Starting Pitcher Chart – September 2nd, 2025
The chart includes their performance for 2025, their opponent’s wOBA rank versus the pitcher’s handedness from this year so far, my general start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues, and then a note about them. Obviously, there are league sizes beyond those three so it’s essentially a shallow, medium, deep. If a pitcher only has an “x” in 15-team, it doesn’t mean there’s no potential use in 10s and 12s, but it’s a much riskier stream for those spots.
These are general recommendations, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. This is for standard 5×5 roto leagues. The thresholds for H2H starts are generally lower, especially in points leagues so I thought there would be more valuable focusing on roto.
Board tonight, comments in the AM!
- Top 3 guys are awesome and get solid matchups (though Woo and Ras are facing each other so only 1 can win)
- Kershaw is the only other 3-x with a good matchup so he could be a little higher in a DFS situation, but he’s still essentially a 5-and-dive (7 starts of 6+ mixed in) and his Ks are awful at just 16%
- Fried’s going to HOU to square off v. Framber… hopefully it’s a fantastic duel between the 2 southpaws
- Webb’s headed to Coors where he’s logged the most innings outside of Oracle w/decent results: 4.44 ERA/1.16 WHIP/15% K-BB; COL is 4th in wOBA vR at home since the All-Star break, but I’m still running Webb comfortably
- McLean will have his hiccup eventually, but he’s been absolutely dialed in for these 3 starts and I can’t see sitting him anywhere
- Lodolo/Berríos is another fun matchup that could yield a duel or go sideways in Great American Ballpark
- Darvish is an ERA risk (though he has a palatable 3.77 since the 8 ER at STL), but the 1.11 WHIP is very useful
- I stopped short of giving Sevvy the 3rd x because while he is muuuuch better on the road with a 3.17 ERA and 1.06 WHIP, it comes with just a 9% K-BB which puts a lot of pressure on the .237 BABIP to stay great on the road
- Cavalli was cooked for 7 ER at NYY, but that was an easy skip so I’m not going to hold the Dud against him too harshly and even though MIA is better than we thought they’d be this year, I’m comfortable taking another shot w/him here
- Wells is debuting after over 10 months off (last start was 4/12/24) so I’d like to see one before diving in… he could look solid like Luis Garcia did last night as Wells’ 6-start rehab did go pretty well, but there’s a good bit of downside here, too… his 1-x is more to draw attention to his return and maybe pickup and stash instead of starting right away
- Cecconi’s had his dips but mostly been a solid streamer this summer, L10 Game Scores: 55–66–45–54–54–59–26–17–59–52
- I’m keeping an eye on SGL and would even be open to a pickup and stash with him, too, but I’m just not sure how many IP we can expect today and it’s a really tough matchup
