Starting Pitcher Chart – April 16th, 2024

Daily SP Chart archive

How do y’all handle Hunter Greene? Do you try to time him and skip home starts? Or just go all out and use every start? Obviously he’s a start in Seattle, but I feel like you almost have to do the latter and just run him everywhere. He was a top 150 pick so even in the shallowest formats, he is part of the upper 2/3rds of a roster so there is some real expectation of production. I can envision having a rotation deep enough to spot him a bit in 10-teamers, but in 12-teamers or more, I can’t see sitting him, especially because his splits aren’t even that severe so you can find yourself sitting gems and eating duds.

He and Nick Lodolo are tough ones for me because I’m a really big fan of both, but Great American Ballpark’s 128 HR Park Factor the last three years paired with Greene’s 1.6 HR9 and Lodolo’s 1.4 HR9 rates kept me away at the draft table. I know there’s a world where they both put it together enough to start suppressing homers, even at home, and fulfill their breakout prophecies. And that world is what feeds my FOMO with them.

Skipping Lodolo was just the injury to start the season and I don’t love drafting already-injured guys in the NFBC universe (7 reserves, no IL). But when push came to shove with Greene requiring a pick around 100 to really secure him (137 ADP in the Main Event with a min pick of 89), I just couldn’t see it. In one of my drafts, I took Tanner Bibee (who also throws on Tuesday) and Shota Imanaga in the 2 picks where I was really considering Greene, who went 4 picks after Imanaga at pick 125.

In my other draft, he lasted until 150 but I was hitter focused with 3 of my 4 picks from 101-150 and Yu Darvish as my only pitcher. I can certainly understand the argument for Greene over Darvish, but even at age-37 I felt more confident about what I can get with Darvish. They’ve been about the same thus far per our new Player Rater with Greene at 84 among pitchers and Darvish at 92. It seems like Greene has more upside because we can dream on just about anything if that stuff comes with a summer of premium command a la Germán Márquez in 2018, but we’re also not that far removed from Darvish’s 3.10 ERA/0.95 WHIP of 2022 which still exists as a potential upside. He started off that season with an 11% BB rate in 4 starts before delivering a 4% BB rate over his next 26 starts, fueling the excellent season.

Who do you like the rest of the way: Greene or Darvish?

The chart includes their last season performance until we get some actual data for this year, their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness from this year so far (this is changed as of April 11th and I’ll start to add the SP’s data when we start getting 4-5 starts for most guys), my general start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues, and then a note about them (notes will be more statistical-based once we get some sample to work with). 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 basically a 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 value focusing on roto.