Starting Pitcher Chart – August 30th

August 30, 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.

New SP rankings coming out today!

—

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

Starter Notes August 30, 2023

RK	PITCHER	GAME	10	12	15+	IP	ERA	WHIP	K-BB	wOBA RK L30/Season	NOTE
1	Gerrit Cole	NYY at DET	x	x	x	168	2.95	1.04	21%	12th/28th
2	Brandon Woodruff	MIL at CHC	x	x	x	34	2.65	0.88	25%	7th/10th	Should be a fun rubber match here and MIL gets another shot w/an ace
3	Zach Eflin	TBR at MIA	x	x	x	144.1	3.55	1.04	22%	20th/23rd
4	Logan Webb	SFG v CIN	x	x	x	174.1	3.51	1.10	20%	16th/13th
5	Framber Valdez	HOU at BOS	x	x	x	161.2	3.40	1.11	18%	17th/11th	Effectively wild at DET w/0 H and 5 BB in 7 IP
6	Sonny Gray	MIN v CLE	x	x	x	150	3.06	1.19	16%	19th/21st
7	Tanner Bibee	CLE at MIN	x	x	x	119.2	3.01	1.20	16%	6th/7th	Just keeps rolling and I can’t see taking him outta the lineup anywhere
8	Chris Bassitt	TOR v WSN	x	x	x	157.1	4.00	1.23	15%	24th/25th	Riding a line where an extra mistake or two usually results in 4 ER: 2, 4, 1, 4, 2, 4 over his L6
9	Bryce Miller	SEA v OAK	x	x	x	101.2	3.90	1.04	18%	25th/30th
10	Cristopher Sánchez	PHI v LAA	x	x	x	70.1	3.33	1.01	19%	29th/15th	With LAA in a tailspin vL of late, Sánchez is viable in all formats
11	Ryan Pepiot	LAD v ARI	x	x	x	9	2.00	0.78	29%	23rd/9th	Luzardo has a longer track record, but I’d rather go w/Pep in a shallower lg if I’m only picking one as his newfound control makes incredibly appealing
12	Kutter Crawford	BOS v HOU	x	x	x	101	3.65	1.09	19%	10th/15th	He’s definitely someone I’m using in shallower lgs if I’m in chase mode bc while it’s a tough matchup, I really like the arm so it doesn’t even feel super risky
13	Jesús Luzardo	MIA v TBR		x	x	143.1	3.77	1.25	21%	14th/9th	Runs VERY hot and cold: 50 average Game Score in his L9 w/a high of 76 and low of 15 (4 at 65+, 4 under 45)… feeling lucky?
14	Kyle Hendricks	CHC v MIL		x	x	104.1	3.80	1.14	12%	22nd/24th
15	Dylan Cease	CHW v BAL		x	x	142.1	4.87	1.47	16%	9th/16th	A more extreme version of Luzardo w/a 44 avg in his L8 including 4 at 60+ and 4 under 40
16	Kyle Gibson	BAL v CHW		x	x	158.1	4.89	1.32	13%	27th/29th	Always a risky stream as he doesn’t have a clear opponent-based split, in fact his 16% K-BB v. good tms is 6 pts higher than v. crummy ones but his ERA is over a half run worse
17	Andre Jackson	PIT at KCR		x	x	36.2	4.91	1.23	18%	15th/27th	Is there something here: 3.32 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 19% K-BB in 19 IP w/PIT… he’s gone 70+ pitches in his L3 outings, too
18	Dane Dunning	TEX at NYM		x	x	136.2	3.36	1.21	12%	21st/18th
19	Hunter Greene	CIN at SFG		x	x	80	5.06	1.53	19%	30th/20th	Almost prefer him on the road w/his HR issues
20	Brandon Pfaadt	ARI at LAD			x	67	5.91	1.36	14%	8th/2nd	3 HR in AAA return, but just 3 more in L6 en route to a 3.31 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 16% K-BB in 35 IP… a terrifying matchuo, but worthy Hail Mary for those in chase mode
21	Reid Detmers	LAA at PHI			x	120	5.03	1.38	17%	7th/10th	In that Luzardo/Cease class w/a particularly wild trio of Game Scores in his L3: 12, 77, 38
22	Miles Mikolas	STL v SDP			x	158.1	4.66	1.30	12%	17th/19th
23	Patrick Corbin	WSN at TOR				149.1	4.70	1.47	9%	9th/7th
24	Denyi Reyes	NYM v TEX				12	7.50	1.92	9%	11th/3rd
25	Rich Hill	SDP at STL				133	5.21	1.50	11%	24th/18th
26	Joey Wentz	DET v NYY				84.1	6.62	1.65	11%	3rd/5th
27	Kyle Freeland	COL v ATL				135	5.00	1.47	8%	4th/1st
28	Angel Zerpa	KCR v PIT				17.1	7.27	1.50	12%	23rd/22nd
29	Zach Neal	OAK at SEA				17	6.88	1.82	5%	3rd/12th
30	Darius Vines	ATL at COL				#N/A	#N/A	#N/A	#N/A	18th/17th	25-yr old righty expected to get the shot — 2.70 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 19% K-BB in 43 IP across 3 levels

Recommendations for Roto 5×5 Leagues