun both ways these days. One side sees the previous volume as an encouraging sign for more, but now I’ve started to see the heavy workloads get pushed back on a starter, suggesting that every pitcher is an injury timebomb that will eventually go off regardless of their health history. The truth is that neither is the definitive way to look at it because every pitcher is different (I know, groundbreaking…). While I have been adamant on not using previous workloads as too strong an indicator of future volume, I haven’t gone so far that I now see Ceases’s health stability as a negative. I’m likely passing this year if he’s going to carry a Top 20 SP price, though.

Logan Webb is the quintessential workhorse of this era, topping the NL each of the last three seasons and all of baseball in two of them. Drop back to 2021 and his 968 IP far eclipse Kevin Gausman’s 926 for most in baseball. Over the last few years I’ve used Webb’s or Framber Valdez’s profile to compare them as a the righty-lefty versions of each other and tops among an ever-dwindling list of high workload arms. Webb’s WHIP has run high at 1.23 the last two seasons after a 1.11 from 2021-23 and this despite adding Willy Adames to Matt Chapman for the left side of infield. It’s not like all groundballs go over there and the range-challenged duo of Tyler Fitzgerald and Casey Schmidt manning 2B didn’t help much on the right side. He’s never been a BABIP stud so even if Chap/Adames go off and they improve the keystone, I doubt we see even a sub-.290 BABIP barring a change in approach or just some flat out good luck. At least last year’s WHIP jump was soothed by a 5-pt jump in K% up to 26% – his best mark since 2021 (I’ve been using em dashes well before stupid AI but definitely notice any time I use one!).

He did raise his SwStr% 2 points to 10.7% and he made the absolute most of it. There is a shorthand for expected K% to be around ~2x their SwStr% with an upper limit around 2.5x and the only reason I included the decimal on that 10.7% mark for Webb is to show how close he was to that 2.5 upper end with his 26.2% K%. Pitchers can obviously overachieve their SwStr% beyond 2.5x in small samples, but that 2-2.5x range holds up really well in larger samples. Among the 127 pitchers with at least 100 IP last year, only Dustin May reached 2.6 and you can put Seth Lugo in there, too, after rounding but for the Technical Tommies out there, he was at 2.55. All that to say, I doubt Webb clocks another 26% without adding to his SwStr% and nothing in his profile points me toward further growth there. If he brings the WHIP below 1.20, it should be able to cancel out the impact of any lost of strikeouts in terms of his overall value. The prudent move is to plan for the same WHIP and fewer Ks.

Framber Valdez is the best arm remaining on the market and arguably the best overall, depending on how you feel about Dylan Cease, Tatsuya Imai, or maybe even Michael King. He happened to have his worst ERA since 2019 and WHIP since 2021 which is less than ideal heading into free agency and then there was the potential intentional cross-up with his rookie catcher, though it’d be impossible to say how much negative impact that would have on his free agency without teams coming out and saying so. It’s more likely that teams will be wondering if he can hold up into his 30s. He’s known as a workhorse as only Logan Webb (820) has more innings since 2022 than Framber’s 768 and the surface results are there with the 7th-best ERA in that time (min. 500 IP yielding 59 SPs) but his 16% K-BB is just 29th and 1.16 WHIP is 23rd. I’ll dive back in when he signs, but hopefully he goes somewhere with a strong infield defense as his 60% GB rate is tops among that sample 59 SP sample since 2022.

While Zack Wheeler did get the lesser of the two thoracic outlet syndrome procedures (6-8 mo. recovery from mid-Aug.), TOS is never good so he is a major wildcard for winter drafters. A Top 35 ranking is an admittedly rosy outlook and though it is in line with the current ADP, I know that I personally won’t be drafting him until the spring – if at all. Obviously the price will rise if he’s healthy in Spring Training, but I’d rather pay a confident SP20 than a nervous SP30 especially when dealing with TOS. I’ll revisit in Spring as we get more information about his recovery.

Sonny Gray is headed to Boston after a winter trade, looking to rebound from a modest 4.28 ERA/1.23 WHIP in 2025. His 22% K-BB couldn’t stop the bleeding induced by a .329 BABIP and 1.3 HR9. Fenway and Busch are similarly pitcher-friendly on homers so the new park shouldn’t inflate that issue. I’ll be curious to see what Boston has in store for Gray because it’s not like he’s broken, he’s bringing plenty to work with and now has three straight years of at least 166 IP including 2 over 180. Pay for a high-3.00s ERA with a good WHIP if he does in fact improve that BABIP which is a fair bet (1.12 WHIP, .293 BABIP in 2022-24).

The vagaries of BABIP become clear when examining Kevin Gausman’s profile. He’s never been Mr. Hit Suppression save his 2021 dream season, but things went completely sideways the very next year – his first with Toronto – as his BABIP soared 89 pts to a league-worst for qualified pitchers of .363 (teammate José Berríos was 2nd worst at .328). A 42-pt improvement in 2023 only moved him from worst to 2nd worst (new teammate Dylan Cease was worst at .330). Gausman was good in both seasons, posting a palatable 3.35 ERA/1.24 WHIP combo in ’22 and then improving both to 3.16/1.18 in ’23. The key was his 24% K-BB that finished behind only Spencer Strider and tied with Shohei Ohtani among 101 SPs (min. 220 IP). That figure has subsequently cratered to 16% the last two seasons (42nd among 100 SP, same 220 IP min.) which is part of why his sharply improved BABIP (.271) hasn’t shown up in his 3.71 ERA. Now 35, he’s a fair bet for a 4.00+ ERA with his upside tied to improving his K% or dropping another elite WHIP like we saw in 2025 (1.06). The wide range of outcomes plus the elevated age have me bumping him down the list a bit.

Jesús Luzardo is another mover out of the Per Inning Monster tier as he’s been at or near 180 IP in 2 of the last 3 seasons. He might have had a career season if not for back-to-back horrendous starts two months into the season. The 20 ER v. MIL & TOR stained his ERA, running it from 2.15 to 4.46 in the span of a week, before he shaved it back down thanks to a sharp stretch run. He went fewer than 6 IP just once in his L11 starts, collecting 58 Ks in the last six.

All the elements are there for a Top 10 season, but Luzardo will likely have to find a way to avoid these Super Duds to get there. Everyone has a few bad starts each year, it’s these 7+ ER meltdowns that keep him from that upper crust of SPs. He has 5 Super Duds since 2023, tied for 4th most (21 total guys w/at least 5) despite only pitching 66 IP in 2024. There isn’t really a skill to address for this so I think we just bet on a strong armed 28-year old with a 20% K-BB since 2022 (10th, min. 500 IP) and hope he finally just prevents his bad starts from going completely haywire.

Veterans are wrongly overlooked when it comes to upside and someone like Robbie Ray is a great example of the upside found in players with plenty of experience. His Cy Young season back in 2021 came after 5+ seasons of “fine” work. And then last year’s re-emergence came after esssentially two missed seasons (34 IP in 2023-24). Writing this on Christmas, I’d be remiss not to point out that he can be a lump of coal you end up discarding a month into the season but that risk is properly baked into his price. My rank is right in line with his winter ADP of SP41, but he is definitely a helium risk in March. It only takes a few sharp spring starts for the bandwagon to load up so plan accordingly.

Jack Flaherty is a bargain bin version of Luzardo as Super Duds (7+ ER) ruined both his 2023 and 2025 seasons. In fact, Flaherty’s 2024 showed what Luzardo can do if he can avoid those collapses. Flaherty only allowed 5+ twice and over 5 IP in both, mitigating their damage. I regret not preaching more caution about Flaherty’s 1.3 HR9 from 2024, even as he returned to Detroit where he had so much success.

It was clear even before hindsight that he was going to pay severely for any WHIP regression as the solo shots turn to multi-run homers. I thought/hoped he’d hold more of his BB% gains, but it jumped 3 pts to 9% (his career mark, so again – should’ve expected it or at least been more open to it) which paired with a 20 pt. BABIP surge to tank his WHIP. He still maintained a 19% K-BB, though, so I’m not out on a buyback entirely, especially at a far lower cost than last season. Now a mid-rotation fit you need a lot less from him to pay off, Flaherty can even be curated to avoid difficult HR venues on the road in several formats.

Can we trust Aaron Nola anymore? Sure, we can point to a pretty good 3.81 SIERA as a way to handwave his injury-riddled 6.01 ERA in 94 IP, but honestly that’s just a different way of saying he had a 17% K-BB. That is an undeniably solid rate, but it can’t be your only thing when you’re running a 1.7 HR9 and .315 BABIP. Plus, this isn’t the first time he’s been less than reliable. He has two full seasons of mid-4.00s ERA, salvaged by quality 1.1x WHIPs that did their best to mask his burgeoning HR problem. When he dropped from 1.3 to 0.8 in 2022, there was a collective sigh of relief before he surged back up to 1.5 in 2023 and has lived there since which likely caps his ERA upside at the high-3.00s with a mid-to-high 4.00s projection. As his velo drops and age rises, it becomes increasingly unlikely that his HR rate will head back downward… be careful.

In one of the shocks of the offseason, the Astros inked Tatsuya Imai to a 3-year flex contract (hat-tip Joe Sheehan who came up with this good name for these opt-out laden contracts) that will likely just be a 1-year deal barring a complete flameout. Both the landing spot and shorter term drove the surprise with this move as Houston appeared to be starting more of a rebuild phase while many contract guesses for Imai were in the 4-5 year range for the 28-year old. A mid-90s heater and nasty slider highlight his deep arsenal that delivered a 27% K (3rd in NPB) the last two seasons and a sparkling 1.92 ERA in 2025. He has also improved his BB% every year since 2020, down to a solid 7% this year. It’s his only pro season under 10% (technicallyyyy 2024 as well at 9.8%, but c’mon…) so if the 2025 gains aren’t real, that could be a impediment to his early success in MLB.

Imai’s size is also of some concern. He’s listed 5’11 meaning he’s closer to 5’8 because if you were truly 5’11, you’d just list 6′. Anyway, that doesn’t preclude Imai from success, but he also weighs about 155. Sonny Gray is really the only model for sub-6′  righty success right now and he’s got 40 lbs. on Imai. Framber is 5’11, but he’s a lefty even thicker than Gray so his durability isn’t questioned (and also well-proven the last several years). Imai did reach 173 and 163 IP the last two seasons, but that’s on the once-a-week schedule of the NPB. Even if he is going to be a lower IP guy, this is the right era to still thrive despite that. I will mention it across many profiles in this piece, but you simply don’t need a massive IP count to put up a big season. You still need to collect enough innings from your entire team to compete in Ws and Ks so you can’t have all sub-130 IP guys, but a few is fine, especially if have IL spots and can better hold them through injuries while getting replacement production.

As for Imai in Houston, I don’t have any inherent issues with it. They clearly want to keep the competition window open with this move so his Win potential should be fine as long as he’s clocking 5+ IP. He showed strong HR suppression in Japan, slotting 13th in HR9 since 2019 (0.65) and up to 7th the last two seasons (0.48), but if he loses some effectiveness on that slider will it show in the form of Crawford Boxes homers? This shouldn’t be anything like the Shota Imanaga situation, though, as he had the 4th worst HR9 in NPB the three seasons before coming so even some regression of Imai’s NPB homers shouldn’t surge that high. His draft price will determine a lot of my interest, he’s currently around SP45 as of early-January, a price I’d be willing to pay, but that is established before his signing. Most free agents see their ADP rise once signed and then there’s further helium risk as more fantasy managers dive into Imai and learn of his substantial upside.

In fairness to Spencer Strider, he has shown enough to be a bankable frontliner, it was just back in 2022-23. Do we give him a pass for the bumpy 2025 as standard TJ returner issues or is he riding more of a tightrope than we might want to believe? The primary issues are in line with the struggles guys face in their first year back (elevated BB%, HR9), but the sharp dip in strikeouts to just 24% (career 33%) is concerning especially with the corresponding velo and SwStr% drops. It feels like that fastball has to be in the upper-90s if he is going to survive as a essentially 2-pitch guy (9% curve, 5% change). If he’s 97+ mph in Spring Training, I might be open to jumping in, but otherwise it’s a comfortable pass for me.

Outside of 2023 when he could only string 4-5 good starts together a couple times, Ranger Suárez is usually good for three elements in a season: an elite 10-12 start run, a few Duds, and an IL stint. I’ll dive in deeper when he signs somewhere.

I’m really torn on where to rank Shota Imanaga. I value a WHIP stud even if he comes with some ERA risk… but I think I’m just the worried the ERA risk is low-5.00s. He had a 1.9 HR9 last year! We knew homers would be part of his game coming over so it’s not a shock. As a super flyball pitcher, he’s generally going to allow fewer hits, but if BABIP runs cold on him then he’s Bailey Ober. Be careful.

Andrew Abbott did add 5 pts to his K-BB, up to 16% but I still think there was plenty of “run-hot” in his 2.87 ERA. All ERA indicators point to something more in the upper-3.00s to low-4.00s range and that feels like the right range. The market is much sharper on this player class in the last several years with Seth Lugo being the posterboy last year.

We’ll revisit Max Scherzer when he signs.

There are always a few big Playoff Tax guys each year and Trey Yesavage is the easy model for that this year. He used a solid 3-start run at the end of the year as the springboard to a fantastic playoff effort that saw three gems, a solid outing, one dud, and a World Series Game 7 relief appearance. All told he had a 3.64 ERA/1.07 WHIP/26% K-BB in 28 IP. Paired with his regular season work, it’s 42 IP that has elevated him to SP42 in Winter drafts. While impressive on the biggest stage, nothing about his October performance suggests he is a finished product. He’s a standard high-end prospect arm riding mostly off pure stuff right now. His development likely won’t be a straight line upward making him a decent bet to disappoint in his first full season.

Rotator cuff ate up the second half of Kris Bubic’s breakout season. I’ll dive back in when we get information on how he’s looking for his comeback.

March 25 internal brace for Gerrit Cole, won’t be ready for Opening Day.

Solid 22 IP finish to season for Tyler Wells has him back on the radar.

Shane McClanahan missed the entire season after the original reports suggested his injury wasn’t that bad… that is why we add 1.5-2x to announced injury timelines (unless it’s George Kirby and your crush gets the best of you!).

Joe Musgrove had his TJ surgery in October 2024 giving him the chance at a pretty full season if he’s ready to go. I’ll still be careful about drafting him, but I do treat the extended rehabs different than standard 12-13 mos.

Sean Manaea avoided elbow surgery but managed just 61 uneven innings after his 2024 breakout campaign. More later as news develops.

Back injury ended Seth Lugo’s year on 9/21.

It was a solid 145 IP for Lucas Giolito before an elbow injury ended his season in late-September. Now a free agent, I’ll revisit him after he signs as I suspect that will also bring some more clarity on his health.

José Soriano ended on IL with a forearm contusion.

Grant Holmes ended the season with a partially torn UCL.

Grayson Rodriguez missed the entire 2025 season and now shifts to LA, more on him deeper in the offseason.

Knee injury ended Landen Roupp’s season early.

Spencer Arrighetti is expected to be ready for Opening Day, returning from an elbow injury that ended his season on August 30th.

Reynaldo López missed the entire 2025 season.

August back surgery didn’t stop the Baltimore Orioles from bringing back Zach Eflin on a 1-year make good deal. His timeline right after the surgery was 4-8 months (crazy for it to be that wide) and the high end of that has him back shortly after the season starts (late-Apr/early-May). The 71 IP we did see in a 2025 were a complete disaster but a healthy Eflin should still have the ability to drop a high-3.00s ERA/low-1.10s WHIP as the #4-5 on what is all of a sudden a really fun rotation in Baltimore. UPDATE: After his re-signing with Baltimore, we got news of an upcoming bullpen and a target to be ready by Opening Day. I’ll believe it more in March, but this will likely raise price though he should remain plenty affordable for those who want to take a shot.

Late-Jun hip surgery ruined Max Meyer’s season.

April UCL revision surgery for Justin Steele; unlikely ready for OD.

Shoulder impingment ended Bowden Francis’s season in mid-June.

Jared Jones had May UCL surgery w/10-12 mo. timeline.

Internal brace in Dec 24 for Braxton Garrett; ready for 26?

Patrick Sandoval had an internal brace TJ in June 2024 but still missed all of 2025.

If you saw the initial rankings, Cade Povich was in the Top 100. That was always an error. Just an oversight when reviewing the first run. I only point that out just to make sure this drop down isn’t seen as JUST responding to the Baz trade & Eflin signing. Big shoutout to Spuriosity in the comments for also clocking the bad initial ranking. Sure, there is some upside still left for Povich, but he didn’t belong in that Raw Upside tier. We’re still in the range where a tweak or two could put him back on the radar, but those advancements – if they come – will be developed in the minors for the foreseeable future.

If Luis Severino stays in Sacramento, he’s half a starter and a road-only streamer is scary.

This ranking may feel like too sharp of a reaction to Bailey Ober’s 2025 meltdown, but his HR problem was always the Sword of Damocles ready to deliver its wrath upon his ERA. The already-brutal 1.4 HR9 surged to 1.9 while his BABIP jumped nearly 50 pts and his already-low velo dipped 1.5 mph to just 90.2 — all that added up to a 5.10 ERA/1.30 WHIP in 146 IP. He might not be as bad as the confluence of events that conspired against him in 2025, but the 4.51 SIERA makes sense to me maybe not as an upside but as a starting point.

Ryan Weathers did finish the season on the bump which I always like when betting on an injury-shortened season. He has wrestled injuries throughout career, though it might surprise you to learn he’s still just 26 years old. He debuted young so he’s been in consciousness for a long time but isn’t anywhere near old.

Yusei Kikuchi is a WHIP killer and HR machine… I just don’t trust him.