Top 175 SP for 2020 by Paul Sporer February 28, 2020 Can you believe March is just two days away? Draft season is upon us! I’ve updated my rankings and added 50 starters since the last one came out in January. I’ll have another update in March with some notes on most of the entrants (I can’t promise I’ll have a tidbit on all 175 arms, but many will have a stat or note similar to this run of rankings). As you know, I feel there are globs of talent throughout the SP rankings wherein a 20, even 30 spot difference isn’t as vast as it seems because we’re splitting hairs between very similar arms and yet even knowing that I still agonize over the slottings and move guys up or down 2-3 spots like crazy before posting a new set of ranks. You’ll see tiers set up by the blue bars and that indicates the beginning of a new tier. Enough chatter, let’s get to the rankings and start discussing them in the comments below. Again, if you think #34 should #29, I’m less interested in that as I probably agree that they could be flipped. Let’s focus on the bigger splits, like if you feel #83 should be #45 or #27 should be #62, etc… Of course you can also just make comments or ask questions about a pitcher without relating it to their ranking. I’m open to discussing my thought process on any of the 175 pitchers. In the March run, I’m probably going to rank about 70 and then separate the other 105 into specific groups (prospects, injury arms, K-heavy, etc…) since I think that has some use in addition to a 1-175 list. Top 175 SP for 2020 PLAYER TM 1 Justin Verlander HOU 2 Jacob deGrom NYM 3 Max Scherzer WAS 4 Gerrit Cole NYY 5 Walker Buehler LAD 6 Blake Snell TB 7 Stephen Strasburg WAS 8 Patrick Corbin WAS 9 Shane Bieber CLE 10 Clayton Kershaw LAD 11 Luis Castillo CIN 12 Jack Flaherty STL 13 Chris Sale BOS 14 Charlie Morton TB 15 Yu Darvish CHC 16 Noah Syndergaard NYM 17 Lucas Giolito CWS 18 Mike Clevinger CLE 19 Zack Greinke HOU 20 Frankie Montas OAK 21 Chris Paddack SD 22 Tyler Glasnow TB 23 Aaron Nola PHI 24 Carlos Carrasco CLE 25 Max Fried ATL 26 Sonny Gray CIN 27 Brandon Woodruff MIL 28 José Berríos MIN 29 Corey Kluber TEX 30 Lance Lynn TEX 31 Trevor Bauer CIN 32 Kyle Hendricks CHC 33 Mike Soroka ATL 34 Jake Odorizzi MIN 35 Zack Wheeler PHI 36 Shohei Ohtani LAA 37 Julio Urías LAD 38 Carlos Martinez STL 39 Kenta Maeda MIN 40 Hyun-Jin Ryu TOR 41 Joe Musgrove PIT 42 Madison Bumgarner ARI 43 Jesus Luzardo OAK 44 David Price LAD 45 Luke Weaver ARI 46 Zac Gallen ARI 47 Mike Minor TEX 48 James Paxton NYY 49 Eduardo Rodriguez BOS 50 Robbie Ray ARI 51 Dinelson Lamet SD 52 Matthew Boyd DET 53 German Márquez COL 54 Jon Gray COL 55 Mike Foltynewicz ATL 56 Mitch Keller PIT 57 Lance McCullers Jr. HOU 58 Jose Urquidy HOU 59 Aaron Civale CLE 60 Masahiro Tanaka NYY 61 Sean Manaea OAK 62 Joey Lucchesi SD 63 Andrew Heaney LAA 64 Sandy Alcantara MIA 65 A.J. Puk OAK 66 Dylan Cease CWS 67 Dylan Bundy LAA 68 Yonny Chirinos TB 69 Ryan Yarbrough TB 70 Jeff Samardzija SF 71 Homer Bailey MIN 72 Marcus Stroman NYM 73 Chris Archer PIT 74 Caleb Smith MIA 75 Kyle Gibson TEX 76 Jordan Lyles TEX 77 Pablo López MIA 78 Steven Matz NYM 79 Josh Lindblom MIL 80 Wade Miley CIN 81 Anibal Sánchez WAS 82 Garrett Richards SD 83 Adrian Houser MIL 84 Reynaldo López CWS 85 Josh James HOU 86 Griffin Canning LAA 87 Nathan Eovaldi BOS 88 Marco Gonzales SEA 89 Anthony DeSclafani CIN 90 Cole Hamels ATL 91 Julio Teheran LAA 92 Johnny Cueto SF 93 Matt Shoemaker TOR 94 Daniel Norris DET 95 Zach Plesac CLE 96 Jordan Montgomery NYY 97 Ross Stripling LAD 98 Miles Mikolas STL 99 Zach Eflin PHI 100 Yusei Kikuchi SEA 101 Jose Quintana CHC 102 Spencer Turnbull DET 103 Dustin May LAD 104 John Means BAL 105 Nick Pivetta PHI 106 Tanner Roark TOR 107 Chase Anderson TOR 108 J.A. Happ NYY 109 Brad Peacock HOU 110 Kwang-hyun Kim STL 111 Forrest Whitley HOU 112 Michael Kopech CWS 113 MacKenzie Gore SD 114 Vince Velasquez PHI 115 Dakota Hudson STL 116 Mike Fiers OAK 117 Chris Bassitt OAK 118 Patrick Sandoval LAA 119 Freddy Peralta MIL 120 Dallas Keuchel CWS 121 Jon Lester CHC 122 Domingo Germán NYY 123 Kevin Gausman SF 124 Drew Smyly SF 125 Michael Pineda MIN 126 Jordan Yamamoto MIA 127 Alex Wood LAD 128 Gio González CWS 129 Rich Hill MIN 130 Jonathan Loaisiga NYY 131 Zach Davies SD 132 Tony Gonsolin LAD 133 Tyler Beede SF 134 Brad Keller KC 135 Nate Pearson TOR 136 Matt Manning DET 137 Casey Mize DET 138 Deivi Garcia NYY 139 Austin Voth WAS 140 Brendan McKay TB 141 Sixto Sanchez MIA 142 Martín Pérez BOS 143 Tyler Mahle CIN 144 Merrill Kelly ARI 145 Alex Young ARI 146 Corbin Burnes MIL 147 Jake Arrieta PHI 148 Danny Duffy KC 149 Jakob Junis KC 150 Eric Lauer MIL 151 Brett Anderson MIL 152 Mike Leake ARI 153 Randy Dobnak MIN 154 Taijuan Walker SEA 155 Sean Newcomb ATL 156 Michael Fulmer DET 157 Ian Anderson ATL 158 Logan Webb SF 159 Justus Sheffield SEA 160 Jorge López KC 161 Spencer Howard PHI 162 Michael Wacha NYM 163 Mike Montgomery KC 164 Brusdar Graterol LAD 165 Justin Dunn SEA 166 Tarik Skubal DET 167 Joe Ross WAS 168 Devin Smeltzer MIN 169 Kyle Wright ATL 170 Rick Porcello NYM 171 Daniel Ponce de Leon STL 172 Bryse Wilson ATL 173 Jimmy Nelson LAD 174 Iván Nova DET 175 Mitchell White LAD