2020 Offseason Starting Pitcher Rankings (Part 1) - Fantasy Baseball Mixed Leagues

December 31, 2019

Nicklaus' starting pitcher fantasy baseball rankings for the upcoming 2020 season in 5x5 roto mixed leagues - including rankings from the #1 most accurate industry expert.

It's never too early to start looking ahead to the next baseball season, so here we deliver our 2020 rankings to those of you looking to scratch your fantasy itch. Today we are bringing you part one of our 2020 starting pitcher rankings and analysis - you can read part two here. We know you're ready for the MLB season to begin and there's no better place to get a head start than right here. RotoBaller has got you covered with updated rankings all season long. We've assembled a collection of stout minds, including the #1 ranked expert from 2018, Nick Mariano, to help you get a jump start on your competition for the upcoming season.

With the Winter Meetings over and free-agency starting to materialize, there will be plenty of movement with these rankings before the draft season gets into full swing. Be sure to check in frequently during the offseason as we'll have updated rankings as soon as big names begin to change places.

After a record-setting year for offense and a sense among the industry that 2020 likely won't be dramatically different, being able to navigate the ever-murkier waters of starting pitching will continue to be of prime importance. Looking at last year's earnings at the position, stark tiers quickly reveal themselves, with two players earning over $40, followed by five players who earned over $20, and 13 who earned over $10. That's only 20 pitchers total who earned double-digit dollars in 12-team leagues, followed by a big mess of players who didn't. Now that's what I call murky.

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Starting Pitcher Ranks - 5x5 Mixed (December)

In case you missed it, our very own "Big Pick Nick" Mariano was named the #1 overall most accurate industry expert ranker for the 2018 season.

Tier One

Having just signed for $324 million, brand new Yankee Gerrit Cole finds himself at the top of our pitcher rankings after a dominant season for Houston. After breaking out for the Astros in 2018, Cole took another giant leap forward in 2019, with a 2.50 ERA and 0.89 WHIP over 212.1 innings, with 326 strikeouts. That was good for a second-place finish in the Cy Young award, earning $44.2 in 12-team leagues according to the Fangraphs auction calculator and Steamer doesn't expect much less from Cole in 2020, projecting him to be the top-earning pitcher in 2020. Just how dominant was Cole? Try a record-setting 33.9% K-BB% that was led by his four-seamer and its league-leading 43.8% K-rate, along with a cutter and curveball that both had strikeout rates around 38%. If you're going to risk taking a pitcher in the top-10, Cole has the skillset to justify the decision.

Then we have the "old" man that Cole is leaving behind in Houston, reigning Cy Young winner Justin Verlander. Entering his 15th season in the majors, it's hard to believe that Verlander will still just be 37 years old by the start of the season and is also somehow coming off of arguably the best year of his career. Verlander's final line in 2019 was eye-popping, finishing with a 2.58 ERA and an absolutely insane 0.80 WHIP in 223 innings, with 21 wins and 300 strikeouts. His 35.4% K-rate and 16.1% swinging-strike rate were both even higher than the career-high rates he posted in 2018, perhaps due to the continuing evolution of his pitch mix. Verlander's fastball velocity did drop by 0.5 mph compared to 2018 but he also went from throwing it 60% of the time to 51% in 2019, swapping its usage for 6% more sliders and 4% more curveballs. In addition to the increased usage, Verlander also starting throwing his curveball tighter while more than doubling the vertical movement of his slider. While he will almost certainly regress from 2019's numbers, I see little reason worry about a giant drop from Verlander, giving him one of the safest floors at the position.

You're really splitting hairs by saying that a reigning Cy Young winner was worse than the year before but these hairs are what matters when you're dealing with the level of pitching in the first tier. Jacob deGrom passed 200 innings for the third-straight year, with walk- and strikeout-rates that were near carbon-copies of his rates in 2018 but a 2.67 ERA that wasn't quite as spectacular as his 1.99 ERA the year prior, as well as a 0.97 WHIP up from a 0.91 WHIP. Looking at these changes through a fantasy lens, deGrom "only" earned $30.7 in 12-team leagues this season, after earning $39.1 in 2018 but Steamer likes his chances for a rebound in 2020, projecting him to pitch 204 innings and earn $38.4. However, looking at his 3.29 SIERA this past year and comparing his seasons from 2017-19, it seems to me that we're more likely to get a repeat of the deGrom in 2017 and 2019, rather than the one in 2018. Which is still (literally) Cy Young award-winning levels of great. Just not with the ceiling of the two pitchers I have ahead of him.

Tier Two

I have to imagine I'd have Max Scherzer neck-and-neck with Verlander, if not for the myriad of injuries that he suffered this past season. While not as dominant as the previous two years, Mad Max was still fantastic in 2019, finishing with a 2.92 ERA and a 35.1% K-rate. However, Scherzer hit the injured list multiple times for ailments in his back, shoulder, and neck, with his 172 innings pitched the lowest number he's posted since 2009. While his skills are obviously elite, Scherzer still draws a lot of his fantasy value from just how much of an innings-eater he's been, having pitched over 220 innings in four of the past five seasons prior to 2019, as well as over 200 innings in six-straight years. I'd love to believe that he'll return in 2020 and go right back to pitching 200 IP+ but the biggest predictor of injuries in the future are injuries in the past and Scherzer just had himself a whole plate of them.

Like I wasn't going to talk about Jack Flaherty... Captain Jack finished the season with a 2.75 ERA and 0.97 WHIP over 196.1 innings, going 11-8 with 231 strikeouts and finished fourth in the Cy Young race, but his final line doesn't give nearly enough justice to just how dominant Flaherty was for the last three months of the season. It might be cheating to pick arbitrary endpoints but with Flaherty, the changes in his results were so dramatic starting on July 7 that it's easy to take note of the date. In his first 17 starts and 90 innings, the Cardinals starter went 4-5 with a 4.90 ERA and 1.29 WHIP after carrying a premium price on draft day, with his 59 ADP in NFBC leagues sandwiching him right between Clayton Kershaw and Mike Clevinger. With his owners beginning to curse him as a bust, Flaherty then went full-on Lincoln Hawk in his last start before the All-Star break and never slowed his big rig down.

How big was that switch he flipped? In the two starts prior to July 7, Flaherty gave up 11 earned runs. Following those two starts, he only allowed a total of 11 earned runs the remainder of the season and allowed one run or fewer in 13 of his final 16 starts. In those 16 final starts and 106.1 innings, Flaherty posted a 0.96 ERA and a 0.70 WHIP, striking out batters out at a 33% clip. And while his 4.90 ERA was unsightly in the first half of 2019, he was still posting great strikeout-rates and had also seen a small velocity boost in his fastball versus 2018. In the second half, he not only saw more increases in his fastball velocity but also started throwing his nasty slider more, increasing its rate to almost 30%. There will surely be some regression in 2020, as Flaherty had a .196 BABIP over that stretch and a 95% strand-rate but I think we saw the ascension of a young ace in the second half of 2019, someone that's not yet top-tier but is only 24-years old and knocking on the door.

I have Mike Clevinger and Blake Snell directly behind Flaherty and really see the three pitchers as being near equals, in terms of both expected production and ceiling. It was a strange arc for Clevinger last year and it's easy to see how he dropped off the radar a bit after starting off the year on fire. Clevinger gave up just two hits total in his first two starts of the season, striking out 22 batters in 12 innings and flashing a fancy, new bump in his velocity. He then hit the shelf with a strained muscle in his upper back, didn't return until over two months later and promptly got rocked in his first two starts back, giving up a combined 12 earned runs in 6.1 innings. After that, however, Clevinger went right back to piling up stacks of fantasy cash, with his $16.50 earned in 12-team leagues making him the 15th-highest pitcher using the Fangraphs auction calculator, just behind the $16.80 of Walker Buehler. The difference is that Clevinger accomplished those numbers in 56 fewer innings, earning at a rate of $0.131/IP that only trailed Cole, Verlander, and Degrom among pitchers who reached at least 100 innings.

Perhaps I'm too high on Snell returning back to form in 2020, after a rollercoaster of poor performance and injury in 2019. First, the injury, with Snell missing almost two months in August and September after having arthroscopic elbow surgery to remove loose bodies. Prior to having surgery in late July, the reigning AL Cy Young winner was exactly putting up eye-popping numbers, posting a 4.28 ERA and 1.25 WHIP in his first 101 innings of the year. He still was striking out fools with extreme prejudice, though, with his 12.1 K/9 actually a full-batter improvement over his 11.0 mark in 2018 and his 3.12 BB/9 is high but still slightly lower than last year.

So, what gives? If he's striking out more and walking less, how did a 1.89 ERA and 0.97 WHIP in 2018 balloon to a 4.28 ERA and 1.25 WHIP in 2019, prior to his injury? For one, there's a .339 BABIP this year that ran at .241 in 2018 and his 15.7% HR/FB was a big jump from the 11%-rate that he had in 2017-2018. And taking a look at Statcast, Snell's numbers seem a little rosier,  as his .205 xBA was in the top-9% of the league, with a .264 xwOBA in the top-8% and .327 xSLG that was top-7%.

Besides the batted-ball luck, it's not unreasonable to think that the loose bodies in his elbow may have been affecting Snell's performance over the course of the year, making me bullish for a comeback in 2020. Snell came back to make three very limited starts in late September - never facing more than 12 batters - before starting one game in the playoffs and working out of the bullpen in two more, allowing one run in 5.1 innings while striking out seven and walking none. I'm not ever going to bank on the sub-2.00 ERA that he put up in 2018 but if he's as healthy as he seemed in September/October and continues to post elite strikeout numbers, I'm comfortable projecting Snell right back in the mix of the best second-tier pitchers.

Let's move from an injured pitcher I'm confident in, to one I am much more trepidatious about, Boston starter Chris Sale. Say it with me again: The biggest predictor of future injuries is past injuries. Long before Sale made 30 or more starts in five of six years between 2012-2017, evaluators (and fantasy players) worried that his violent delivery might be better served in the bullpen*. Umm...not exactly. Sale has mostly been a bulwark of health but that changed in 2018, with Sale making 27 starts after dealing with left shoulder inflammation in August/September. He returned in 2019 and fell flat on his face, going 0-5 through his first six starts with a 6.30 ERA but then rebounded in May and June before starting to spiral at the end of the month. Three straight five-run outings, two okay starts, and then 14 total earned runs in back-to-back starts against the Yankees at the end of July.

Sale owners got a brief respite and stepped back from the ledge after he went eight shutout innings with 13 strikeouts in his next time out, and then continued to breathe easier with a three-run, 12 K performance in his next turn. Chris Sale is back, baby! Whew, that was a close one!  And then...? Simply the most terrifying thing you can see scroll across a bottom line:

"Chris Sale being shutdown with left elbow inflammation, will consult with Dr. James Andrews. No timetable for return."

Sale avoided Tommy John surgery and is currently back to throwing, claiming that he will be fully ready for spring training. Maybe he will and will return to his 200+ inning self in 2020, giving all the owners who took a chance on him in early drafts a rich reward. The closer we get to Opening Day, the more Sale will move up my rankings; but sitting here in December I consider it stretch to assume that he'll reach 30 starts.

My other question is, even if Sale returns to his innings-load of season's past, which Sale are we getting? While I have full confidence that the elite strikeout numbers aren't going anywhere (with Sale posting K-rates over 35% for three straight years) but he also gave up five earned runs or more in seven of his 25 starts in 2019, after having only one such game in 2018 and four in 2017. It also should be noted for those playing in head-to-head formats, that Sale has been pretty brutal for his owners in August/September over the last three seasons. This may not matter in roto as much, as banked stats are banked stats, but if you've had to count on Sale for your stretch run these past few years, then I expect you've cursed his name more than once. If I'm using a premium pick on a pitcher, I need a relative level of safety and Sale just isn't that for me anymore.

*Full disclosure author's note: I'm definitely not bitter that I turned down a trade in my home league for Sale in 2011, citing, "He'll end up in the bullpen, constantly hurt, or both." Sale's owner wanted Jered Weaver and Jeremy Hellickson. I'll just stop talking now.

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