Top 24 Starting Pitchers for 2017
Let me just state out front that this isn’t just subject to change, but that it will change. I don’t think that fact makes it useless to roll out an early top 24. This gives us a baseline and hopefully fosters some discussion that will impact that changes sure to come over the fall and winter. Heck, I might have an update in early November after marinating on the entirety of the 2016 season for a month or so.
Here are my top 24 with a quick comment on each:
- Clayton Kershaw: He sits fifth on ESPN’s Player Rater among starters despite just 135 innings because he’s insane.
- Max Scherzer: Had a 4.05 ERA and big home run issue through two months of season, but he’s rallied with a 2.10 ERA in his last 20 starts and now rates as the best fantasy pitcher for the season. He allowed 15 HRs in those first 11 starts, but just 11 in the last 20 along with a filthy 169 strikeouts in 137.3 innings.
- Jose Fernandez: Toting a 2.86 ERA on the season despite some consistent road woes – 6 of his 8 starts with 4+ ER have come on the road. I don’t see this becoming a long-term issue, though. He still has a 30% strikeout rate and 3.7 K:BB ratio in 77.7 road innings.
- Madison Bumgarner: Does he get the credit he deserves? I know crying East Coast Bias is a little hackneyed, but he seems somewhat underpraised for a guy about to finish his fourth straight season with a sub-3.00 ERA – this time a career-best 2.57 with a career-high 241 strikeouts in what might also be a career-high innings if he finishes more than five next time out.
- Chris Sale: Only fanned 8.3 batters per nine in his first 12 starts under the guise of efficiency, but his pitch counts weren’t any better so he went back to striking a bunch of guys out with a 9.8 mark in his last 17 starts including all four of his double-digit strikeout outings. He’s also averaging 7.4 innings per start over that stretch. Workhorse, strikeout stud, and still just 28 years old. Imagine if the White Sox ever get good with him.
- Corey Kluber: Could be angling for a second Cy Young and showing just how useless his 9-16 record was last year. His season has been virtually identical, but better support has essentially flipped the record. 2015 v. 2016: 7.7 v. 7.0 H/9, 9.9 v. 9.5 K/9, 1.8 v. 2.4 BB/9, 0.9 HR/9 in both seasons, 9-16 v. 17-9 W-L record.
- Yu Darvish: Should wind up with about 120 regular season innings between rehab and the majors plus whatever he does in the playoffs so I feel confident that we’ll get a full 200+ output next year.
- Noah Syndergaard: Remember how we felt rock solid confident in about 20 pitchers to be fantasy studs this year? I think it runs about six deep this year before we start to get serious questions. I’m betting on Darvish, but he’s no guarantee in what will be his first full season off of TJ and then Thor has battled minor ailments while his rotation-mates all fall to bigger issues, but the risk is certainly worth the return.
- Carlos Carrasco: We’ve still only seen one 30+ start season and he’ll be 30 years old next year. While some of his recent injuries have been fluky, he did have shoulder and elbow issues that made him a late-bloomer in the first place. I don’t think the broken hand that ended his 2016 prematurely should impact his 2017.
- David Price: For all the talk of his struggles (and he’s had some for sure), he’s still been a top 20 arm this year thanks to a strong WHIP (1.18), great strikeout rate (25%), AL-high in innings (211.7), and a bucket full of Ws (16). I think he’ll improve that 3.91 ERA in year 2 with Boston.
- Jake Arrieta: Another situation where his flaws – er, flaw as it’s just the walk rate has been highlighted to a degree that you might’ve missed the 2.96 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 24% K rate, and 17 wins that have him sitting 12th among starters this year. His 10% walk rate is nearly twice that of last year’s 5.5% mark, but when you pace the MLB two years in a row with a 6.0 H/9, you can overcome some free passes.
- Stephen Strasburg: This is a gamble since his health is very much up in the air, but this ranking obviously assumes he doesn’t worsen and get subjected to a second Tommy John surgery. I know he’s polarizing in the fantasy community, but the talent is unquestionably elite so I’m still drafting him as a #1.
- Johnny Cueto: Regularly perceived as an injury risk, but four years of 212 or more innings over the last five runs entirely counter to that. In fact, even with just 60.7 IP in the fifth of those seasons still only pushes him to 14th in total innings since 2012 (946). He’s also second in ERA during that span (min. 500 IP) with a 2.80 mark.
- Jon Lester: The last three seasons are arguably his three best which is unorthodox given normal aging curves, but his skills are really stable so I feel confident even at 33 years old. That 86% LOB rate will almost certainly regress, but I’ll take 200+ innings of a 3.30ish ERA here, too.
- Justin Verlander: Over the last two calendar years, he’s6th in WHIP, 13th in K-BB%, and 15th in ERA. I understand some reservations health-wise for someone headed into his age-34 season, but he only has one truly bad season and it was tied to injury.
- Masahiro Tanaka: It’s not easy to have a quiet season in New York, but Tanaka hasn’t gotten much ink for what is currently an AL-best 3.07 ERA. We can’t ignore the back-to-back seasons of strikeout decline, but the swinging strike rate is a just a half percentage point lower than last year. Perhaps the biggest surprise of his season is the fact that his HR rate improved from last year despite the league seeing a sharp jump in the longball.
- Danny Duffy: This is obviously a huge jump in his stock, but the 27-year old lefty didn’t experience some colossal innings jump and the skills strongly support his excellent season. We always knew the raw talent was there and it finally manifested into a top-20 SP season. Homers are usually the culprit when things go sideways (1.2 HR/9, 5 multi-HR games) for the flyball pitcher, but it strikes me as a fixable issue given his stuff. In fact, his homers have kinda ebbed and flowed this year: 1.9 in first 9 starts, 0.5 in next 10, and then 2.3 in these last five, including three in Boston. Has a Carrasco feel to it where it’s a giant-but-reliable leap in short order.
- Kenta Maeda: Quick, who has the 20th-best swinging strike rate among qualified starters this year? No, it’s not Maeda, dummy, I tricked you! He’s 15th!! Boom, roasted. His brilliant debut doesn’t get nearly enough credit for keeping LA afloat as the rotation crumbled around him. It’s hard to avoid the Asian comparisons when pitchers come over and he was seen more in the Hisashi Iwakuma/Hiroki Kuroda range, but has performed more like Tanaka. Not bad for $3.1 mil.
- Chris Archer: The high-4.00s ERA he carried into the All-Star break has no doubt shaped his perception, but it might’ve caused you overlook his 3.20 second half ERA with 91 strikeouts and a 6.0 K:BB ratio in 78.7 innings. That said, don’t be expecting a heavy discount at the draft table. It’s only one mock, but he went 35th overall in my first 2017 draft.
- Carlos Martinez: He dropped some strikeouts with a commensurate swinging strike rate decline, but his WHIP improved and there was minimal change to his ERA (+0.15) and I’m very much willing to still bet on a 25-year old who throws 96 with a disgusting changeup (49% K, .486 OPS).
- Rich Hill: OK, I’ll admit that I don’t necessarily believe Hill will finish with the 21st-best season among starters next year, but he’s so good when he pitches that I’ll gamble to hopefully get 100 excellent innings and fill in around him resulting in a roster spot that nets a top-20ish arm. You may be surprised to learn that his 105.3 innings so far this year has him 20th on the Player Rater. Health, durability, and age will depress his price, but the skills are undeniably great.
- Jacob deGrom: The elbow surgery isn’t expected to impact the start of his 2017 season so I’m expecting the continued studliness we’ve seen over the last three seasons.
- Cole Hamels: The surge in WHIP is a little concerning as he added a full walk to his rate for a career-worst 3.6 BB/9, but everything else was in line with his career levels and I could definitely see him trimming the walks and getting the WHIP back into the 1.10s.
- Zack Greinke: There’s some speculation behind this pick as I could see him leaving Arizona via trade and winding up in a better situation, namely back with the Dodgers. It’s not that he couldn’t be a top-24 guy with Arizona, but obviously his outlook improves if he leaves that dumpster fire.
Thanks! Who would move the most if you did a keeper ranking?
Good question. Hill, Hamels, and Greinke are gone for sure. Guys like Porcello, Cole, Velasquez, Stroman, and A.Sanchez would be considered to jump in
McCullers too I would imagine
Overall great list, Paul. Personally, I would move Carrasco, Strasburg, Syndergaard, and Hill down based on injury. I would move Cueto and Archer up and would add Aaron Sanchez.
I *really* wanted to add Sanchez and I’d tab him as one of my biggest candidates to maybe jump into the top 24 with offseason analysis. Need to watch some more starts and dig deeper on others, too.
lol, this made me laugh given the unusual size of this list… “I loved him, but I just simply *could not* find a place for him on my ‘Top 999,999 List’. Terrible shame to leave him off: oh well, maybe next year I’ll find room” 😉
I don’t get it, I only did 24. That’s kind of a tight list considering even 10 team leagues will draft upwards of 3x that including reserves
Paul also notes that the list will change.
Is throwing a fastball >90mph a criterion for this list? Because that’s about the only reason I can think of why Kyle Hendricks isn’t on this list.
Is he really top-24 material if his ERA regresses to the 2015 level or even to his FIP? He’s 32nd for me right now because he’s pretty BABIP-dependent and the Cubs defense will likely be strong again next year, but he’s very unlikely to repeat the .242 mark.
Saying he’s BABIP dependent makes it sound like he’s been relying on luck and defense. I don’t think he’s been making sacrifices to Fortuna, though, but the good BABIP is from his own power as the god of contact management (see: Tony Blengino’s article from today) http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/late-season-nl-contact-management-update/
He will of course have some ERA regression, but if you take Blengino’s projected ERA- number to be accurate (which doesn’t account for the Cubs great defense), he would still be at a 2.65ish ERA.
Throw in some skill regression, balance that with the Cubs defense, and I think a 2.70 ERA is a good projection for next season.
I don’t know where he falls for me next season, but I think you’re underestimating his skills that don’t show up in FIP.
Well, he has been relying on the defense. He contributes to it via the contact he induces, but .242 is just not something you can rely on. I think a 2.70 projection is really aggressive. Have we learned nothing from Dallas Keuchel? And Hendricks doesn’t even have the super high GB rate that works in a pitcher’s favor for BABIP. I don’t think I’m underestimating him at all, tbh. 32nd is perfectly fair for what he offers Good pitcher, but not great.
There is a general problem of not knowing how much to attribute good team fielding stats to good pitcher contact stats or vice versa. For years this has been an issue with evaluating the Giants and this year it’s happening with the Cubs too. It’s something which people are only beginning to recognize as a complication recently and this disagreement with how to evaluation Hendricks is a good example of how the community has not arrived at any kind of consensus about this.
I don’t understand the logic of Arrieta being 11th while Hendricks is 32nd. Arrieta’s BABIP is .227 so he’s if anything even more BABIP-dependent than Hendricks. Hendricks is lower in ERA (2.08 vs 2.96), FIP (3.25 vs. 3.54), and xFIP (3.56 vs. 3.73). Why would Arrieta project so much better?
It’s not just a ranking based on 2016 performance
Care to elaborate?
What do you mean? 2017 isn’t going to just be a repeat of this year, thus just ordering them based on solely on their ’16 performance would be worthless.
You’re basically saying Hendricks’ .244 is going to regress so we can’t take his stats seriously. Why not do the same for Arrieta’s .227?
Am I really saying that, though? Or am I being realistic about a 2-pitch pitcher with an 88 MPH fastball coming off a career-year heavily aided by gaudy BABIP and LOB% totals? You’re the one boiling it down to BABIP only.
Hmmmm … According to this article on Fangraphs – http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tanner-roark-has-been-washingtons-kyle-hendricks/ – Kyle Hendricks is one of 18 pitchers in MLB with 4 above average pitches.
Calling Hendricks a “2 pitch pitcher” is a distortion of the truth. Even when he was close to that last season, he still used his change up with separate grips depending on the situation which caused different action in the pitches making them look quite different. This year he’s throwing his cutter more often(66 wRC+ against it) and his curve has been much better(73 wRC+ against it). He’ll also occasionally throw his 4 seam though it’s far from something he regularly uses.
If you choose to leave him off this list that’s fine and all but don’t paint a false picture. The fact of the matter is after 439.1 innings he has a 2.91/3.31 ERA/FIP. That’s more than enough sample size to draw conclusions. As I said before, he might no be a top 24 pitcher which is the point of this article but you’re making him sound like a fringe 5th starter. His career BABIP against is around .270 which is basically what he pitched at his 80 inning 2014 call up with a 2.46/3.32 ERA/FIP. He was a little lucky with HR then so if you wanna push his ERA up a few points I wont argue with that but his career 2.90ish ERA seems reasonable.
“As I said before, he might no be a top 24 pitcher which is the point of this article but you’re making him sound like a fringe 5th starter. ”
No I’m not. This is about five comments up:
“I don’t think I’m underestimating him at all, tbh. 32nd is perfectly fair for what he offers. Good pitcher, but not great.”
He’s asking you to elaborate what the rankings are based upon in addition to this season’s performance. Pretty straight forward request.
How is it not obvious that rankings are based on more than just the previous year’s results? I didn’t think it needed to be spelled out. How worthless would a ranking based only on the previous year be?
> How is it not obvious that rankings are based on more than just the previous year’s results?
The inclusion of Rich Hill, for one thing. The last time he threw more than 40 innings in a season was seven years ago, and he’s only thrown 99+ innings three times at age 36. And before this year, his numbers weren’t exactly staggering outside of small sample sizes.
I mean, I guess, but have you seen Hill? I can’t find any reason not to buy into his numbers. He has the age and injury concerns, but skills-wise I have a hard time not buying in. But even this notion is flawed because if it were based solely on ’16, he’d higher.
I’m OK if people want to question the Hill inclusion, but using it to suggest the rankings are based entirely on ’16 is just silly.
“Is he really top-24 material if his ERA regresses to the 2015 level?”
Why do his critics act as if Hendricks started his career in 2015, and that his 2015 season is his true baseline for performance? Seriously, he had an excellent debut with 80 strong innings in 2014; why don’t those innings factor into what we can expect from him? In other words, why is it so much more likely that his true baseline is 2015 when he was so much better in both 2014 and 2016?
Bottom line, Hendricks has a career ERA of 2.91 which ranks 8th among all pitchers with at least 400+ IP from 2014 – 2016. So should we expect that Hendricks will repeat his 2016 performance in 2017? Probably not. But it’s entirely reasonable to expect an average performance from him. And for Kyle Hendricks, an average year is pretty good.
Or maybe you’re judging on “STUFF” instead of “RESULTS.”
I’m sure this is the first of many “notable omission” posts…but why no Kyle Hendricks?
I play in a 16-team mixed 6×5 (obp extra category) keep 12 league. I like to keep 8 position players and 4 pitchers. I own Darvish, Hill, Duffy, Hamels, and Greinke as well as Kenley Jansen.
How many of those guys do you consider keeping a top shelf closer over if any? Keep in mind ESPN’s 5×5 player rater has Jansen as the #2 pitcher overall this year: starters and relievers.
Also do you keep a steady but flawed bat like K Davis or Adam Jones over some/any of these arms?
I would not keep Adam Jones in your format as he’s no OBP contributor, and the speed seems to be long gone. About .270 – 85 – 25 – 85 – 3 with a .320 OBP is the best case scenario there, far as I can see.
Khris Davis, on the other hand, is going to be hard to let go. Guys with 40 HRs and 100 RBIs ought to be protected (news flash!), and I can even see the OBP creeping back up next year.
I would recommend you keep Kenley Jansen and let go of Rich Hill. The age and injury risk are such that you could probably reacquire him at the draft for less $ (or a lower pick) than Kenley would require.
So, my $0.02 is you keep Jansen and Davis and let go of Hill and maybe Hamels.
Verlander will be 34, but he’s never had a serious arm injury. There’s quite a few guys above him that make me far more nervous about an injury. Still, it’s understandable considering his age.
I wanted to say you left Hendricks out but looking at the list, I’m not sure who you bump except maybe Hill. I will say that if he can keep preventing hard contact and keep the BABIP low (i know, no sure thing of course) there is a decent chance he could win 18-20 games a year for the next 3 years so he would be a boost in the wins column.
Re: Price. I’m still worried about a lefty in Fenway. Almost all their great pitchers have been righty. Price actually had better K and BB walk numbers at home this year but his HR went up by 2/3 at home giving him a worse FIP.
Using b-ref’s Play Index, there have only been 2 lefties since 1961 who have pitched in 100 games for the Red Sox where 90% of them were starts (ie, full-time starters): Jon Lester and Bruce Hurst. Hurst was a lot more average than I remembered posting a 101 ERA+ for the Sox over 217 starts and 237 games. Lester was great with a 120 ERA+ for the Sox but he shouldn’t count – the guy just posted back to back fantastic years even though he literally can’t throw to 1st to hold runners. Even lefties look at him and think “That guy is weird.”
Here’s an even more startling number – throw out the minimums and since 1961, 145 left-handers have pitched for the Sox but only 17 of them have had over 90% of their appearances be starts, or in other words, only 17 of them have been regular starters for the Sox. Seventeen over 56 years. Throw out the oddballs who pitched just a few games (Brian Johnson spot start last year, Kent Mercker’s 5 games in 1999, etc.) and set the minimum at 10 games and the number is 12. Make it 30 games (essentially a full season) and the number is 8. The Sox have had 8 regular LH starters over 56 years.
Price is a great pitcher and there is no doubt he could do what Lester did with the Sox, but there just isn’t a lot of history of LH Red Sox pitchers doing well in Fenway.
(BTW, since someone will no doubt point it out, yes, Ruth was a lefty and was a fantastic pitcher. That was 100 years ago. Different era.)
Bob Ojeda, Bill Lee were the ones who popped in my head. Ojeda was better with the Mets. I think he won game 3 in Fenway in ’86.
And Roger Moret. He was a spot starter but had over 30 starts over a few years.
Eduardo Rodriguez.
Ok these I had to look up. John Tudor. I remember him as a Cardinal. Frank Viola. Forgot his Red Sox years. David Wells! Exactly 30 starts. Gary Peters. Who was on those good White Sox teams, including the one that went down to the wire in ’67.
Random trivia: which major league team won the most games from 1959-1967? The White Sox. Only 1 pennant. If you add 1968 it’s the Giants. Also 1 pennant.
Ah, Moret doesn’t fit the 90% rule.
Just as a follow-up: I did the same search for the other AL teams using the same criteria and I have to point out that none of the original 8 franchises (plus the Angels who have been around since ’61) have had a ton of LH starters that meet the criteria I set forth. I think the high was like 17 with the White Sox. I also ran it with 80% rather than 90% and it obviously drags in a few more names but the overall result is the same – no matter what criteria you use, the Sox have fewer lefties than the other 9 (original 8 plus Angels) franchises.
I’d bump Duffy and Verlander down. Not because I don’t believe in their K/BB skills or anything, but because of their extreme flyball tendencies. This, coupled with the dramatic increase in HR/FB rate, means they are significantly less valuable relative to other starters than they would’ve been last year with the same skill sets. A higher percentage of fly balls are turning into home runs, and Duffy and Verlander allow a ton of fly balls. So the increase in home runs across the majors is not uniform, as the effect on fly ball pitchers (and fly ball hitters, for that matter) is more pronounced. In the case of Duffy and Verlander, this effect is masked by a small sample of low ERA, but you see it perfectly in xFIP. Duffy is currently at 3.71 and Verlander at 3.93.
If the HR/FB% increase persists, we could see a bit of a shift in the balance of value between flyball and groundball pitchers.
If the strikezone is raised, we could see a lot of groundball pitchers out of a job.
I think I would put Hendricks ahead of Hill as well, what about Fulmer? I might also dump Greinke too, I’m not sure his contract will allow him to be moved easily, and his value in Arizona is so much lower.
I have numbers 1, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17 and they took me to my championship matchup so far – but yet i still somehow feel like I have to scrape innings together just to keep up this week… obv short Carrasco and Tanaka now 🙁
Just my opinion, and assuming a standard non-keeper 5 x 5 league, I would drop Darvish and Carrasco to the bottom of the list (i.e. between 20 and 24). For Darvish I remain concerned about the home ballpark keeping his numbers down, and Carrasco has not shown that he can log 200+ innings so no way would I draft him ahead of Arrieta or Cueto or Lester. I would probably drop Strasburg a few spots, too.
I would leave Rich Hill and Cole Hamels and Zack Greinke (assuming he’s still in ARI) off the list entirely, replacing them with Aaron Sanchez, Kyle Hendricks, and Aaron Nola (if he’s at full health).
Other bubble guys for me include Jose Quintana, Jon Gray, Tanner Roark and Rick Porcello.
I hear you, although if home parks concern you for Darvish, they’ve got to be an even bigger issue for Gray
Question: I know shoemaker has risk related to his comeback from the head injury, but does the guy deserve consideration on this list? If not, is he top 35?
So… Now he’s reported to have no negative impact…. Thoughts?
He’s a tough rank bc of this, but I certainly buy his talent overall. I think he’ll be top 40ish until we get to see him in Spring
Surprised to see J.A. Happy got left off, I’m also a Blue Jays fan so that might be why….
thoughts on keeping or cutting Price at $39 and Strasburg at $40 in Ottoneu linear weights? rotation would be Scherzer, Madea, Rich Hill, McCullers, Manaea, and Snell.
These early ranking lists are as good as a big bowl of ice cream with a warm brownie and a drizzle of chocolate syrup. Thank You.
Great list Paul! I am curious about your thoughts on Jose Quintana and where you have him.
I know the trendy candidates to move in are Hendricks and Sanchez, but in terms of track record Quintana has been quietly putting up ERAs around 3.35 his last 4 seasons. Each with around 200 IP. Is it just because he doesn’t win games? haha or lack of upside?
He’s 27th. Made the first run of 24, but was eventually bumped down. Tanaka and Greinke coming up w/injuries of late might’ve pushed them down if I re-did the rankings right now and Q would benefit. I’ve long been a fan.
Judging by the number of comments, this article is a big hit.
Can we expect positional Early Top 24’s as well? Or at least Top 10s?
Much of the expectation in Detroit for next year relies on Michael Fulmer. Where do you think he is in your list?
Sad to see a huge guy on this list no longer eligible. RIP.
RIP Fernandez 16
So this is purely fantasy based…because Hendricks is better than 32nd.