Top 101 Starting Pitchers: Rest-Of-Season Rankings for Fantasy Baseball Week 14 (2024)

Welcome back for another trip to the bump for our weekly rest-of-season series that looks at my top 101 SP Baller Ranks breakdown. We've got nearly half of the season in the books but that means we're only in the middle of the season's fifth inning. Join me for the Week 14 edition of my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

Let's see what we've got moving forward 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. Please note most stats here are gathered before Tuesday's games.

These ranks are geared toward traditional 5x5 roto leagues, and I typically exclude most injured SPs, lest a return is imminent. This week brings all sorts of fun, but I also want to know if you'd rather have a different structure. Perhaps laying out the bull and bear cases for five polarizing SPs? Anyway, it's time to leap into my top 101 SPs!

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Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis

-Tyler Glasnow remains the king with a hilarious 37.5% K-BB% and two, count them (two), wins over the last two weeks. Tarik Skubal, Corbin Burnes, and Zack Wheeler all have K-BB rates below 20% over the last month (Glas is at 32.5%) so I’m not sure how one doesn’t have them below TG for 5x5 settings. The Dodgers’ +115 run differential is second in MLB with 49 wins tied for fourth, with a team bullpen ERA of 3.09 that trails only Cleveland. Glasnow’s strikeout upside paired with the team context is tops. The medical history and LAD’s tendency to manage innings are all that give me pause from granting Glasnow his own tier.

-Gerrit Cole had a tough task in facing Baltimore after missing multiple months but he handled it well. Walking only one batter with a 32.3% CSW rate in four frames is a promising first step. But oh, my goodness, what happened against the Mets? His velocity tumbled as he became the first pitcher of 2024 to allow four homers with four walks in four or fewer innings (h/t Tyler Kepner), all while logging zero strikeouts!

Initial thoughts jumped to re-injury fears, especially considering his medical record thus far. But Bryan Hoch passed this quote along from the ace:

Re: Gerrit Cole's velocity, he said that he was intentionally dialing back and throwing slower after his command was lacking in a 28-pitch first inning. "It's a bit like driving a car. Too much clutch or too little clutch can slip you out of gear a little bit."

— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) June 26, 2024

While hearing this certainly beats reports that he’s being sent for imaging and feeling soreness, one doesn’t get the warm fuzzies that Cole deliberately threw that slowly on purpose. The resulting batting-practice dingers hurt us all. He’s lined up to face the Blue Jays in Toronto on Sunday, so let’s hope his clutch is ironed out by then.

-Garrett Crochet is approaching 100 innings after throwing 25 frames last season, missing all of 2022, and totaling 54 ⅓ IP in 2021. He fell one out shy of a seventh consecutive quality start on Monday, “only” twirling 5 ⅔ IP of scoreless ball against the Dodgers. With zero walks! He’s given up 11 earned runs in his last 11 starts, with a beautiful 90:12 K:BB and 1.82 FIP in that span. He’s still throwing between 90-100 pitches per start with healthy pitch data.

Rostering him feels as though you’re playing a “Rocket” style gambling arcade game, where the rocket takes off and you earn money as it goes, but you must cash out to win before it explodes in your face. Obviously, we have Crochet’s production to date pocketed already, so we like our game far better. Some of you might be trying to time an IP wall in selling high. Others may be waiting for the trade deadline to see if he’ll go to a contender that’ll drown him in the victories he deserves. No matter what, just remember you are exceeding +EV already!

(Tues. evening update: Sorry, I might've jinxed the party! Pedro Grifol said today that Crochet's workload will start "dwindling...a little bit," so breathe. You still have your ace, he just might not push to 100 pitches anymore.)

Pedro Grifol said Sox have “blueprint” for managing Garrett Crochet rest of way, saying they’ll “start dwindling his workload down a little bit.” He didn’t want to lay out plan, as it’s flexible depending on how Crochet is feeling, how economical he is with pitches on given day.

— Vinnie Duber (@VinnieDuber) June 25, 2024

-Paul Skenes is worth all of the hype and has a well-deserved slot in the top 10.

-Shota Imanaga ran into a hot Mets team on a hot/windy Wrigley day where a 42.9% HR/FB rate torched him for 10 runs in three innings. This was four starts after the seven-run thumping at the hands of Milwaukee, though that one came after his turn in the rotation was skipped after a rainout.

We knew being a fly-ball pitcher had its pitfalls but that initial nine-start stretch may have lulled some into a false sense of security. The 45% fly-ball rate came with a 21% hard-hit rate, yielding just three HRs in those nine outings. His last five starts have a 53.5% fly-ball rate, 37% hard-hit rate, and seven HRs. The HR/FB rate has more than tripled. Some of that is quality of contact mixing with weather conditions, while Imanaga also has to play "Adjustment Chess" against MLB hitters and scouts consistently. What’s his next step?

-Tanner Bibee keeps climbing! Is it more impressive to register 12 and 11 strikeouts against the Mariners and Reds (respectively), or to ring up seven Orioles while holding them to one earned run over six innings? I think it’s the latter, though one’s fantasy teams greatly appreciate the former. With a surging offense and historically great bullpen behind him, Bibee is unlocking ace-level stuff.

-Kevin Gausman, Jared Jones, and Luis Gil squarely have their “Check Engine” lights on. It’s one thing to have some rattling, but eventually, that weird noise one hears turns into an unignorable problem. Gil has been riding a low BABIP and is showing some of the early walk issues again. Jones’ velocities are holding but the swing-and-miss rates on his curve and changeup have plummeted in June.

Gaus threw three quality starts in a row in late May before getting hit hard by Baltimore, which is excusable, and then he struck out 10 A’s during a complete-game shutout. But he then gave up seven earned in 11 IP to Cleveland and Boston, giving up six home runs and showing uncharacteristically poor control with three walks in last week’s tilt against Boston. (Brief late-night addition: He threw a quality start at Fenway, though it came with two more HRs.)

-Hunter Brown has undoubtedly drawn the ire of those who dropped him early and could not get him re-signed in time. While most who struggled as he did will never rebound this hard, it’s an important lesson in never giving up on younger arms who showcase big whiffs with healthy xFIP/SIERA signals. That’s not to say that you roster them blindly, but one better keep an eye on them! (Late Tues. update: Another gem! Six scoreless with seven strikeouts as our faith rises yet again. The sinker was his key to rising!)

Since he started throwing a sinker on May 5, Hunter Brown has a 2.20 ERA across 57.1 innings. He threw six scoreless innings tonight in his seventh straight quality start. Brown has allowed one earned run during his last 25 innings. His season ERA is 4.37. It was 9.78 on April 30

— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) June 26, 2024

-Hunter Greene had definitely drawn ire for 12 walks in a three-start span (I hear you, Redditors, though you cursed Nick Lodolo to a blister), only to turn around and toss his best game of the season on June 19 against Pittsburgh. He would scatter two hits with zero walks while tying a season-high mark with nine strikeouts. Great American Ball Park remains a frightful place to start though I caution you upon reading his home/road splits.

On the surface, his 2.59 road ERA is leagues worse than the 4.02 home ERA. Opposing teams are hitting .237 with a .729 OPS at GABP versus just .153 with a .547 OPS on the road! But his strikeout and walk rates are the same, with a few more flies at home yet a hard-hit rate seven percentage points lower at GABP. Despite that, his home BABIP is .299 versus .196 away. Isn’t that a hoot? (Late Tues. update: Poor form in the rematch with PIT, but throwing up on the bump earns some mercy if he wasn’t feeling 100%.)

-Spencer Turnbull gets another chance at starting with Taijuan Walker managing “right index finger inflammation” and a blister on his pitching hand. Outside of one instance with poor command on June 12, Turnbull has looked good of late and just threw three scoreless innings on June 21. Those needing six for a QS may come up short but the 31-year-old had a 1.67 ERA with an opposing triple slash of .148/.228/.261 against as a starter. He’s a solid add in all formats even if the workload management will limit his run in the rotation, but this next outing against Detroit is all about revenge:

FYI: Ex-Tiger Spencer Turnbull pitches for the Phillies tomorrow in Detroit. He signed a one-yr, $2 mil contract with them, has a 2.63 ERA & 56 strikeouts in 51⅓ with the best team in the N.L. Tigers president Scott Harris chose not to keep Turnbull rather than pay him $2.4 mil.

— Bob Page (@BobPagesports) June 25, 2024

-Jameson Taillon struck out a season-high 10 while limiting the Mets’ output to one solo HR over seven innings on June 22. That’s his third consecutive QS and also his first start since April 19 with zero walks. His 32% cutter usage was the highest mark of the season and his sweeper had a 100% swing-and-miss rate (he threw 10 of them). This writer highly doubts Taillon has suddenly found another gear, but if he gains more cutter confidence, then perhaps we can bump up the whiff expectation. His next start is slated for June 27 against the Giants in San Francisco.

-Tyler Anderson got the win on Tuesday despite walking five and allowing five hits in five innings. Somehow, he always manages to slip out of the big trouble spots that lead to five, six, or seven runs on the ledger. But he now has 23 walks to 21 strikeouts in his last six starts and the piper is going to get properly paid one of these days. I respect inducing soft contact but jeepers.

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball - Week 14

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