Baller Ranks: Starting Pitchers Top 101 Weekly Rankings

We have another week in the record books for our emerging 2022 MLB season, which yields another dose of my weekly top-101 SP Baller Ranks breakdown. RotoBallers can enjoy my rambling about key movers and then scroll through the top-101 in a table with tiers, ranks, earned value via Fangraphs, and even more notes! You are a go for the third 2022 edition of my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

This google sheet accompanies the table below and adds relevant 5x5 stats, K%, BB%, BABIP, FIP, xFIP, SIERA, ERA-FIP, and CSW% from 2022. Do note that I leave off injured players, but for now, I will include them at the bottom with a rank of where they'd appear when healthy. I highly encourage you to click the link. CLICK IT!

As is tradition, these ranks are geared towards traditional 5x5 leagues and focus on healthy players. If 25% of the board is on the IL, then that doesn't help anyone. And now we head into this week's top-101 SP!

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Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis

Another week into the season means slightly more stabilization, but there are still plenty of new velocities, repertoires, and batted-ball data nuisances to chew on.

***I realize that Garrett Whitlock didn't move from the RP table into the SP table, he would slot in around No. 50 at the moment. Astounding stuff, even if Boston's plan for his workload is a bit murky. You'll take a few months of incredible SP production + a replacement if an innings cap or RP shift does eventually come.

-Joe Musgrove is certainly performing like a top-12 arm, providing consistent, top-end results for those who entrusted him as their SP1 or SP2. Some are looking rusty out of the gate, but not Joe Cool. Rocking a 21/1 K/BB through 19 innings after a shortened spring is an easy way to further solidify one’s must-start status.

-Robbie Ray and Zack Wheeler are vexing us, but at least Wheeler has an excuse couched in his preseason injury and the lack of spring training. If you drafted Wheeler, then you’re not dropping him, but I think he’s on the bench until he proves he can be trusted. If I can buy low at about 75 cents on the dollar, then I’d consider it, but not much higher. Then there’s Ray, who was sitting at 92 mph early on Sunday before ramping up towards 94 at the end of his KC outing. It was a quality start, his third of the year, but he’s yet to top five strikeouts in a start. Hopefully, the arm livens up and we get more zip on April 30 against Miami, who entered Sunday with the eighth-highest K% (25%) in baseball.

-Jose Berrios had a rough first inning against the Red Sox last week, but he was able to batten down the hatches and leave Fenway with only one earned run allowed over six innings. This marks his first quality start of 2022, even if it wasn’t a beauty. Unfortunately, he draws a rematch with the Red Sox on Monday for his next outing and then gets Houston after that. It’s not ideal, though it will give us a clear picture of how much we can trust him heading into May.

-Trevor Rogers wasn’t great last week against Atlanta, but allowing zero earned runs against the defending champions is encouraging. His second start was a nightmare and we’ll hope this begins a turnaround for last year’s breakout.

-Kyle Wright is somehow getting better with each outing, with this most recent effort yielding a career-best 11 strikeouts over six shutout frames. Wright will take on the upstart Cubbies at home in his next start as he looks to quiet the naysayers. Do note his electric 36.4% K-BB rate and the .306 BABIP, so don’t go blaming batted-ball luck.

-Nestor Cortes continues to astound fantasy teams and confound professional hitters. He sat down 13 Orioles in a row before an Amed Rosario walk and a Josh Naylor home run ruined his perfect day. Now with a wicked 25/3 K/BB ratio over just 15 ⅔ IP, Cortes and his excellent cutter are chopping down opponents. He’s faced Toronto, Baltimore, and Cleveland so far, with a date against Kansas City upcoming. While KC is towards the bottom in overall strikeout rate, they’re also bottom-five with a poor 80 wRC+ so far.

-Noah Syndergaard ramped up the whiffs on Saturday, totaling a season-high six strikeouts over 5 ⅔ IP after only logging five across his first 11 ⅓ IP. This all feels warm and fuzzy thanks to a 58% groundball rate, but eventually, we’ll see some give on .200 BABIP and he’ll surrender a home run or two. Just be ready for that if he doesn’t have whiffs to get him through any traffic.

-Hunter Greene better not be hurt already, but that velocity drop from the 100 range towards 95-96 mph is frightful. Is it one cold day that he’ll shake off, or are we heading towards a bigger problem?

-Matt Brash is another youngster looking to settle into the bigs, though his early command leaves something to be desired. There’s no doubting the incredible stuff provided by his arm, but MLB hitters armed with scouting reports will continue to spit on the wicked movement until he starts painting some corners. If it’s only a matter of potential sequencing, then we must sit on the ceiling available to the few who can create that kind of movement.

-Merrill Kelly continues to lean on an effective changeup next to his cutter, curveball, and four-seamer. Hitters have only mustered one hit off of the change so far, with eight strikeouts and the .161 xBA underscoring its good work. I’m not getting overly attached here, especially with zero home runs allowed so far, but a 1.72 FIP and the .325 BABIP make me feel good about his current approach.

-Glenn Otto finally gets a chance to make good on his unfortunate 2021 MLB sample. His five innings of one-run ball with a 20% swinging-strike rate (!) was beautiful and will make everyone forget the 9.26 ERA/1.71 WHIP from last season’s 23 ⅓ IP. What if I told you that horrid near-10 ERA had a 3.17 FIP, 3.49 xFIP, and 3.82 SIERA behind it? And he had 134 strikeouts in 95 ⅔ IP between Double- and Triple-A last year, with all sorts of strikeout fury in that fastball-slider-curve combo of his.

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball

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