Welcome back to our second round of 2016 fantasy baseball rankings. This edition focuses on starting pitchers. We'll cover the top 60 here, and the rest tomorrow. Spoiler: Pitching is insanely deep.

This round of rankings features seven of our experts. They are Brad Johnson, Max Petrie, Harris Yudin, Jeff Kahntroff, Bill Dubiel, Nick Mariano, and yours truly. Assume a standard 5x5 redraft league when reading. You can also read part two of my pitchers analysis (tiers 7-13).

Be sure to also check out all of our 2016 fantasy baseball rankings articles. We have rankings and tiers across all positions, for MLB prospects, and for dynasty/keeper leagues.

2016 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Starting Pitcher

Tier One

So, uh...that Clayton Kershaw dude is pretty good at baseball, huh? Buster Posey, Paul Goldschmidt, and Carlos Correa were our only other consensus number ones in this round of rankings. Kershaw's the best. I know it, you know it, the American people know it. Here are his averages in standard categories over the last five seasons: 17.6 W, 250 K, 2.11 ERA, 0.93 WHIP. The only pitcher to throw more than Kershaw's 1,128 innings over that span? James Shields, who in seven more innings compiled less than half the WAR that Kershaw did. FanGraphs or Baseball-Reference, you ask? Pick one. Hell, if you added both sites' figures for Shields together, he'd still be behind Kershaw on either one. And Kershaw is only turning 28 this year! He's not human.

Tier Two

This tier is full of guys who are really super awesome at pitching. There are a lot of them out there these days, and any of the pitchers in this tier would be a fine choice to lead your fake staff. Over the last four years, Max Scherzer and Chris Sale are two of only five starters to have posted a double-digit K/9. Jake Arrieta just won a Cy Young, beating out Zack Greinke and his 1.66 ERA. There's a very strong argument to be made in favor of David Price being the best non-Kershaw pitcher this decade. Jose Fernandez came back from Tommy John surgery and immediately resumed being amazing. Jacob deGrom followed up his out of nowhere dominant rookie season with an even better sequel. There's not a whole lot of separation here; personal preference is as good of a tiebreaker as any.

Tier Three

Frankly, most of the arms in this tier could be considered fantasy aces as well. It's in this grouping that we start to see a bit more variance in individual writers' rankings, however. Harris is the only one to have Madison Bumgarner and Stephen Strasburg in the top 10, and ranks the last two AL Cy Young winners (Dallas Keuchel and Corey Kluber) lower than the rest of us. I'm a bit more bullish on Gerrit Cole and concerned about Felix Hernandez than most of my colleagues. The big surprise here is that I've ranked Noah Syndergaard lowest of anyone; I'm a pretty unabashed Thor fan and suggested at one point last year that he could be better than Sale as soon as 2016. Clearly need to bump him up for the next round.

Tier Four

Now we're getting into the slightly less awe-inspiring arms. Plenty of talent here, but more question marks than the players above them. Jon Lester and Cole Hamels have been durable and reliably excellent for the better part of the last decade. Yu Darvish and Adam Wainwright may be coming off injuries that wiped out their 2015 seasons, but their track records speak for themselves. Johnny Cueto and Francisco Liriano are vets with some rough seasons on the ledger, but recent success and great team and park contexts make both appealing fantasy assets The rest of this group is composed of younger pitchers who, if they can solve one nagging problem, could easily break into the elite tiers.

Tier Five

You probably wouldn't be thrilled with any of these guys as the best pitcher on your rosters, given the increased level of risk associated with the majority of them. Still, there's significant profit potential to be had - you just have to squint a little more. I'm most optimistic about Lance McCullers and his patently absurd curveball, while less enamored of Luis Severino than the others. Either is a reasonable bet to make a leap in their sophomore season, though. Given their injury histories, Michael Pineda and Masahiro Tanaka scare me a little. The remaining pitchers in this tier are cut more or less from the same cloth, with strikeout rates that fall short of elite but solid peripherals all around. It's hard to imagine a better situation for Jeff Samardzija than what the Giants can offer - I had him ranked a lot lower before he signed with them. Conversely, Jordan Zimmermann should find it tougher sledding with the Tigers  than he did with the Nationals.

Tier Six

Not coincidentally, this is the largest group of the bunch, containing 16 pitchers. I'm fairly skeptical on some of these vets (Gio Gonzalez, Justin Verlander, John Lackey, James Shields) and driving hype trains for the kids (Joe Ross, Raisel Iglesias, Taijuan Walker). I also quite like Drew Smyly, Kyle Hendricks, and the always underrated Hisashi Iwakuma.

Full rankings can be found below. Check back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!

Starting Pitcher Rankings for 2016 Fantasy Baseball

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