Starting Pitcher 2026 Fantasy Rankings

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.

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 amazing 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.

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 could 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.

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.

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!).

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.

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.

Grant Holmes ended the season with a partially torn UCL.

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.

José Soriano ended on IL with a forearm contusion.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.