Top 101 Starting Pitchers: Rest-Of-Season Rankings for Fantasy Baseball Week 21 (2024)

August is already halfway over so it's high time for yet another weekly rest-of-season rundown that looks at my top 101 SP Baller Ranks breakdown. Any speed bumps at this juncture can become mountains with so little season left, especially workload limits. Keep it moving for the Week 21 edition of my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

This brings my SP thoughts 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. Pitchers will start to swing more as the remaining game tally shortens, especially if there are injury risks, inning walls, and so on. We'll check back in with some inning counts this week.

These ranks are geared toward traditional 5x5 roto leagues, and I typically exclude most injured SPs, lest a return is imminent. Don't let the NFL's siren song pull you into a trap and let all of this hard baseball work go to waste. We're going to win it all here at RotoBaller.

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Starting Pitcher Week 21 Rankings Analysis

-Blake Snell is a Tier 1 arm, throw a party! Maybe we just blindly code in a first-half fade and second-half boost for him in 2025.

Blake Snell has an .097 opp BA over his last 7 starts

that’s 4th-lowest over a 7-start span since the mound moved in 1893 (min 100 batters faced), behind only:

9/29/22-4/21/23 Shohei Ohtani: .087
5/9-6/21/21 Jacob deGrom: .091
7/1-8/1/04 Johan Santana: .093

h/t @EliasSports

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) August 13, 2024

-Paul Skenes’ fastball velocity continues to trend down. It’s not surprising on the whole but the slope of the line is troubling. It’s an observable pattern going in one direction only so we are comfortably beyond pure “speculation” degradation of stuff now.

We have a bright future to watch unfold in the coming years but further temper those expectations down the stretch. One wonders if Pittsburgh will shut him down or limit his innings given the clear wear on his arm.

At least he isn’t doing the Garrett Crochet-style wilting, eh? A little more on him later.

-Aaron Nola, what’s your excuse? Oh, you’ve faced the Yankees, Dodgers, and D-backs over your last three outings? Yes, that’ll sting. He hasn’t won a game since July 11 and has struck out more than four in a start just once since then, too. Usually, he provides ample punchouts to go with some ratio volatility.

-Max Fried’s first start off the IL came against Miami and he got torched, but the first start can be rusty. Then the southpaw had to march into Coors and deal with that (5 IP, 5 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 9 K) so we’ll give him a rust-plus excuse. He gets the friendly seawall in San Francisco for his next scheduled outing on Aug. 15.

-Spencer Arrighetti set a season-high mark with 12 strikeouts against the Rays on Aug. 4. Neat! Then he one-upped himself with 13 strikeouts in Fenway on Aug. 10. There is a non-zero chance he keeps the trend going with a home matchup versus the White Sox on tap for Aug. 16.

Okay, we’ve seen him do this before but then he’s given back control gains and backslid into poor ratios. But this is three consecutive quality starts (and four of his last five) and growth as a rookie is perfectly acceptable. You have to at least bump him for the White Sox matchup!

-Carlos Rodon finally kept the ball in the yard for the first time in over a month in his latest outing against the Rangers, but it came with five walks over 5 ⅔ IP. His last month has yielded some good, with only 17 hits and 38 strikeouts in 28 ⅓ IP, as well as bad thanks to 13 walks and five home runs. The southpaw has a top-3 swinging-strike rate over that window to go with a bottom-10 first-strike rate and .203 BABIP/20% ground-ball rate.

-Jeffrey Springs struck out eight Orioles over five innings of one-run ball for his first solid outing of 2024. Tampa pulled him after hitting 83 pitches so perhaps the land of six innings and quality starts is destined for next season.

-Zebby Matthews and his electrifying 114:7 K:BB from the minors came up on Tuesday for a debut against the Kansas City Bobby Witt Jr. gang. The rookie did not appear overwhelmed by the stage and rung up Witt on three straight pitches for his MLB strikeout. He would tally five strikeouts over five innings, with two runs allowed on five hits and zero walks. That sounds like Matthews! Elite control is one hell of a foundational building block to grow on.

Very solid #MNTwins debut for Zebby Matthews, who held the Royals to two runs in five innings and, as advertised, walked zero and struck out five.

Matthews' fastball averaged 95 mph and he got 11 called strikes with it.

He was at High-A three months ago. pic.twitter.com/SD0MeXt82d

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) August 14, 2024

-Ryne Nelson might pitch out of the bullpen on Wednesday or make another start on Friday, with a brief six-man turn through the rotation as injured vets return. We don’t know if Nelson will be the odd man out when they switch to a five-man rotation but it’s hard to imagine his current form getting bottled up. Alas, teams do silly things.

-Edward Cabrera may still be a target for the over on his walk props, but otherwise, EdCab has found his whiffs and posted back-to-back scoreless outings. Those have come against the Braves and Padres so they aren’t total Mickey Mouse matchups, either. His 2.01 ERA over his last four starts has a viable 3.13 FIP and 48% ground-ball rate behind it with over a strikeout per inning. His subpar control means any start could devolve into a ratios massacre but the upside is shining through of late.

-Walker Buehler is slated to return on Wednesday after missing roughly two months due to a hip injury. While the goals of someone’s rehab assignment can be murky, Buehler allowing nine runs on 16 hits with eight walks over just 12 ⅔ IP cannot be a good sign given what we’d seen before the injury. He is easily within “must prove it” territory before being trusted again.

-Colin Rea had another stellar performance on Aug. 6, blanking the Braves in a rematch with a season-high nine strikeouts. Prior to getting thumped by the Dodgers on Tuesday, the 34-year-old had posted a 30:6 K:BB with a 1.57 ERA (2.48 FIP) over his previous 23 innings. But that’s how it goes with this tier.

-JP Sears has won six out of his last seven games after a dreadful June seemingly put his fantasy value on ice. This writer remains skeptical!

-Matthew Boyd had a lovely return to the hill, throwing 80 pitches for 5 ⅓ IP of one-run ball. The heater averaged 92.2 mph and he worked in plenty of sliders, changeups, and sinkers to go with a sprinkling of curveballs. Boyd ended his night with a 39% CSW rate (Called Strike+Whiff rates) and six strikeouts and could be a fun arm down the stretch.

Matthew Boyd ended his night by retiring 9 in a row.

80 pitches, 5.1 IP, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K.

He threw 16 pitches an 0-2 counts.

A great return for one of the nicest guys in baseball.

— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) August 14, 2024

-Nick Martinez has only made two starts since his August reinsertion into the rotation but he’s crushed Miami and Milwaukee in those turns. The biggest thing is carrying over the elite control we’d seen in the bullpen, issuing zero free passes in those 12 starting innings. He’s only walked two batters over 36 frames going back nearly two months. If you cheat and lower the leaderboard threshold to 10 innings, Martinez’s 1.68 FIP leads all SPs over the last 30 days.

Philosophically, you have to ask yourself what your path to winning looks like from the pitchers. Are you in a points league or head-to-head setting where you need to generate volume and throw caution to the wind in terms of volatility? Guys with steady roles who aren’t getting skipped obviously get a bump for you.

Do you have 4-5 arms that you trust the rest of the way and it’s a streaming bonanza/hot hand approach beyond that? Then the upside darts such as David Festa, Rea, Sears, Grant Holmes, Bowden Francis, etc. become more appealing. You probably aren’t holding churners such as Kyle Gibson, Marcus Stroman, and so on.

Workload Management Limit Risks

We’ve done this before but let’s circle back to some SPs who are likely hitting inning/workload walls. We expect these names to be at risk of being limited, skipped, or shut down during the regular season.

-Chris Sale: Seems very unlikely, especially with the NL Cy Young within grasp.
-Tarik Skubal: Now over 50 IP past last year and DET is not in contention. He threw 88 pitches on Tuesday. But the AL Triple Crown is within reach.
-Tyler Glasnow: Dodgers could pace him before playoffs arrive.
-Paul Skenes: Velo trending down in first MLB year, losing streak ruined playoff momentum.
-Cole Ragans: Another velo laggard, about 15 IP over ‘23 total, but KC is in the Wild Card hunt.
-Hunter Greene: Roughly +20 IP now, why does he keep throwing up on the bump?
-Michael King: +25 IP after hybrid SP/RP role last year; they’ve already spaced out starts.
-Luis Gil: 120 IP after almost zero in ‘23; going to the bullpen when Clarke Schmidt is ready? Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes are also well above ‘23 IP.
-Ronel Blanco: Hasn’t gone past 5 IP in his last three starts. 128 IP matches his total between minors and majors last year.
-Spencer Schwellenbach: They want to preserve him while needing him. 65 IP last year, at 115.
-Garrett Crochet: Not only well past IP expectations but stuff really fading. It was a good run. They should still look to trade him this offseason so why get wild?
-Seth Lugo: About 15 IP over last year but the average vertical release point keeps falling w/ bad results.
-Nick Pivetta: Not an IP risk on paper but receiving extra rest anyway. Career-best 24% K-BB%.
-Tanner Houck: Nearly 30 IP over with fewer than three strikeouts in four of his last six.
-Kutter Crawford: Had given up HRs like candy before Tuesday’s perfect game bid, ~10 IP over now.
-Nick Lodolo: At 116 IP with only ~40 last year due to injuries. Vertical release has sharply fallen in the last two outings.
-Jake Irvin: Another QS on Tuesday to now sit around his 2023 IP total. Might be okay here.
-Reynaldo Lopez: Another Brave. An injured Brave. One who is 40 IP over his 66 relief innings last year and who is rehabbing from a forearm issue. Expect his remaining starts to be stunted.

Reynaldo López allowed three runs over four innings in Tuesday's rehab start for Gwinnett. He threw 71 pitches, which was around his target of 75. He gave up six hits. He walked one and struck out four.

— Justin Toscano (@JustinCToscano) August 14, 2024

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball - Week 21

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