Welcome back to our second round of 2016 fantasy baseball rankings. This is the conclusion to our section on starting pitchers. If you missed Part 1 yesterday, click here. Today’s analysis will cover the remaining tiers, in which there are plenty of interesting arms.

As a reminder, 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.

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.

Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis (Part 2)

Tier Seven

This tier features three veterans on whom I am markedly pessimistic – Wei-Yin Chen, Andrew Cashner, and Julio Teheran. Chen is a perfectly serviceable mid-rotation arm, but his lack of whiffs and issues with the long ball severely limit his fantasy value. Maybe moving to a friendly league and park will help, but I’m not really interested in betting on that. I correctly identified Teheran as a bust candidate a year ago, and while he gained back a bit of the lost velocity that was a driving force of that prediction, his results didn’t improve much. His strikeout rate remained merely decent, and his walks and homers spiked. As for Cashner, it feels like he’s been a popular breakout pick since before baseball was invented. The guy will be 30 this year. Guess how many seasons he has with an ERA under 4.00 and a K/9 north of 7.00 in 180 innings? If you guessed “none,” you are a winner. He finally broke the latter barrier last season and put up a solid 8.04 K/9, but six wins and a 4.34 ERA ain’t gonna cut it. Hard pass.

Tier Eight

I’m the resident optimist on Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani ‘round these parts. DeSclafani got stronger as the season wore on; all caveats about small sample size aside, his peripherals certainly supported it. He’ll need to maintain the improvement he showed in his off-speed pitches to justify my expectant ranking. Wood’s struggles in the early part of last season were well-documented, but he’s got a much more favorable team and defense context now. I also expect him to quit throwing that awful two-seamer so much if it doesn’t offer dramatically better returns this season, which should help his strikeout rate rebound.

Two other pitchers to keep an eye on in this group: Ian Kennedy and Kevin Gausman. Kennedy signing with the Royals was probably the best possible outcome for him this offseason; assuming his homer rate isn’t ludicrous again, he’ll pile up Ks without dragging you down anywhere else. Gausman has shown flashes of elite potential in parts of three seasons and is still just 25. He’s got impressive control for a young power pitcher and induces a lot of pop-ups, which gives him a good foundation.

Tier Nine

Not a whole lot of exciting names in this tier, from my vantage point. I do appear to be slightly more bullish on Mat Latos than my fellow RotoBaller experts, which is somewhat surprising. Last season, he recovered a bit of the velocity he’d lost in 2014 and posted similar peripherals to his career marks. The inflated ERA was mostly due to a ludicrously low 63.8% strand rate, which should regress considerably.

Tier Ten

This group includes three pitchers I like more than most who fell a couple of tiers because Brad didn’t even rank them (how rude). J.A. Happ was a revelation after joining the Pirates. Going back to Toronto probably wasn’t the best decision for him from a pure baseball perspective. Pittsburgh would have been ideal, but money talks, particularly when you’re 33 and coming off a high-profile run of dominance. Ray Searage is pretty much a god at this point; it stands to reason that he helped Happ at least a little. I’m also a fan of Erasmo Ramirez and Nate Karns. Ramirez bombed in his first two starts with Seattle, then got traded to Tampa and put together a sneaky good season, finishing just outside the top 40 starters in the Yahoo game. Karns, meanwhile, was traded from Tampa to Seattle immediately after finishing a rookie season in which he struck out nearly a batter per inning. The Rays somewhat infamously featured a quick hook with most of their starters to avoid the third time through the order penalty. As a result, Karns averaged less than six innings per start, which limited his fantasy value. We’ll see what happens when and if the Mariners take off the kid gloves, but he should be a decent streamer at worst and a solid deep-league option based solely on whiffs.

Tier Eleven

Finally, we get to a tier which contains a pitcher I didn’t rank – Chris Heston. Heston was one of 2015’s biggest surprises, posting a 3.14 ERA through the first four months and tossing a no-hitter against the eventual National League champion Mets. He hit the rookie wall hard, though, as his ERA after the trade deadline was a hideous 5.92. With the additions of Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija to the Giants rotation, Heston appears to be the team’s sixth starter. Granted, one of the five ahead of him is Matt Cain, so he’ll probably get plenty of innings anyway. Still, tough to rank a guy who doesn’t even have a firm grip on a job, even before weighing his horrid finish and lack of pedigree.

Tier Twelve

Hey, remember when Doug Fister was good? How about R.A. Dickey? C.C. Sabathia? They were, I swear! Not so much these days. They’re the players your league’s resident doormat will grab in the late rounds or dollar days, while you’re using those opportunities to draft upside like a sensible fantasy owner. There are a couple of those upside plays in this group, namely John Lamb and Mike Foltynewicz (whose name I am kind of unreasonably proud to have spelled correctly without looking it up).

Tier Thirteen

Notable names in this tier: Cain, Matt Moore, Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson (pass on all of them). Intriguing sleepers: Vincent Velasquez, Adam Conley, Trevor May, and Homer Bailey.

Our January rankings conclude tomorrow with a look at relievers. We’ll be releasing updates in February and March as well, so stay tuned!

Starting Pitcher Rankings for 2016 Fantasy Baseball

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