Starting Pitcher Chart – August 25th, 2026

by Paul Sporer

August 25, 2026

Daily SP Chart archive
2-Start podcast episode
SP Rankings (last update: 7/24 | next: September)

Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.

C’mon baseball, let something play out exactly like it should. Let us see Williams strike out 20 Angels on Tuesday! He’s running a 40% K rate in the L30 days and 32% for the year while LAA’s 25% team K rate is tied for the highest in the league.
King is getting PIT at a perfect time with their normally righty-mashing offense in a lull, sitting just 21st in wOBA over the L30 days. King has run an essentially neutral split this year (.004 pts of OPS difference favoring his vR work) so the lefty-heavy Pirates lineup doesn’t threaten him like it does so many other righties this year.
I still can’t envision myself benching Skenes for fear of missing of a gem. By the same token, I can’t keep banging my head against the wall and leaving him top 3 in the face of a 6.59 ERA/1.68 WHIP/17% K-BB in his L5 starts. The funny thing is that 17% K-BB is still pretty good and a level many pitchers would strive for during their hot streaks. And yet, when the bar is set at a career 24% level, it is still disappointing to see even an above average mark like 17% (league avg. for SPs is 14%). Reminder that he won three straight with a 2.45 ERA/1.22 WHIP/21% K-BB right before this streak. Yes, the 1.22 WHIP was indicative that he wasn’t back back but his good starts are still useful for anyone rostering him.
I’ve grown so comfortable with Thornton so quickly that I might be overrating him a touch. I’m still good running him anywhere even in a tough MIL start, but he should probably be a bit lower in the 3-x ranks thanks to relatively modest K% and K-BB% rates.
Jobe has already shown the volatility of returning from TJ – elite in the first start, a disaster inning unraveled the second start, and then a solid rebound in the third start, though still 3 BB showing the spotty command and control which is a TJ Returner hallmark. The upside keeps him a 3-x reco, but any given start can be a crashout for him which is just part of the deal with TJRs.
You don’t have to be deep into the second- and third-level stats to realize Ureña is running hot with his 2.80 ERA. The 1.24 WHIP and 12% BB (which are, of course, related) make it tough to maintain such a low mark, but he is helping himself survive the control with exceptional hit and HR suppression (.197 AVG, 0.56 HR9). The cold water there is that sustaining Top 10 BABIP and HR/FB rates isn’t easy, especially with an average 23% K%. Add it all up and he’s walking a bit of tightrope as the 4.42 SIERA preaches some caution, but I don’t think the concerns rise to level of benching him. I’m sure some 10-team rotations are deep enough to not need him, but getting him out of a 12- or 15-team rotation seems remarkably difficult barring some unexpected depth.

I’ll have some more comments in the morning! 🫡

—

Starting Pitcher Chart August 25th

Rk	PITCHER	Team	Opponent	T	10	12	15+	IP	ERA	WHIP	K%	K-BB	OPP K%	opp wOBA RK
1	Gavin Williams	CLE	at LAA	R	x	x	x	154.2	3.72	1.09	32%	25%	25%	28
2	Payton Tolle	BOS	at MIA	L	x	x	x	120	3.08	1.08	28%	21%	23%	22
3	Jacob deGrom	TEX	at CHW	R	x	x	x	126.2	3.77	1.13	30%	24%	24%	12
4	Kyle Harrison	MIL	at NYM	L	x	x	x	98.1	2.84	1.11	30%	24%	23%	16
5	Ian Seymour	TBR	at DET	L	x	x	x	101.1	4.17	1.14	29%	22%	23%	18
6	Michael King	SDP	v. PIT	R	x	x	x	149	3.38	1.17	21%	11%	24%	3
7	Brandon Pfaadt	ARI	v. CHC	R	x	x	x	98.1	3.39	1.14	17%	11%	22%	5
8	Tyler Glasnow	LAD	at ATL	R	x	x	x	39.2	2.72	0.83	33%	24%	22%	18
9	Clay Holmes	CHC	at ARI	R	x	x	x	68.2	2.49	1.11	18%	10%	20%	29
10	Zac Thornton	NYM	v. MIL	L	x	x	x	50.1	3.04	1.13	18%	11%	22%	19
11	Paul Skenes	PIT	at SDP	R	x	x	x	139	3.95	1.14	30%	23%	22%	15
12	Jackson Jobe	DET	v. TBR	R	x	x	x	14	4.50	1.36	18%	10%	19%	1
13	Walbert Ureña	LAA	v. CLE	R	x	x	x	112.2	2.80	1.24	23%	10%	21%	24
14	George Kirby	SEA	v. PHI	R	x	x	x	140	4.18	1.36	20%	14%	22%	22
15	Taj Bradley	MIN	at ATH	R	x	x	x	140.2	3.90	1.28	26%	16%	21%	17
16	Anthony Kay	CHW	v. TEX	L		x	x	127.1	3.96	1.33	18%	10%	24%	5
17	Aaron Nola	PHI	at SEA	R		x	x	137	5.12	1.42	25%	17%	23%	9
18	Will Warren	NYY	v. HOU	R		x	x	122	4.43	1.40	23%	15%	22%	7
19	Andrew Alvarez	WSN	v. COL	L		x	x	80	3.60	1.34	22%	11%	25%	30
20	Max Scherzer	TOR	v. KCR	R		x	x	45	7.40	1.51	16%	6%	21%	21
21	Gage Jump	ATH	v. MIN	L		x	x	82	4.83	1.51	24%	13%	22%	13
22	Seth Lugo	KCR	at TOR	R			x	145.1	4.71	1.38	18%	11%	19%	20
23	Bryce Elder	ATL	v. LAD	R			x	137.2	3.92	1.23	20%	12%	21%	2
24	Tyler Phillips	MIA	v. BOS	R				100.2	3.67	1.37	18%	9%	21%	19
25	Adrian Houser	SFG	v. CIN	R				108	4.08	1.31	16%	8%	26%	30
26	Matthew Liberatore	STL	v. BAL	L				125	5.04	1.44	23%	15%	26%	11
27	Ethan Pecko	HOU	at NYY	R				3.2	4.91	1.64	22%	6%	25%	16
28	Brady Singer	CIN	at SFG	R				131.2	4.72	1.42	18%	11%	20%	14
29	Chris Bassitt	BAL	at STL	R				67.1	5.08	1.62	15%	6%	21%	27
30	Mason Adams	COL	at WSN	R									21%	10

Recommendations for Roto 5×5 Leagues

Intro

The chart includes their performance for 2026, their opponent’s wOBA versus the pitcher’s handedness, and recently added opponent’s K% (also v. SP handedness), my general start/sit recommendation for 10-team, 12-team, and 15-team (or more) leagues – essentially a shallow, medium, deep league setup – and then a note about some, most, or all depending on the day. 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 for standard 5×5 roto leagues, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you are protecting ratios or chasing counting numbers. I usually won’t have much to write about aces who are locked into our rotations. If you want to discuss someone further, please feel free to leave a comment. I usually do a few sweeps of the comments before game time in case there are time-sensitive questions.

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

Color Coding:

Green – Good Matchup (lower OPS output by SP opponent) – 21st to 30th
Yellow – OK – 11th to 20th
Red – Bad – 1st to 10th