Starting Pitcher Rankings Update (June)

Here is my latest starting pitcher rankings update! Please review the May 18th update for information on the tiers. Keep in mind that this is a narrower focus than just “rest of season” as I’ll be updating these again at the All-Star break. Pitching is just too volatile to have confidence in a single ranking set for more than 4-6 weeks at a time.

Hell, things will probably change this weekend that will make me reconsider some slots, but we can deal with those on a one-off situation. The tiers are what’s important. I’ll reiterate again that the Must-Starts aren’t automatically the best pitchers, but rather the guys that you can’t sit with any confidence (they don’t have a platoon split or home-road split and their track record speaks more than the first three months of this season.

Or at least carries enough weight not to overreact to what we’ve seen this year. At the same time, when a guy has made changes and he’s clicking on all cylinders, we need to ride that wave, especially with the scarcity of reliable arms in the new Home Run Era. Please leave your questions and comments (or let me know if I forgot anyone meaningful) below and I’ll get to them sparingly over the weekend (I’m off to San Diego!) and then in full force on Monday. I’ll also be doing an explanation piece early next week!

Copied directly from the May 18th update: 

The tiers are as follows:

Must Start – Should be pretty obvious, but these are the guys who always start. Again, it isn’t just the very best guys. There are second and third tier arms in terms of market value that I’d start every time out. They don’t have an obvious split or weakness that would give you a better chance at picking off their poor starts. Some of them could be “No Coors Field”, but it’s predominantly set it and forget it.

Usually Start – If “No Coors Field” is 30/70 with the MS group, it’s more like 60/40 or 70/30 with this group. You have to have a reason not to start them right now in most formats. You might feel like you can spot them properly, but we’re just not that precise in identifying when a solid arm will falter. These guys are good enough to thwart any opponent even on something less than their best day. Yes, Jason Vargas is in this group. I know he was just roughed up in the Bronx by the Yankees. He still had a 10% swinging strike rate and has been below that mark just once this year.

Spot Start – Flawed talents. A lot of these guys are on the cusp of or have been in the Usually Start tier, but currently you’re looking to curate their starts a bit where you can. They could also be a US tier arm here temporarily. Pay very close attention to gamelogs of pitchers, get a feel for how they arrived at their bottom line numbers. Not all ERAs are created equally and that’s why it’s not a talent gauge at all.

Could Start – I know many of you are dealing with some brutal pitching staff conditions right now after drafting a rotation you thought would be a strength (had one guy show me his Thor, Bumgarner, Paxton DL… yes, seriously), so you might find yourself in this tier a little more than you’d like. There is some talent to be and plucking the right two-start week could really set you up. This is essentially the Spot Star tier for single leagues or super-deep mixers (16+ teams).

Don’t Start – You don’t want to be here. This is when you start looking at middle relievers as the better option. You’ll see what I mean.

Injured – I find it hard/worthless to rank injured guys. I just think the outlook on injured players varies so much person-to-person that you can’t really use an injured player’s ranking for anything. I will identify the tier I’d put the injured guy in when healthy, though.

Minors – These guys aren’t in the majors. You needed that explanation, didn’t you?