Welcome back to the early edition of RotoBaller’s 2018 fantasy baseball rankings! As a reminder, this round of rankings comes to you courtesy of Pierre Camus and Jeff Kahntroff, in addition to yours truly. Today, I’ll be taking a look at how we ranked starting pitchers.

As you peruse the info below, keep in mind that there are likely to be some significant changes between now and March. Trades, free agent signings, injuries, and a host of other complicating factors will dictate just how much our opinions shift.

And in case you missed them, you can find our hitter rankings and analysis columns for catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop and outfield.

Editor's Note: You can find even more of our staff's initial 2018 fantasy baseball rankings for other formats including dynasty leagues, points leagues, AL/NL only leagues and more.

2018 Fantasy Baseball Tiered Rankings: Starting Pitchers (January)

Tier 1

Remember two years ago, when it seemed like aces ran 20 deep? Yeah, not so much these days. The four in this tier are as close to unimpeachable as it gets, though. Despite missing significant chunks of the past two seasons with back injuries, Clayton Kershaw remains our consensus top pitcher. He’s just that good. Case in point: Over the last five years, Kershaw has a 1.95 ERA. Our consensus #2, Max Scherzer, sits at a 2.87 mark over the same span. Of course, he’s also averaged nearly 220 innings per season while posting a similarly elite strikeout rate and leading MLB with 89 wins during that time. Corey Kluber and Chris Sale have been just as durable and consistently excellent.

Tier 2

Even if you miss out on the Four Horsemen, you can grab any of the guys in this group and feel reasonably confident in them as your ace. Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard missed most of last season, but are obviously elite talents. Strasburg has thrown more than 183 innings only once in eight MLB seasons, but managed 175 last year in what was his best performance to date. Jacob deGrom saw his ERA rise by a half-run for the second straight year, but remained among the best SP anyway. Luis Severino recovered from a poor showing in 2016 to emerge as one of the game’s best young arms. Zack Greinke, Justin Verlander, and Yu Darvish all have lengthy track records of success and are coming off solid seasons.

Tier 3

Anyone who has read my prior work knows how I feel about Aaron Nola, and it’s gratifying to see him ranked appropriately after being disrespected last year. I’d still take Carlos Carrasco and Martinez over him, but there’s not much of a gap. Robbie Ray, Chris Archer, and Jake Arrieta have their share of question marks, but each is capable of putting up an ace-caliber campaign. So is James Paxton if he can ever stay healthy, which is a fairly gargantuan “if.” Rounding out the top 20 SP is Jose Quintana, who posted the worst ERA of his career in 2017 but has been a model of reliability for most of this decade.

Tier 4

The fact that we’re already dealing with a high degree of uncertainty underscores the difficulty of handicapping the current pitcher market. Dallas Keuchel rebounded after a down year in 2016, but he also didn’t crack 150 innings. Neither did Kyle Hendricks, who’s essentially the NL version of Keuchel. Meanwhile, reaching that IP threshold would be a miracle for Rich Hill, and Alex Wood only barely cleared it himself. Lance McCullers hasn’t topped 125. The innings you do get will be high-quality, but the lack of volume is obviously an issue. It’s safe to assume you’ll get volume from Lester, whose 180 innings last season represented the lowest total of his career, but his ERA nearly doubled from the prior season and he posted his worst WHIP in a decade. Then there’s Shohei Ohtani, whose draft-day cost will almost certainly exceed where we’ve ranked him.

Tier 5

This group includes a trio of former aces whose performances slipped last year. Masahiro Tanaka posted the highest strikeout rate of his career, but a complete inability to prevent home runs led to his ERA ballooning to 4.74. David Price and Johnny Cueto battled injuries all season long and weren’t anywhere close to form when they did pitch. Gerrit Cole and Danny Duffy took steps back that their small-market clubs couldn’t afford. Jose Berrios and Sonny Gray put nightmarish 2016 campaigns behind them with solid efforts in 2017. Finally, suffice it to say I am not here for Gio Gonzalez being a top-40 pitcher this season. Those ratios last season were a mirage, my friends.

Tier 6

I’ll gladly take Zack Godley and Luis Castillo over most of the guys in the previous tier. While each obviously has a limited sample of MLB performance, their skills demonstrated considerable upside. Pierre is outside his mind ranking Godley so low. I’m also not sure why neither of my colleagues even bothered to rank Jordan Montgomery. It’s true that there have been rumblings about the Yankees looking for another starter, but as of right now he’s in the rotation and coming off a quality rookie season. They must have gotten him confused with Jimmy Nelson, who is likely to miss significant time after suffering a torn labrum last fall but garnered a top-30 SP rank from both of them anyway.

Tier 7

Our opinions of these pitchers are fairly divergent, with the exception of Taijuan Walker. I’m higher on Kenta Maeda and Garrett Richards, and fading Lance Lynn and Trevor Bauer. I’ve made this point elsewhere, but I honestly don’t see that large of a gap between Maeda and his teammate Rich Hill – at least not enough to justify the drastic difference in draft cost. My ranking of Richards is admittedly bullish for a guy who’s only thrown 62 innings over the last two seasons, but the profit potential is immense. Lynn’s surface stats looked fine last year, but they masked a drop in strikeouts and a doubling of his HR/9. As for Bauer, a strikeout surge didn’t do anything to help his typically middling ratios; he’s still never posted an ERA below 4.00 or a WHIP under 1.30.

Tiers 8 – 12

A few quick hits to close things out:

• If his velocity gains from 2017 carry over, Chase Anderson could be one of the biggest bargains in fantasy this year.
• Still trying to figure out how Rick Porcello won a Cy Young in 2016.
• It doesn’t surprise me to see that nobody else ranked Anthony Desclafani after he missed the entire 2017 season. He’s likely to go undrafted in most leagues, but don’t forget about him.
• I won’t forget about Luiz Gohara next round, either.
• Good to see folks have finally realized that Julio Teheran is garbage.

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