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Top 101 Starting Pitchers: Rest-Of-Season Rankings for Fantasy Baseball (Week 18)

Shohei Ohtani - Fantasy Baseball Rankings, Draft Sleepers, MLB Injury News

Nick Mariano's updated fantasy baseball starting pitcher rankings for Week 18 (2023). Baller Ranks is a weekly rankings list for the top-101 starting pitchers.

The second half of the season is well underway and so it's time for another edition of my biweekly Top 101 Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks breakdown. As it is later in the season, these updates will come every other week. Eventually, we'll give way to streamer articles! But some of you still have trades to make so let's build a championship squad with my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

As usual, the tiers are the most critical piece of the puzzle, though the position within them is still informative! We've added the previous edition's position and the change (Delta) since then. I would say the ranks are going to increase in aggressiveness as the window tightens.

These ranks are geared toward traditional 5x5 leagues and I try to present key injured pitchers where I have them for the rest of the season. Let's hop in with half of the season in the books.

Be sure to check all of our fantasy baseball lineup tools and resources:

 

Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis

We’re rounding the “two-thirds corner” as August approaches. Some of you may find yourself behind on innings in rotisserie leagues and needing to ramp up the streaming. Others are ahead in IP and need to only play premium matchups. Perhaps some trades can help you reallocate resources ahead of your league's deadline?

Regardless, the action keeps on flowing and we have some very intriguing arms to discuss for the home stretch. I’m not here to throw darts about when we’ll see Eury Perez back because we’re all just F5’ing Craig Mish’s Twitter page anyway. (But it should be soon!)

Joe Ryan is the first name. Out of 104 SPs with over 20 IP in the last 30 days, Ryan’s 29.8% K-BB rate is fourth. His 2.92 SIERA in that window is seventh. Amazing, right? But those who roster Ryan know he’s also got a 7.30 ERA and 6.85 FIP over that span.

While a five-homer beating by the Braves helped, he’s given up 11 longballs in his last five outings combined. He’d only surrendered eight total homers in his first 15 trips to the hill. I’m encouraged that he hasn’t lost his strikeouts and overall control profile as a result, but he must cut back on the meatballs. Doctor’s orders.

Hunter Brown is another ERA disconnect, as his 5.55 mark over the last month doesn’t align with a 3.90 FIP, 3.10 xFIP, and 3.32 SIERA. The 11.84 K/9 is helpful, but a 1.64 WHIP goes with the bloated ERA to ravage our ratios. Joe Ryan’s .396 BABIP in the last month is horrible, but Brown’s .439 mark creates quite a gap between the worst and second-worst.

Expect brighter skies ahead if he can pull up that 58.9% first-strike rate and limit the number of get-back-in-the-count fastballs down the middle.

For what it’s worth, four pitchers (min. 20 IP) had a BABIP under .200 in the last month: Brandon Bielak (there you go), Matt Manning, Andrew Abbott, and Corbin Burnes. Abbott and Burnes will square off Tuesday night after I’ve submitted this. Of those four, only Burnes had a SIERA under 4.00 on the month.

Other notables close to that .200 line are Nathan Eovaldi (.203), Luis Medina (.212), and James Paxton (.214). Eovaldi had his turn skipped in the rotation to give him a breather, while also avoiding Houston’s pesky lineup. His latest start on July 18 supplied his lowest average four-seam velocity on the season (93.1 mph). Let’s hope he rebounds and can get back into the 95-96 mph range from the first half.

Tanner Bibee is one of four pitchers within the same 104-SP group we’ve been working with who hasn’t surrendered a single barrel in the last month. He’s also walked only one batter in each of his last two starts, despite facing potent lineups in Texas and Philadelphia.

The 34/12 K/BB ratio in his last 29 ⅔ IP is tantalizing and Progressive Field remains a stellar place to pitch. Statcast has Progressive Field with a bottom-five Park Factor over the last three years, and the second-lowest for just 2022 (Petco has the lowest).

Brandon Pfaadt gave reason to feel encouraged in his July 22 return to the majors, making it five scoreless innings against Cincinnati before the wheels came off with back-to-back-to-back home runs. We saw Pfaadt move toward first base on the rubber, display a different sinker, and a sharper slider that grew his Stuff+ grade from 145 to 156, per Lance Brozdowski.

 

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball - Week 18

Tier Name Rank $Value Last Rank Delta
1 Spencer Strider 1 $43.5 1 0
1 Gerrit Cole 2 $43.0 3 1
1 Shohei Ohtani 3 $42.0 4 1
1 Kevin Gausman 4 $42.0 2 -2
2 Luis Castillo 5 $41.0 5 0
2 Zac Gallen 6 $40.0 6 0
2 Blake Snell 7 $39.0 7 0
2 Zack Wheeler 8 $38.0 8 0
2 Corbin Burnes 9 $36.5 12 3
2 Shane McClanahan 10 $36.0 9 -1
2 Framber Valdez 11 $35.0 11 0
2 Joe Musgrove 12 $34.0 13 1
2 Clayton Kershaw 13 $31.5 10 -3
2 Max Scherzer 14 $31.5 14 0
2 Aaron Nola 15 $31.0 16 1
3 Tyler Glasnow 16 $29.5 22 6
3 Logan Webb 17 $28.5 17 0
3 Nathan Eovaldi 18 $28.5 15 -3
3 Joe Ryan 19 $27.0 18 -1
3 George Kirby 20 $26.0 19 -1
3 Justin Verlander 21 $25.0 20 -1
3 Yu Darvish 22 $24.0 23 1
3 Dylan Cease 23 $23.5 26 3
3 Chris Bassitt 24 $24.0 28 4
4 Sandy Alcantara 25 $23.0 21 -4
4 Julio Urias 26 $22.0 24 -2
4 Zach Eflin 27 $21.5 30 3
4 Jesus Luzardo 28 $19.5 31 3
4 Pablo Lopez 29 $19.5 27 -2
4 Marcus Stroman 30 $19.0 29 -1
5 Hunter Brown 31 $19.0 32 1
5 Sonny Gray 32 $18.0 33 1
5 Jon Gray 33 $17.0 34 1
5 Mitch Keller 34 $17.0 35 1
5 Justin Steele 35 $17.0 39 4
5 Charlie Morton 36 $16.5 41 5
5 Freddy Peralta 37 $16.5 44 7
5 Carlos Rodon 38 $16.0 36 -2
5 Jordan Montgomery 39 $15.5 37 -2
5 Kodai Senga 40 $15.0 46 6
6 Logan Gilbert 41 $15.0 38 -3
6 Bobby Miller 42 $14.5 43 1
6 Braxton Garrett 43 $14.5 40 -3
6 Tyler Wells 44 $14.0 45 1
6 Andrew Abbott 45 $13.5 48 3
6 Bryce Miller 46 $13.5 51 5
6 Tanner Bibee 47 $13.5 53 6
6 James Paxton 48 $13.0 47 -1
6 Bailey Ober 49 $12.0 52 3
6 Kyle Bradish 50 $11.0 55 5
6 Jose Berrios 51 $10.5 54 3
6 Max Fried 52 $10.5 57 5
6 Eduardo Rodriguez 53 $10.0 58 5
6 Brandon Woodruff 54 $10.0 60 6
6 Kenta Maeda 55 $10.0 -- --
6 Lance Lynn 56 $10.0 50 -6
6 Lucas Giolito 57 $9.5 49 -8
6 Cristian Javier 58 $9.0 42 -16
6 Reid Detmers 59 $8.5 56 -3
7 Andrew Heaney 60 $8.0 59 -1
7 Bryce Elder 61 $8.0 61 0
7 Alex Cobb 62 $8.0 -- --
7 Taijuan Walker 63 $8.0 72 9
7 Nestor Cortes Jr. 64 $7.0 -- --
7 Jack Flaherty 65 $6.0 63 -2
7 Tony Gonsolin 66 $6.0 65 -1
7 Merrill Kelly 67 $6.0 69 2
7 Gavin Williams 68 $5.5 73 5
7 MacKenzie Gore 69 $5.0 70 1
7 Brayan Bello 70 $5.0 79 9
7 Tarik Skubal 71 $4.5 80 9
8 Alek Manoah 72 $4.5 64 -8
8 Hunter Greene 73 $4.5 68 -5
8 Taj Bradley 74 $4.5 66 -8
8 Bryan Woo 75 $4.0 78 3
8 Ranger Suarez 76 $4.0 71 -5
8 Eury Perez 77 $4.0 75 -2
8 J.P. France 78 $4.0 76 -2
8 Griffin Canning 79 $3.5 81 2
8 Michael Lorenzen 80 $3.5 -- --
8 Grayson Rodriguez 81 $3.0 101 20
8 Nick Pivetta 82 $3.0 98 16
8 Yusei Kikuchi 83 $2.5 88 5
8 Jameson Taillon 84 $2.5 82 -2
8 Michael Kopech 85 $2.0 83 -2
8 Logan Allen 86 $2.0 84 -2
8 Domingo German 87 $2.0 85 -2
8 Edward Cabrera 88 $2.0 -- --
8 Patrick Sandoval 89 $2.0 97 8
8 Chris Sale 90 $1.5 87 -3
8 Kyle Hendricks 91 $1.5 90 -1
8 Seth Lugo 92 $1.5 95 3
9 Miles Mikolas 93 $1.5 86 -7
9 Kutter Crawford 94 $1.0 89 -5
9 Dane Dunning 95 $1.0 -- --
9 JP Sears 96 $1.0 93 -3
9 Josiah Gray 97 $1.0 96 -1
9 Matt Manning 98 $1.0 -- --
9 Brady Singer 99 $1.0 -- --
9 Luis Medina 100 $1.0 -- --
9 Brandon Pfaadt 101 $1.0 -- --


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