Starting Pitcher Chart – August 21st

August 21, 2023

The chart includes their season performance, their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness over the last 30 days, 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 basically a risky 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.

Thresholds open up a bit on Mondays, particularly in weekly lineup leagues where you have to commit for the 2-step on the weekend, but even in daily lineup leagues because you have the rest of the week to catch up if a gamble falls through… well, within reason… probably won’t be able to outrun a 10-run bomb or anything, but those are really rare anyway.

—

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member

It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.

We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.

1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.

2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.

3. Dark mode and Classic mode!

4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.

5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.

6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)

7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.

8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.

9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.

10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!

We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Click Here To Become a Member

Monday, August 21st, Starter Notes

RK	PITCHER	TM		OPP	10	12	15+	IP	ERA	WHIP	K-BB	wOBA RK-L30	wOBA RK-Season	NOTE
1	Luis Castillo	SEA	at	CHW	x	x	x	150.1	3.23	1.05	21%	28th	30th	OK, it’s time to kick it into another gear down the stretch here and make me look good for the AL Cy pick
2	Jordan Montgomery	TEX	at	ARI	x	x	x	139	3.30	1.24	16%	16th	19th	Might be a light-K outing as he already doesn’t K a ton and ARI rarely Ks vL
3	Aaron Nola	PHI		SFG	x	x	x	153.1	4.58	1.15	19%	30th	20th	It’s been an uneven season, but there’s just no world where he comes out of my lineup
4	Blake Snell	SDP		MIA	x	x	x	136	2.65	1.26	17%	21st	8th	MLB-best 1.29 ERA since May 25th, far and away the MLB-best (Civale 2.37); he’s also 9-2 in that time
5	Graham Ashcraft	CIN	at	LAA	x	x	x	127	4.89	1.40	8%	27th	9th	Would love for more consistent Ks, but showing he can succeed without em at times
6	Javier Assad	CHC	at	DET	x	x	x	66.2	3.11	1.25	8%	14th	28th	Didn’t think I’d be recommending a Cubs swingman for Wins chasers and yet here we are (at PIT on the wknd)
7	Lucas Giolito	LAA		CIN	x	x	x	142	4.44	1.27	16%	15th	11th	CIN can get anyone on a given night, but they’ve cooled and K quite a bit so I’m rolling w/Gio
8	James Paxton	BOS	at	HOU		x	x	86.1	3.34	1.14	20%	2nd	4th	Surviving a skills dip of late w/a 2.96 ERA in L5 despite 4.47 FIP and 16% K-BB; I’m OK to skip w/LAD on the wknd, too
9	Allan Winans	ATL		NYM		x	x	11.1	1.59	1.06	24%	13th	14th	Sneaky stream here for Wins chasers (NYM, at SFG)… it’s right there in his name! 16% K-BB in AAA; 24% in 11 MLB IP, too
10	Paul Blackburn	OAK		KCR		x	x	72.2	4.09	1.50	15%	3rd	25th	I’ve got some love for the whole 2-step (CHW this wknd) and I’m OK rolling v. KCR even though they’re blazing hot of late
11	Cristian Javier	HOU		BOS			x	122.1	4.49	1.23	14%	9th	6th	Can’t say I expected to be recommending Faedo & Marsh on par w/Javier at any point and I’m only using Javier to get the 2-step (at DET this wknd)
12	Alex Faedo	DET		CHC			x	45.1	5.16	0.99	17%	2nd	7th	A really tough 2-step w/CHC & HOU… at least both are at home, but I’m prob only rolling in a chase situation
13	Alec Marsh	KCR	at	OAK			x	38	5.68	1.68	10%	21st	29th	Only 1 ER v. SEA, but 5 BB (and 14% BB for the yr); it’s a good matchup and he faces SEA again on the wknd… VERY high risk
14	Johnny Cueto	MIA	at	SDP				32.1	5.57	1.11	13%	20th	19th	OK maybe there’s not as much juice here as I thought/hoped… just too many HRs lately (7 in L4), might revisit for at WSN if this goes well
15	Drew Rom	STL	at	PIT				#N/A	#N/A	#N/A	#N/A	25th	21st	MLB debut for the Jack Flaherty return after 2 sharp starts since the trade, but he did have a 5.34 ERA/1.70 WHIP w/BAL
16	Slade Cecconi	ARI		TEX				10.1	3.48	1.26	7%	8th	2nd	Schedule is very unkind coming up: TEX, at LAD, BAL for his next 3
17	Sean Manaea	SFG	at	PHI				81	4.89	1.26	20%	9th	15th	Just not sure the upside is worth taking on the risk
18	David Peterson	NYM	at	ATL				72.2	5.45	1.65	13%	3rd	1st	No thanks
19	Bailey Falter	PIT		STL				53.2	4.86	1.49	11%	11th	12th	No thanks
20	Touki Toussaint	CHW		SEA				50.1	4.47	1.45	6%	4th	16th	No thanks

Recommendations for Roto 5×5 Leagues