2021 Starting Pitcher Rankings - 5x5 Mixed Leagues (Part 1)

We now move on to starting pitcher in our mixed-league rankings analysis series. If you missed them, here is our review of Catcher, First Base, Second Base, Third Base, Shortstop, and Outfield.

RotoBaller's rankers, JB Branson, Pierre Camus, Nick Mariano, and Ariel Cohen have updated our 2021 Mixed League rankings once more based on early spring training action.

You can also find our other draft rankings for all sorts of league formats, continually updated throughout the preseason, right here in our main fantasy baseball Rankings Wizard tool. Also, make use of all our premium resources with our MLB Draft Kit.

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2021 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings

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, and Ariel Cohen was the top ranker in 2019. In addition, ATC Projections by Ariel Cohen were the #1 most accurate projections system in 2019. Be sure to follow their updated rankings and projections all season long!

Tier One

Mets ace Jacob deGrom couldn't capture his third-straight Cy Young award in 2020, but the NL strikeout leader had another fantastic season and tops our list of pitchers. DeGrom leads the Majors in strikeouts over the last three seasons and you need binoculars to see his closest competition. All those whiffs come with some of the most pristine ratios in the game. He's sported an ERA below 2.50 and a sub-one WHIP for three straight years. The one knock on deGrom over the years has been his lack of wins which is more of an indictment on the Mets. New York added some big bats this offseason so hopefully, deGrom can get some better run support.

The next name on the list is a short subway ride away in Yankees ace Gerrit Cole. Like deGrom, Cole is a strikeout machine sporting the second-best strikeout rate in the Majors since 2018. Wins are tricky to predict for fantasy, but Cole is as likely as any hurler to reach 20 W's as he throws a ton of innings and will be backed by arguably the game's best offense. The Yankees' pitching staff features plenty of questions behind Cole so look for the team to lean on their ace to eat a ton of innings. Cole is the only starter to reach 200 innings in each of the last three full seasons and also reach 90 frames including the playoffs last year.

The last super-ace is Shane Bieber. The youngest of the trio, Bieber was as consistent as they come last season never allowing more than three runs in any of his 12 starts. The American League Cy Young winner averaged a whopping 6.4 innings per start and dazzled in almost all of them. He was the only qualified starter to post a strikeout rate over 40 percent and led the Majors with a 1.63 ERA supported by a 2.04 xFIP.

Tier Two

Tier two casts a wide net and is where most fantasy managers will take their first hurler. Trevor Bauer leads the bunch and is one of the most controversial players in fantasy and I'm not just talking about his social media personality. On one hand, he won the Cy Young award last season going 5-4 with a 1.73 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, and 100 strikeouts in 73 innings. On the other, many shy away from Bauer thanks to an ugly 2019 season sandwiched in between his two dominant years. I'm going to side with the Dodgers who just gave Bauer a record deal for a pitcher. Bauer has number one player in fantasy upside and should be a stud in all four SP roto categories.

Yu Darvish seems to be fully recovered from a couple of injury-plagued seasons, reasserting himself as one of the game's top arms with a 2.01 ERA and 0.96 WHIP last season. An offseason move to San Diego should only help his cause as he'll get a nice park-shift away from the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. Darvish will turn 35 this season but seems to be improving with age as he's raised his swinging-strike rate three years in a row and was top-10 in generating whiffs last year.

I personally would not draft Walker Buehler at his current ADP (20th) but I certainly understand the allure of the 26-year-old Dodger. Buehler's four-seam fastball is one of the best pitches in the game averaging 96.8 MPH and ranks in the 97th percentile in spin rate. Batters hit just .102 against the heater last season and the pitch earned a 26.1 percent whiff rate, an absurdly high number for a non-breaking pitch. Buehler won't throw as many innings as the other high-end arms but that matters less in a 5x5 context making Buehler a tantalizing ace if he falls to the 25-30 range of ADP.

My favorite name in tier two is Aaron Nola who's unassuming dominance goes underappreciated at times. The 27-year-old took his game to new heights last season posting a career-high 33.2 percent strikeout rate. Even if that number dips to his normal 27 percent range, Nola should return value. His 2.79 xFIP last season ranked fourth in the Majors and he had over 200 strikeouts in both 2018 and 2019. If he pitches 200 innings - which he stated was his goal - Nola could carry a pitching staff's ratios while piling up tons of wins and strikeouts.

If ignoring small 2020 sample sizes is your thing, might I recommend Max Scherzer? Mad Max had a down season pitching to a 3.74 ERA last year, the first time he's had an ERA over three since 2014 with Detroit. Despite the spike in earned runs, nothing Scherzer did was overly out of the ordinary. His strikeout rate dipped from his career-high mark in 2019, but was still at a strong 31.2 percent and he didn't lose anything off his fastball which averaged just 0.2 MPH less than in 2019. At 35-years-old, a return to dominance (i.e. Justin Verlander circa 2018) is not out of the range of outcomes, particularly if his fly-ball rate and BABIP regress to his career averages.

No player has quietly established himself as an ace in the past two years quite like Luis Castillo. While he's been overshadowed at times by teammates like Bauer and Sonny Gray, Castillo has been a rock for the Reds and fantasy managers alike. He's pitched to an ERA in the 3.40 range two straight years featuring a 29.4 percent strikeout rate in that span. At 28-years-old Castillo is in the prime of his career and is as safe as any starter can be this early in the draft.

After a year of fighting it, I'm fully on the Lucas Giolito bandwagon. The 26-year-old was one of the worst pitchers in baseball in 2018 but some mechanical changes transformed him into an ace in 2019. He emphatically backed up his performance by dominating again in 2020. With a strikeout rate north of 30 percent two straight years and a strong White Sox offense backing him, expect more dominance from Giolito.

Bringing up the rear in tier two are Jack Flaherty and Clayton Kershaw who possess a fair amount of risk, but for different reasons. Flaherty couldn't carry a strong finish to 2019 into last season when his ERA ballooned to 4.91. We've only seen a half-season of dominance from Flaherty so he's riskier than some of the other names we've seen, but his upside is monstrous and at just 25-years old the best is yet to come. Lastly, we have Clayton Kershaw who is younger than you think at just 32-years-old. It speaks to how dominant Kershaw once was that he is still being drafted among these other aces despite a clear drop from the height of his powers. He carries some injury risk, but Kershaw still posted a strong 6-2 record with a 2.16 ERA, 0.84 WHIP, and 62 strikeouts in 58 1/3 innings last year proving he's still got gas in the tank.

Tier Three

There must be something in the water (beer?) in Milwaukee because Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff both broke out in back-to-back seasons. I'm lumping the Brew Crew duo together not just for the rhymes, but because they took similar paths to success. Basically, what I'm saying is Woodruff's success dating back to 2019 helps validate Burnes' breakout performance in 2020. You know what, this is easier to show in clock form. 

For those unfamiliar, this "clock" displays how much spin affects the movement of a pitch with the pitcher view on the left, and the batter view on the right. What these illustrate is how Burnes (cutter/sinker) and Woodruff (four-seamer/sinker) each rely on two-types of fastball that look the same to the hitter (left) but break differently thanks to the spin (right). I'll draft a ton of each right after the arms in tier two are off the board.

Don't let Tyler Glasnow's 4.08 ERA from last season fool you, this is one of the best pitchers in the game who could contend for a Cy Young award if he stays healthy. The Tampa Bay hurler was cursed with an unlucky 23.8 percent HR/FB rate that is due for regression. Assuming a few more balls stay in the yard Glasnow should post an ERA closer to three with a ton of K's thanks to a strikeout rate over 30 percent two straight years. Buy a bounce-back season for Glasnow.

Blake Snell shouldn't go this high in a points league, but in a 5x5 context, the left-hander checks all the boxes. He won't throw as many innings as other top arms, but he should be good for about 150 innings with strong ratios, plenty of strikeouts, and a fair amount of wins backed by the Slam Diego lineup.

Sticking in the NL West, Zac Gallen has emerged as a legitimate number one starter for the Diamondbacks and is a great target as an SP1 in fantasy if you miss out on the top arms. The 25-year-old doesn't stand out anywhere, but has a well-rounded arsenal and does a little bit of everything above average. Gallen has three pitches that posted a negative run value - that's a good thing - in each of the last two seasons so he's got the tools to pitch deep into games which will help rack up the counting stats.

Speaking of steady but unspectacular, Lance Lynn and Hyun-Jin Ryu are a pair of pitchers who will turn 34 this year, but are still going strong. Lynn led the Majors in innings pitched last season firing 84 frames for the Rangers. He was traded to the White Sox whose thunderous offense should more than makeup for the fact Lynn gets a slight downgrade in home park. Ryu, on the other hand, is entering year-two with the Blue Jays and may finally pitch his first game in Toronto this season. Both of these guys will be relied on to throw a bunch of innings making them ideal candidates to draft as your SP2.

Max Fried is a pitcher I have no interest in at this price and I personally have him in the next tier down. Don't get me wrong, Fried is a good real-life pitcher, but his fantasy projections look too similar to plenty of pitchers going after him on draft day. I'm not paying a Braves/postseason tax for a pitcher who posted only eight K/9 last season.

Rounding out the tier are Carlos Carrasco, Kenta Maeda, and Sonny Gray. These are strikeout artists who earn a ton of swings-and-misses and put up strong ratios. The only thing separating any of these three from the tier two starters is innings but if I can have a name from this trio as my second starter I'm doing cartwheels.

Tier Four

Tier four is a bit of a dead-zone in the starting pitcher rankings. It's a hodgepodge of steady-but-unspectacular veterans, bounce-back candidates and highly-regarded prospects being drafted at their ceiling. The primary exception in this tier is Zach Plesac who is the latest success story of the Cleveland Pitching Factory. Plesac made eight starts last season and lasted at least six innings in all of them. He posted a whopping 14.3 percent swinging-strike-rate, usually a strong indicator of future success. Target Plesac near pick 60 or risk missing out on one of this year's breakouts.

At this point in his career, we know what to expect from Jose Berrios. He may never reach the lofty standards set for him as a prospect, but he's pitched to an ERA of four or under in four-straight seasons and hasn't missed a start since 2017. Throw in a top-20 swinging-strike-rate last season and a respectable strikeout-rate and you've got a solid top-25 starter for fantasy.

Stephen Strasburg was dominant the last time we saw him pitch a full season. He won 18 games in 2019 with sterling ratios and over 250 strikeouts. A lost 2020 season offers a nice discount on a pitcher who was overdrafted last year on the heels of the Nationals' World Series run. Reports indicate Strasburg is recovered from the hand injury that limited him to two starts last season. Strasburg has a career .213 xBA against and a career 29 percent strikeout-rate. If he pitches close to that level this season he'll be a steal at this price.

Kyle Hendricks is a perenially underrated arm for fantasy, but he holds more value in a points league as his innings pitched hold more value in that format. In roto scoring, his 20.8 career strikeout-rate holds him back some, but he's a fine SP3 who will put up dependable ratios as he's never had an ERA above four and never had a WHIP above 1.20 in his seven MLB seasons.

Like Hendricks, Wheeler holds more value in a points league as the Phillies will rely on him to throw a bunch of innings, but a low strikeout rate holds him back. Still, most projection systems have him coming in with a sub-four ERA and a WHIP near 1.20 across roughly 180 innings. That has value and if an improved Phillies bullpen leads to more wins then Wheeler looks good near pick 100.

Zack Greinke is one of the least sexy picks you can make in fantasy, but the 37-year old is still going strong. He made 12 starts last season and reached 200 innings each of the previous three seasons so he's been as reliable as they come. He may not rack up a ton of whiffs anymore, but he boasts an elite walk rate every season which makes him one of the best pitchers to target for WHIP. It's never fun to target wins or WHIP on draft day, but Greinke is a great source for the less heralded roto categories.

Rounding out tier four are two exciting, yet risky left-coast pitching prospects. Jesus Luzardo of the A's and Dinelson Lament of the Padres are two of the best future aces in the game. Luzardo was the top prospect in the A's system and has shown flashes of dominance at the Major League Level. The only issue is Luzardo's career-high for innings in a year is only 107 1/3 back in 2018. He should be brilliant on a start-to-start basis, but this ADP isn't factoring in the risk associated with a young pitcher. The same can be said for Lament who has proven to be one of the great swing-and-miss pitchers in his short career thus far. He's got elite upside, but you're probably not getting even 150 innings out of either young arm in this tier.

Tier Five 

By this point in the draft, you should have at least three starters as things start to get real thin, real fast. Now that we're past pick 100 in ADP, my primary concern is shooting for upside when building a pitching staff. Every player from here on has some flaw we must overlook, but the pitchers found in the middle tiers that do break out are often the difference-makers between good fantasy teams and great ones.

From here on out (i.e. in Part 2!) we'll focus less on every player and zero in on the highlights of each tier starting with Angels hurler Dylan Bundy. In his first year in Anaheim, Bundy dropped his four-seamer usage by about nine percent and it made all of his pitches more effective. The result was a 3.29 ERA supported by a 3.75 xFIP and a career-best 1.04 WHIP. He had the best strikeout and walk rates of his career and should carry that success into 2021.

The Pirates have a rich tradition of players having great careers after they leave Pittsburgh. The latest candidate is Joe Musgrove. The newest San Diegan has all the tools to be a successful Major League pitcher (see below) and a breakout with a new team feels imminent.

Don't look now, but the Marlins have arguably the most exciting rotation in baseball. Exciting doesn't necessarily mean good, but the upside of Pablo Lopez, Sixto Sanchez, and Sandy Alcantara is better than most teams' top-three. For fantasy purposes, give me Lopez who was the only one in the trio to average at least a strikeout-per-inning last year and was the only one whose FIP was lower than his actual ERA.

I consider Frankie Montas the most overdrafted pitcher in fantasy. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like such as an 11 percent career swinging-strike rate, but he hasn't reached 100 innings in a season since 2015 (in the minors) and got blasted in September of last season after returning from an IL stint with a back issue. Montas is a hard pass at this point in the draft given other names available later on. This is also too high for Julio Urias given his innings concerns and question marks over how the Dodgers intend to use him.

Patrick Corbin is one of the more intriguing names for fantasy. Much has been made of his decreased velocity last season which torpedoed his strikeout-rate, and his fantasy value. He's reportedly added a cutter this offseason which should pair nicely with his slider (what am I, a pitching sommelier?). I don't love Corbin, but I'm definitely intrigued by him at his ADP of 137th overall. For context, Corbin had an ADP of 48th overall and SP14 last season. He doesn't have to bounce back to his old self to return value in tier five.

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