Updated Starting Pitcher Rankings for Fantasy Baseball: The Top 101 Baller Ranks

Welcome to June, RotoBallers! What better way to start those summer months than with another updated edition of my top-101 starting pitcher rankings - looking at rest-of-season values. Once again, I've got you covered with ranks, tiers, trends, and notes with the top-101 in a table with other fun things like earned value via Fangraphs. It's time for another edition of my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

This google sheet accompanies the table below and adds relevant 5x5 stats, K%, BB%, BABIP, FIP, xFIP, SIERA, ERA-FIP, and CSW% from 2022. Do note that I leave off injured players, but for now, I will include them at the bottom with a rank of roughly where they'd appear when healthy. I highly encourage you to click the sheet.

As is tradition, these fantasy baseball starting pitcher rankings are geared toward traditional 5x5 leagues. Without further ado, here's my top-101 SP for the rest of 2022!

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Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis

-Walker Buehler is another early faller here, which likely was coming even before the non-QS against the Pirates on Monday. While Buehler has six wins in nine starts, he only has three quality starts, as half of those victories came via five-inning scrapers. We like to see him tally seven strikeouts against PIT, but that came after just 10 Ks combined over his last three trips to the hill (16 IP). Julio Urias is doing a bit of the same dance with suppressed strikeouts but at least his ERA/WHIP are helping you.

You’re not getting elite ratios or even average strikeouts, though we know he absolutely has it in him. His spot on the Dodgers keeps his traditional 5x5 value flowing in but this is not the SP1 anchor you built around. Compare that to a guy like Gerrit Cole, who at least struck out 11 Orioles even when he surrendered five runs on May 23. And then he rebounded with a 6 IP, 10 K QS against the Rays. Those lines are the anchors.

-Sandy Alcantara flashed that big whiff upside that had folks buzzing on draft day with 14 strikeouts against Atlanta. And this came in a rematch against the defending champs following a complete-game shutout on May 22, which makes it more impressive to me. After some early May turbulence, Super Sandy is here and has gone at least seven frames in each of his last four starts and eight-plus in each of his last three. 

-Carlos Rodon hasn’t shown the same dominant form in his last three starts (all losses), posting an 11/8 K/BB in 15 IP alongside 13 earned runs (three HRs). His velocity has largely held up, though his most recent turn saw a drop to averaging 95.7 mph from 96.7 mph in his previous outing. His average release point is steady from a vertical perspective but his horizontal measure has come down by roughly half a foot on breaking balls. This isn’t some drastic alarm but it is something to monitor.

-Shane Bieber still has me skeptical as he’s lined up some friendly starts against Oakland and a double-dip versus Detroit over the past month. Outside of that, he had a tightrope QS against Minnesota and that drubbing at the hands of Toronto on May 7. The stats look okay on the baseball card and he gets another friendly matchup at the cavernous Camden Yards in Baltimore next, but I’m gritting my teeth here.

-Nick Pivetta has ripped off five consecutive quality starts and four straight wins with a date in pitcher-friendly Oakland next. His struggles with the longball look to be buried for now, though the 29-year-old has walked five in his last two starts (12 IP) after only one free pass in the previous four (26 ⅓ IP). But I’ll happily take a few walks if it means he’s effectively nibbling the corners on the whole and avoiding those meatballs. After four home runs allowed in his first three starts, Pivetta has surrendered only two in his last seven outings.

-MacKenzie Gore, Cristian Javier, and Aaron Ashby all better keep their rotation slots because it’s so damn fun to watch them work. Gore has only allowed one earned run in two starts since re-entering the rotation, Javier struck out nine in back-to-back starts before Tuesday’s Oakland matchup, and Ashby just dazzled with 12 strikeouts in his latest start. I hope that soon we can include Spencer Strider in this sentence but that’ll depend on Marcell Ozuna’s defense! Ugh. 

-David Peterson has a solid route to wins on the Mets, offering plus ratios alongside modest strikeouts to fill out their battered rotation. The opportunity in that friendly park is enough for me to throw him on here.

-Edward Cabrera may not be Max Meyer but at least Miami is trying something here. He’ll get a chance to make noise in the majors following last year’s crummy 5.81 ERA (5.31 SIERA) in 26 ⅓ IP, as he’s done well enough at Triple-A to earn another shot. I’m still wary of his control, illustrated by an 11.9% walk rate through 23 ⅔ IP at Triple-A thus far, but he also has 32 punchouts and is a healthy whiff streamer if you need it. That said, if the plan is still for him to take one of the doubleheader games on Wednesday in Coors then I’ll play wait-and-see instead.

 

Top-101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball

These are rest-of-season fantasy baseball rankings for starting pitchers.

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