Roto Riteup: September 24, 2026
Welcome back, Ceddanne Rafaela!
My bad. Rafaela left in the third inning of Wednesday’s contest with a strained right hamstring.
On the Agenda:
- Quick Hits
- Various News and Notes
- Streaming Pitchers
Archive for Starting Pitchers
Pitchers Who Gain $10 or More of Value
Last week, we covered hitters who outperformed and underperformed their projected value. We’re doing the same exercise for pitchers, focusing on starters. We won’t discuss all these pitchers below, but here is the list of pitchers who outperformed their expected value by a least $10 this season.
Today’s Comps for Tomorrow’s Aces: Part 3
For many of us, our fantasy baseball seasons are effectively over. It wasn’t our year. But instead of sulking, something many of us do so well is to immediately turn to draft prep and the next season.
In doing that, part of the process is looking back at the season to see some of the emerging young players and ascertain whether or not their emergence was real and repeatable. One of the classic ways to do this is by looking for comparisons of these young players to established major leaguers to serve as proof of concepts.
Scouts have done this forever and it has worked in the recent past. Hunter Brown’s association to Justin Verlander foreshadowed the former’s rise to ace status. Many in the industry connected Parker Messick’s arsenal and style of pitching with Hyun Jin Ryu, and Messick has had similar results so far. Chase Burns’ reliance on the fastball and slider was compared to a young Spencer Strider’s prior to the former’s debut, and Burns has been just as good as the vintage version of Strider.
Over the course of the next few months, I’ll provide a handful of starting potentially instructive comps we can make to help illuminate this growing crop of young starting pitchers.
Part 1: Max Fried & Kade Anderson
Part 2: Sandy Alcantara & Walbert Ureña
Today, I’ll compare Garrett Crochet and Payton Tolle, a comparison I think captures the ceiling case for Tolle to be drafted as a top-15 starting pitcher in drafts in 2027.
I believe that Tolle in 2026 is having a more polished version of Crochet’s 2024 season with the White Sox, reaching a similar innings level, experimenting with new pitches, and finding lots of success against major league hitters. Read the rest of this entry »
Last-Minute Pitchers to Add in Ottoneu
by Jake Mailhot
September 22, 2026
The final week of the 2026 season is upon us. Hitting your innings pitched cap in Ottoneu points leagues is one of the most important ways you can maximize your roster to its fullest extent. And because it’s a soft cap, you can stack as many starters as you can on the day you’ll hit the cap, and you’ll receive all the points from those pitchers.
If you’re planning ahead, you might want to think about adding one or two of the following under-rostered pitchers for their start during the final weekend of the season, if you can line everything up correctly. You’ll need to start your auction for any of these starters by Wednesday to ensure they’re on your roster by Friday. And if you’re in a more traditional fantasy league or a head-to-head league, these under-rostered starters could be solid streamers for you if you need one or two more starts before the end of the season.
FAAB Frenzy and Waivers Wild: Week 27
Every Monday, this column will break down the most popular waiver wire and free agent acquisitions from the weekend. I dig into the top adds on the ever-popular Fantrax and in the NFBC Online Championship (OC), a national mid-stakes contest with 240 total leagues of 12 and a six-figure grand prize. Reviewing player adds between the two should provide us with a well-rounded perspective and barometer of the fantasy baseball marketplace.
Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner: September 21–27
by Jake Mailhot
September 18, 2026
Welcome to the final Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner of the year. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit for Ottoneu points leagues. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.
I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence.
Make sure you’re paying attention to the probable pitchers for that final weekend of the season. Some teams who are already locked into their playoff berth may take the opportunity to rest some of their starters ahead of the postseason. There are a handful of starters (Max Fried, Zack Wheeler, Logan Henderson) who are projected for two-start weeks but I could definitely see their respective teams skip that final start of the season to ensure everyone is well rested for the playoffs.
162-Game Pace Stars to Draft: Logan Henderson
“Billy, we’ve got 38 home runs, 120 RBIs to make up for…”
“Guys, you’re still trying to replace Giambi. I told you we can’t do it. What we might be able to do is recreate him. Recreate him in the aggregate.”
It’s so tempting to head into draft prep season thinking like this. We all have our GM hats on, though we may not all pull it off quite so well.
We scour over projections, building out potential lineups based on how many of each Roto categories we need to fill to finish near the top of the table. Or we look at certain hitters with disdain when they fall underneath our perceived thresholds when it comes to counting stats.
There’s, of course, a lot more that goes into it. Otherwise, what would we be doing here?
But the so-called “back of the baseball card” numbers still matter to us, it’s how we were trained to think about players.
In this series, I’ll point out two starting pitchers and two hitters who I think could fall victim to a bias away from low volume players, depressing their draft day costs for 2027.
Roto Riteup: September 18, 2026
How nice of Luis Medina!
On the Agenda:
- Quick Hits
- Various News and Notes
- Streaming Pitchers
Roto Riteup: September 17, 2026
Raving and ranting!
It was John Rave’s sixth of the season and third in September.
On the Agenda:
- Quick Hits
- Various News and Notes
- Streaming Pitchers
Today’s Comps for Tomorrow’s Aces: Part 2
For many of us, our fantasy baseball seasons are effectively over. It wasn’t our year. But instead of sulking, something many of us do so well is to immediately turn to draft prep and the next season.
In doing that, part of the process is looking back at the season to see some of the emerging young players and ascertain whether or not their emergence was real and repeatable. One of the classic ways to do this is by looking for comparisons of these young players to established major leaguers to serve as proof of concepts.
Scouts have done this forever and it has worked in the recent past. Hunter Brown’s association to Justin Verlander foreshadowed the former’s rise to ace status. Many in the industry connected Parker Messick’s arsenal and style of pitching with Hyun-Jin Ryu, and Messick has had similar results so far. Chase Burns’ reliance on the fastball and slider was compared to a young Spencer Strider’s prior to the former’s debut, and Burns has been just as good as the vintage version of Strider.
Over the course of the next few months, I’ll provide a handful of potentially instructive comps we can make to help illuminate this growing crop of young starting pitchers.
For Part 1 of this series, where I find comps for today’s young emerging aces, I took a look at the Mariners’ Kade Anderson, comparing his arsenal, arm slot, and potential prospect arc to that of perennial All Star, Max Fried.
Today, I’ll compare two Dominican flamethrowers in Angels’ rookie Walbert Ureña and Marlins’ veteran Sandy Alcantara. Read the rest of this entry »