Top 101 Starting Pitchers: Rest-Of-Season Rankings for Fantasy Baseball Week 4 (2025)

April 23, 2025

Nick Mariano's updated fantasy baseball starting pitcher rankings for Week 4 (2025). Baller Ranks is a weekly rankings list for the top-101 starting pitchers.

We're wrapping up April and getting more looks at key arms and tweaked arsenals, learning what's smoke and real with each turn of the rotation. Whether you're determining which high-end arm to trade for or flipping the waiver wire, we're here to build champions with another installment of the FSWA-award-winning Best Baseball Series. Let's get to it with this week's edition of my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

Readers can expect to find my SP musings with tiered 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. The initial month won't give us enough data to be comfortable, and calculated risks separate winners from solid-yet-unremarkable teams in fourth place.

As always, these ranks are geared toward traditional 5x5 roto leagues, and I typically exclude most injured SPs, lest a return is imminent. If the demand for an enduring injury table is loud, please speak up and let me know. Let's get into it!

Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis for Week 4

-Hunter Brown shut down the Cardinals and Blue Jays over the last week and hasn’t allowed a run in his last three starts (24 IP scoreless streak). He’s 5-for-5 for quality starts this year and none have been bare minimums either, with just two runs allowed and seven or more strikeouts in the pair of non-shutout efforts.

He’s been a demon on the bump ever since May 5, when he added a Sinker Infinity Stone to his gauntlet. We have to respect this consistency. He gets a favorable matchup against a struggling Royals team in Kansas City for his next scheduled turn.

-Tyler Mahle has many wondering just where regression will land him. He struck out a season-high nine over six scoreless frames on April 15 before trimming his MLB-leading ERA to 0.68 with another seven shutout innings against the Dodgers on April 20.

It is not groundbreaking to point out that a .156 BABIP, 90.9 percent strand rate, and 0.0 HR/9 will not stand. The 12.9 percent K-BB% is not impressive, but hitters are not making healthy contact. His 26.6 percent pull rate (Statcast) is low, but the 4.7 percent pulled AIR rate is absurdly low, bested only by Yoshinobu Yamamoto (1.6 percent) out of 133 pitchers with at least 50 batted-ball events.

It’s great, but it’s descriptive. We struggle to see Mahle’s arsenal working so consistently, especially when little looks different aside from a softer splitter. Hitters should catch up here.

As an aside, Yamamoto’s 2025 form is crazy. The splitter is comedy.

Hitters have swung 74 times at Yoshinobu Yamamoto's splitter this season ...

38 of those swings are whiffs (51%)

Another 17 are foul balls

That leaves 19 balls in play

18 of those 19 are ground balls (95%)

Only 1 of Yamamoto's splitters has been hit in the air pic.twitter.com/ggLR1qHYZW

— David Adler (@_dadler) April 22, 2025

-Max Meyer is another name in the top-10 Pull AIR leaderboard at 6.9 percent. It is just one piece of the glowing puzzle going right for Meyer, who struck out 14 on Monday for 41 total Ks in 30 IP. The slider is peaking, and an improved changeup is giving him a legitimate secondary against lefty bats.

His 15.4 percent swinging-strike rate ranks ninth out of 146 pitchers (min. 10 IP), nestled between Tarik Skubal and Zack Wheeler. Fewer walks (5.8 percent) and more groundballs (57.7 percent) help cover up that the fastball still gets shellacked. Despite only throwing nine four-seamers on Monday, it was responsible for three of the five total hits against. Keep the slider humming!

Max Meyer's slider is the most valuable pitch in baseball! pic.twitter.com/K5pFjFlSLj

— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) April 22, 2025

-Landen Roupp is showing plenty, edging Meyer with a 15.5 percent SwStr%, but does rank 125th out of 133 SPs on that Pull AIR chart at 26.8 percent. This writer wishes that the quality of contact, rare as it might be, wasn’t so loud. Luckily, the ~40 percent sweet spot rate hasn’t coincided with the high-end velo, as Roupp has only surrendered three barrels.

The .213 xBA and .281 xwOBA are healthy, while his 2.92 xERA and 2.99 SIERA are fueled by the stellar 22.6 percent K-BB% shown thus far. Statcast’s Park Factors still has Oracle Park as a clear pitcher’s park using 2023-25 data, with only Seattle’s T-Mobile Park worse on the offense. It’s a great spot for Roupp to operate.

And though he only threw 50 MLB IP last year, he had another 50ish in the minors, so 150 or more innings are on the table this year. Let’s hope we get to see them all!

-Logan Henderson looked incredible across six innings of one-run ball in his MLB debut, striking out nine Athletics in the win. But he was optioned to Triple-A with Tobias Myers returning and bullpen help needed in Craig Yoho. Don’t forget the name.

-Zack Wheeler got right with 13 strikeouts against the Marlins to rebound from back-to-back non-QS outings. He’s looked great against the Marlins, Rockies (not at Coors), and Nationals thus far. We expect dominance against susceptible lineups, and he’s delivered. Most of the top aces have done well enough to leave us satisfied early on.

However, widening the lens to pitchers taken in the third and fourth rounds uncovers early heartbreak in these next three.

-Chris Sale has already given up the loudest bash of his Statcast-era career at 116.7 mph this year, with a six-point rise in sweet spot rate versus last year. But the overall profile isn’t that different here, with a 22.7 percent K-BB% nearly identical to his 2023 mark (26.5 last year). His .422 BABIP is the worst of all pitchers with at least 20 innings. Breathe.

-Corbin Burnes has at least tamped his cutter usage down to 50 percent over his last two starts compared to 66 percent in the first two. Mixing in his other pitches more has not rejuvenated things, however. The cutter swing-and-miss rate has fallen to 15 percent in each of his last two outings and his curveball wasn’t fooling the Cubs.

With exactly three strikeouts in each of his previous three starts for a meager 17:9 K:BB in 21 ⅓ IP, our worry here is at DEFCON 3. He needs his premier cutter back to be a reliable arm.

-Dylan Cease got torched by the A’s for nine runs, but at least he’s posted a 26:5 K:BB in the other 21 ⅓ IP thus far. The .384 BABIP should calm down and bring the 1.50 WHIP with it. Would you buy that his current 3.36 SIERA is 10 points below last year’s mark? Or that his 2.64 FIP would easily be a career-best number? Hold on here.

The next tier of panic likely addresses many concerns from the crowd.

-Robbie Ray’s whiffs are down and his strike-throwing is reminiscent of the pre-2021 breakout arm. The southpaw is somehow 3-0 over five starts despite a 1.56 WHIP and a FIP, xFIP, and SIERA above 5.00 even. Is he this bad? Very unlikely. But the 33-year-old is creating the rotten luck via poor command. More walks and a 48.4 percent hard-hit rate are frightful.

One would think if he improves enough to chill the walks, then he’d also likely have better control to the point where he isn’t serving up meatballs either, but trust has eroded. He should find his form again but it’s a waiting game at the moment. Believers should send out offers before one game offers hope to the downtrodden. Do you buy what Ray is selling?

ROBBIE RAY: "Honestly I felt really good... I feel like I'm right there. Today was probably about as close as I've felt to 2021 [Cy Young Award year] in awhile." pic.twitter.com/zNlynTaFTH

— KNBR (@KNBR) April 22, 2025

-Aaron Nola has been beaten up in these articles, though even I know the 6.43 ERA/1.61 WHIP is a bit much. However, he’s enduring a 10-point dip in first-strike rate vs. last year and his career, which surely fuels the elevated walk rate. The 24 percent HR/FB is also 10 points away from his career norm. More self-inflicted traffic makes those more dramatic.

Yes, the velo is down but it mirrors the 91.1 mph fastball mark from April 2024 (91.7 in April ‘23). Both of those years saw him creep back to 93 mph with the heat by June. Except last April, he still located well and induced a lowly .223 xBA (.156 AVG). Compare that to a .342 xBA (.318 AVG) this year, with a similar rise to his knuckle curve and sinker, and you’ve got bigger trouble.

It does appear he’s trying to mix in the (good) changeup more to compensate, but that’s lipstick on a pig at this point. I won’t blame anyone for benching until he rounds out. The durability is great, but it’s doing us harm at the moment.

-Zac Gallen has similar woes through a depressed first-strike rate and more walks, with an ailing fastball that is getting tattooed. Honestly, the .289 AVG/.303 xBA isn’t too far from last year’s .282/.280 split. It’s not good and we don’t want to generate the same tightrope act around a blah fastball, but there’s more to it.

His knuckle curve is also getting smacked with some lift. He’s allowed two homers and five total extra-base hits on 92 KCs thus far. He only gave up two HRs and nine XBH on 695 KCs last year. Now, the .179 xBA echoes last year’s .175 xBA. The early .283 xwOBA isn’t egregious (.207 last year). Yet a .269 AVG against and .421 wOBA are ugly.

I don’t mean to hand-wave results with expected stats, but it bears mentioning for what to monitor. Those on the fence about Gallen should watch how he sets the curve up and the quality of contact off of it against the Braves on April 25.

-Luis Castillo can earn goodwill with a home matchup against the Marlins this weekend. If he fumbles that and continues to inflate our ratios, then we have a full-blown problem. Last year, we saw him struggle against lefty bats, but he’s getting toasted by both sides right now. The too-early split that jumps out is a .206/.286/.333 triple slash against at home (his first three starts) and a .273/.333/.436 road line (his most recent two).

Like Nola, his velocity is also down (94.7 mph) with a history of slower April stuff. But “down” in past years was around 95.8 mph in ‘21 and ‘22, hitting 95.2 in ‘23 and ‘24, and now it’s another half-tick down. If the downward trend continues, then he could enter “only trusted at T-Mobile” territory.

-Sandy Alcantara is coming off a major elbow injury that forced him to miss the entire 2024 season, so there is a grace period. But a 13:10 K:BB with lesser overall command is beyond what most of us thought shaking off the rust would look like. The 47 percent strand rate will come up for air but his last two starts have been ugly, with a Game SIERA north of 7.00 for each.

His velo and spin rates check out after that dip in the second start. Bad blips will happen, especially in the first month back from Tommy John. This isn’t ideal, but it’s likely your expectations out of the chute may have been too optimistic, especially with the first two outings going reasonably well. Two good and two bad. Let’s see how he handles the Reds on Wednesday in an internal rubber match of sorts.

-Cristopher Sanchez is going to make us sweat after he left Tuesday's start with left forearm soreness, but initial testing is promising.

Cristopher Sanchez said based on initial exams he’s confident his forearm soreness isn’t serious, although he said he’s never experienced anything like this in a game before.

Rob Thomson said they could rework rotation next week to give Sanchez extra rest.

Will know more Wed.

— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) April 23, 2025

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball - Week 4

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