Top 101 Starting Pitchers: Rest-Of-Season Rankings for Fantasy Baseball Week 12 (2025)

June 21, 2025

Nick Mariano's updated fantasy baseball starting pitcher rankings for Week 12 (2025). Baller Ranks is a weekly rankings list for the top-101 starting pitchers.

Welcome to the second half of June, which brings the midseason marker into view as we near the All-Star break! Are you setting yourself up for success or closing your eyes and hoping that things just work out? Take control of your destiny with the latest FSWA-award-winning Best Baseball Series, which brings the latest edition of my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

Readers will find my SP thoughts with tiered ranks (the tiers matter more than individual ranks), complemented by a rest-of-season auction value ($), their Previous Week's Value (PV), the trend between the two, and a (+/-) column denoting the rank shift compared to last week. There is also a prospect table at the end via our star evaluator, Eric Cross. This is written throughout Tuesday, so the table will reflect some games (but not all), and stats cited are typically gathered through Monday.

As always, these ranks are geared toward traditional 5x5 roto leagues, and I typically exclude most injured SPs unless they're about to return. Do you know how to best address your team's weaknesses by now, and are you lining up any trades as summertime panic sets in for your league's fallers? Let's have some fun and talk arms!

Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis for Week 12

-Logan Gilbert largely picked up where he left off, striking out 10 with just one walk over five innings (84 pitches), and failing to get winning run support. Now 1-2 through six starts and the abbreviated injury seventh, Gilbert carries an outstanding 54:7 K:BB in just 35 ⅓ IP, with a 2.55 ERA that somehow pales in comparison to the 2.16 FIP, 1.63 xFIP, and 1.86 SIERA.

He toes the line of missing too many bats for his own good. Those of you in rotisserie leagues with IP caps are loving the K/9 margins gained on the competition! Unfortunately, we will always have his arm status in mind after missing nearly two months. I won’t blame anyone for selling high as July approaches.

-Yoshinobu Yamamoto has had two clunkers in June, most recently allowing five runs with five walks over 4 ⅔ IP against San Francisco. You can look at that as Casey Schmitt happened to hit a grand slam, but Yamamoto’s poor control is what loaded the bases. The umpire did not help him with bottom-of-the-zone calls either.

The umpire definitely squeezed him. But Yoshinobu Yamamoto did not have it tonight. Not enough pitches in the zone. Splitter was not working, yet kept throwing it. Don't know if it's related to the hip. But that's the 2nd time in 3 starts he hasn't looked right.

— Josh Gitt (@joshgitt1987) June 14, 2025

Three walks in any inning are ugly, and provide the difference between a salami and Willy Adames’ first-inning HR being just a solo shot. He only threw 56-of-102 pitches for strikes, with a season-low 17.6% splitter rate that also rocked a season-low 16.7% chase rate.

The in-zone rate wasn’t horrid, but this and the bad NYY start on June 1 are his only two starts without a strikeout on the splitter since his MLB debut on March 21, 2024. We’d love for him to get by when the splitter isn’t splitting, and it’s concerning that two of his last three have seen that occur, but history says this is a blip.

-Spencer Strider may have gotten his groove back against the hapless Rockies. A whopping 13 strikeouts was much appreciated, but the main headline for us was that his four-seamer averaged 96.2 mph after sitting at 94.8 in his previous start. The Rox can make anyone look stellar, and my Grant Holmes shares appreciated the 15-K gem, which is why the velo steals the show.

Also, Holmes now has a 2.34 SIERA over the last month, which leads all SPs (min. 20 IP), with Tarik Skubal (2.41), Framber Valdez (2.42), and Garrett Crochet (2.44) the only others below 2.60 in that timeframe. Thanks, Colorado! (Psst, he held a 2.86 SIERA in the four prior starts to COL, so don’t think it was all them.)

-Lucas Giolito still has an icy blue Statcast page (that .299 xBA and 47.8% hard-hit rate, oof), but you know that a player coming off major injury will have early rust dragging those down all year long. And even then, he does hold a respectable 3.97 FIP, 3.90 xFIP, and 4.06 SIERA, as the 7.7% walk rate would be one of his lowest marks.

I know three starts with six or seven runs allowed stung greatly, and our biology forces our brain to hold onto that more tightly. The “negativity bias” essentially means that we tend to weigh and feel the negative events more deeply than the positive ones. Fie on our evolution that it optimized itself for our survival and not for grinding starting pitchers!

Maybe this is why certain individuals got so twisted up over Giolito on social media. Blame the biology, eh? (It wasn't happening on my posts, but it's still tough to see great content get unfairly dragged instead of simply sparking insightful discussion. Disagreement is healthy and constructive when conducted appropriately!)

All of this is to say that I know it’s hard to shake off that brutal outing against the Halos (.636 BABIP, only one barrel), but he’s given up one earned run in the four starts surrounding that. The other drawback had been poor-to-mediocre strikeouts, but then he struck out 10 Mariners over six frames on Monday!

His last two starts have seen him boost the four-seamer usage back above 50% after sitting below 40% for four straight (the Red Sox way). It has coincided with his two highest average pitch velocities as well, with 94.1 mph on June 10 and 94.5 mph on June 16. This marks three straight starts with increasing velo.

So is he finding a groove there? The slider was his primary against right-handed batters, while his changeup and curve destroyed left-handed batters. He barely uses the curve, but two of the four thrown resulted in Ks vs. LHB. I still want the loud contact to chill, and that avenue to disastrous outings remains ajar, but he’s looking more comfortable.

18 Whiffs for Lucas Giolito last night.

7 on the 4SFB. 5 on the Slider. 4 on the Changeup. 2 on the Curveball. 4SFB was up 1.1 MPH.

He finally stopped his stuff from seesawing. Hopefully he’s able to maintain that for a third start in a row.
pic.twitter.com/e7qCrGacaj

— Tyler Milliken (@tylermilliken_) June 17, 2025

-Clarke Schmidt made waves last year with a 2.85 ERA/1.18 WHIP, but a back issue and rotator cuff tendinitis pushed him off schedule to begin this season. He quickly worked his cutter velo up to the 92-93 range after coming out of the gate with a 91.1 mph start.

And guess what? He hasn’t allowed more than three runs in a start since April 21. Now, he’s had a particularly strong last 30 days, allowing zero runs in three of his last four, but he’s faced the Guardians, Royals, Rockies (in Coors), and Angels (twice).

He faces an improved Orioles squad next, who have a top-10 OPS against RHP over the last 30 days, but also a bottom-five 23.8% K rate.

Clarke Schmidt has now thrown six-plus innings in six of his last eight starts. He’s been incredibly consistent in that span, never giving up more than three earned runs.

Best part of Schmidt’s stellar outing tonight … no walks through seven shutout innings. First time this…

— Max Goodman (@MaxTGoodman) June 17, 2025

-Brayan Bello has always been a tough sell for me due to his batted-ball profile, middling K%, and home park. But he just struck out eight Yankees with the cutter as his primary pitch, which was a total 180 from it being his fourth/fifth offering, or shelved entirely!

Per Statcast, Bello hadn’t thrown a single cutter to right-handed batters, tossing just 23 before this start (giving up two singles and a homer). Now, the double-edged sword with a new plan of attack is that it gives us a concrete reason to be excited for change moving forward, but also means future opponents can better prepare.

His command of it may not be as consistent. If it isn’t there for him, then it won’t set the rest of his arsenal up for whiff success. Just always something to keep in mind, though still exciting!

-Quinn Priester has been sharper since early May, but has found another gear since logging his first quality start on May 24 against the Pirates. He’s only thrown QS since, except for one outing with one run allowed over five innings. The shame!

His 21:4 K:BB in 29 IP isn’t overpowering, and his start against Philly featured zero Ks (and walks!), but a 63.5% groundball rate illustrates the underwhelming contact being made. He’s brought the cutter back up in June and continues to ramp up slider usage, both pitches that he isn’t afraid to use against righties and lefties alike.

I will point out that amidst Milwaukee’s handling of young SP workloads, Priester does have one option remaining. But how high of a floor expectation do you have in rostering Priester in the first place?

-Colton Gordon is another sneaky arm that SIERA loves thanks to his 20% K-BB% and overall minuscule 3.1% walk rate. It’s a great foundation for the 26-year-old rookie, but home runs have been problematic ever since he hit Triple-A in 2023, so tread carefully.

His early 25.3% Pull AIR rate is quite high, though his xSLG is around 100-200 points lower than his actual SLG on his three most-used pitches. Let’s see if the southpaw can settle in and find a way to handle right-handed bats (.900 OPS vs. RHB, .511 OPS vs. LHB).

-Emmet Sheehan will make Wednesday’s start against the Padres for his first MLB game since September 2023. Might I remind you that his strikeout upside is cuckoo. He struck out 21 in 11 ⅓ IP of rehab work and racked up 102 Ks in 63 IP on the farm in ‘23, but control could be a problem.

This plagued him during his first MLB stint before taking August to reset in the minors. But he came back for five starts in September and recorded a 39.1% strikeout rate, trailing only Tarik Skubal (39.4%) out of 128 pitchers (min. 20 IP) on the month.

Dig deeper and you’ll find Sheehan’s 19.7% swinging-strike rate bested Skubal’s 18.7% (no one else was above 17.5%). Of course, the 31.5% CSW was “just” 10th, but the ace tools are present.

If he can show similar command, then this is league-shifting upside. I was hesitant to lean on the potential upside last week, but seven strikeouts and zero walks in his last rehab outing are encouraging. Some turbulence is to be expected, but keep the long-term picture in mind. Hopefully, he stays on the attack and trusts his stuff!

#Dodgers Emmet Sheehan faced his first 3-2 count and went right after the hitter, sitting him down. pic.twitter.com/ce7MSju3ss

— 🇺🇸 DooM_Sal (@msalas24) June 1, 2025

**For those wondering where injured pitchers will slide in, keep an eye on Thursday for my updated Top 300 Rest of Season rankings.

Sorry to those who are hoping for optimism on Cole Ragans and Michael King. Hunter Greene should be ahead of them, while Nathan Eovaldi, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow are facing hitters. We’re hoping that Eovaldi can return around the All-Star break, with Snell and Glasnow shortly behind him.

It sounds like Shane McClanahan’s nerve specialist visit went well, as he threw in Texas shortly thereafter. Perhaps mid-to-late July is in play. Pitchers like he and Shane Bieber feel like a luxury stash as we hope for no additional setbacks, but have to prepare for zero innings.

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball - Week 12

Top Starting Pitcher Stashes for Fantasy Baseball - Week 12

Here are the key SP stashes from our esteemed, industry-leading prospect analyst, Eric Cross. You can also read his full Top 25 Fantasy Baseball Prospects To Stash article, which is updated weekly!

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