Top 101 Starting Pitchers: Rest-Of-Season Rankings for Fantasy Baseball (Week 16)

July 12, 2023

Nick Mariano's updated fantasy baseball starting pitcher rankings for Week 16 (2023). Baller Ranks is a weekly rankings list for the top-101 starting pitchers.

Are you taking it easy over the All-Star break, fellow RotoBallers? Well, buckle up because the second half is right around the corner so let's kick that off with 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.

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.

Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis

The All-Star break gives us an opportunity to breathe and check out some leaderboards for the first half to figure out what we might expect down the stretch. We’ll also mix in some leaderboards for June and what we’ve seen in July thus far. After all, April and May were a long time ago!

For instance, Spencer Strider’s insane 38.9% overall strikeout rate is well beyond anyone else, with Kevin Gausman’s 32.6% coming in second (min. 50 IP). Now, shift that to SPs with at least 30 IP from June 1-July 11 and Strider’s 34.9% is third.

Tyler Glasnow (35.7%) and Blake Snell (44.4%!!!) are ahead of him. We still love Strider to be the top arm going forward, especially as Snell rocks a 99.4% strand rate (most are around 70-80%), but the dominance must be recognized.

Other notable SPs with a K% above 30% since June began: Braxton Garrett (31.1%), Bryan Woo (30.5%), and Reid Detmers (30.2%). In that window, Garrett’s 2.65 SIERA trails only Snell’s 2.34 mark, with teammate Jesus Luzardo’s 2.78 SIERA rounding out the top three. I will note Garrett is at 92 ⅓ IP thus far and only threw 125 frames last year. The Marlins already limited Eury Perez and may take a similar approach with Garrett as the postseason approaches.

After a breakout 2022, Braxton Garrett has

-thrown more innings
-faced more hitters
-posted a higher ERA+, K9, K/BB, a lower FIP, BB9, WHIP
-totaled more rWAR/fWAR pic.twitter.com/ORFQVU96sD

— Louis Addeo-Weiss (@addeo_louis00) July 10, 2023

Out of the same 102-pitcher pool with 30 IP since June 1, JP Sears has the third-lowest hard-hit rate per Statcast at 28.3%. The problem is that it is often a barrel when he does surrender hard contact. The other 14 arms on the top-15 list are sporting a barrel rate under 8% in that timeframe, but Sears is rocking an 11.3% rate. The southpaw shows flashes but the overall 1.72 HR/9 isn’t going anywhere and that’ll keep his floor low. Stream with caution!

On the other side of the HR coin is Jack Flaherty. He’d given up six round-trippers over his first eight starts of 2023, resulting in a 6.18 ERA and an ugly 12.1% barrel rate. In nine starts since then, Flaherty has a lowly 2.5% barrel rate and zero homers allowed behind his 2.81 ERA. The trade-off is horrid variance, seen with a .389 BABIP within the fences.

The only starter with a worse BABIP since June is Patrick Sandoval. His season-long BABIP is still a reasonable .312 but his most recent six outings is a ridiculous .415. This wasn’t helped by a 10-hit game at Coors but I’d err on trusting the 3.48 FIP in that span rather than the 6.23 ERA. However, Sandoval’s K rate plummeting from 23.7% in ‘22 to 18.2% in ‘23 with no drop in walks amidst the bloated WHIP gives most little reason to speculate on a turnaround in luck.

Let’s flip that leaderboard and see how, outside of Ronel Blanco’s .190 BABIP, it’s Clayton Kershaw at .207 pacing the field. Regression haters are furious as this stretch has brought his seasonal BABIP down to .271, which nearly matches his career mark of .270.

The 35-year-old may not return from the IL right away but it shouldn’t be too long. He’s still incredible but the 6.3% walk rate is his highest rate since 2012. It would be nice to see that trend down, but the future Hall of Famer isn’t exactly a “sell-high candidate” with the current injury so just monitor his form upon activation.

Clayton Kershaw threw just a handful of pitches off the mound yesterday but has reported feeling good, Dave Roberts said. Still TBD if he will be back for that Mets series when eligible on 7/15.

Julio Urías will start the post-ASB opener.

— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) July 8, 2023

One other interesting tidbit that serves as a segue is every pitcher with the 30-inning minimum has given up at least one batted ball of 107 mph or more. That is, all of them except for Joe Musgrove! His maximum exit velocity surrendered is only 104.7 mph with only three barrels over 128 events (2.3%).

His ‘23 campaign was delayed by the broken toe and his first five starts were rusty, but he’s 7-0 with a 1.79 ERA (2.56 FIP) and 54/8 K/BB ratio in his last nine outings. His overall 30% hard-hit rate is also the lowest among all starters with 50 frames in ‘23. And he's leaning more on the curve lately, proving he can evolve with each start and keep hitters on their toes.

#Padres Joe Musgrove has steadily increased the curve usage the last 4 games while steadily decreasing the 4-seam usage

Last 4 starts:
- 26 IP
- 1.38 ERA/ 2.09 FIP/ 2.82 xFIP/ 2.70 SIERA
- 3.3% Barrel%
- 31.7% hard hit%
- 29.9% K-BB%
- 0.81 WHIP
- 43.6% O-Swing%
- 14.5% SwStr% pic.twitter.com/nGKpV15mg0

— Mike Kurland (@Mike_Kurland) July 10, 2023

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball - Week 16

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