Top 101 Starting Pitchers: Rest-Of-Season Rankings for Fantasy Baseball (Week 8)

Welcome back to another mid-May edition of my weekly Top 101 Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks breakdown. This is about where I feel comfortable taking some harder stances on preconceived notions, so let's jump into another edition of my weekly Starting Pitcher Baller Ranks!

It seems a new pitching prospect comes to tempt us each week. Those who have stashed young and exciting arms ahead of the curve may have been rewarded with excellent play or with a nice sell-high trade. Either way, I hope you're winning out there.

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. We're about 25% of the way done with the 2023 fantasy baseball season, and that's a significant chunk, but it is still early! Right, let's get to it.

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Starting Pitcher Rankings Analysis

-Spencer Strider is working toward his first full season as a starter and that’s about the only red flag I’ve got for you. The long-term doubt as the season wears on may creep in regarding workload, especially for an Atlanta team with postseason aspirations. Strider has a 44.1% strikeout rate over the last 30 days, well above the next man at 36.4%, which is Edward Cabrera (!).

But Cabrera has a nasty 15% walk rate attached to his whiffs while Strider has a lean 5.9% BB rate in that window. Strider’s resulting 38.1% K-BB% makes him one of three in the last 30 days to beat 28% (min. 20 IP), with Kevin Gausman (32.5%) and Zac Gallen (31.5%) joining the party. It’s a wonderful world and Strider is well within the No. 1 SP conversation. If the workload is established down the stretch then he’s an easy first-rounder come 2024.

The average MLB fastball drops 15" from hand to plate.
This Spencer Strider heater dropped only 5".
That's totally insane. pic.twitter.com/lvx0remHNl

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) May 12, 2023

-Nestor Cortes started with three earned or fewer in each of his first five starts, going five innings or more in all of them. The 28/5 K/BB was more than respectable and Cortes resembled the crafty arm we loved from last year. But the last three outings have not followed that path.

Struggling against Texas and Tampa Bay is understandable so don’t overreact, but a 14/8 K/BB with four homers and never going into the sixth is a particularly rough stretch. He could’ve teed off on Oakland but note their 112 wRC+ against lefties is 9th in the majors. I’m not happy here, and Cortes faces the Blue Jays next. I won’t blame anyone who benches him for a “prove-it” outing.

-Shane Bieber continues to rattle off quality starts, with his latest six innings of shutout ball against the Tigers coming with a season-best nine strikeouts. The 27-year-old had only struck out four in each of his previous five starts, so the whiffs were a welcome sight. But the 2.61 ERA has a 3.62 FIP behind it.

In the last 30 days, Bieber’s 51.5% hard-hit rate is the fifth worst out of 122 SPs (min. 20 IP), per Statcast. You can succeed in spite of that, but it’s tough! Only he and Framber Valdez (49.5%, ninth) have an ERA lower than 4.50 in that window out of those in the top 10.

But Bieber’s .274 BABIP in that span is 79th and Cleveland’s -1 DRS is 16th in the majors. You can’t chalk up good luck to a star-studded defense behind him. The hard hits haven’t been too damaging, somehow, but the 93 mph average exit velocity is in the bottom 3% of the league and likely burns him soon. Especially if the strikeouts are down and batted-ball events are more common.

So, I wrote this before his Tuesday night start and was sweating the first four innings when he kept it in cruise control. But then the fateful fifth inning struck and those hard-hit balls showed up in force. And they caused damage this time. Six earned on 12 hits (two homers) brought that ERA up from 2.61 to 3.36, with his FIP rising to 3.91. Stay tuned!

-Reid Detmers and his ugly .372 BABIP (.397 over the last 30 days) have fantasy managers scratching their heads. The southpaw has shown flashes of good, with 41 strikeouts in 35 frames alongside a 3.91 FIP behind the 4.89 ERA. But there has to be more to it than just “bad luck” at this point.

Detmers’ least-used secondaries, the change and the curve, are still functioning as they did in ‘22. But he throws the change far less (4.1% in ‘23, 11.3% in ‘22) and leans on his slider nearly 40% of the time now compared to 24% last year. The slidepiece is four ticks faster with less spin and more whiffs as well, and the xSLG on it is a modest .322. Not worried much there. We liked the improved slider last year and still dig it in 2023.

But his fastball is getting torched. Batters hit .232 (.262 xBA) against it last year, with a .412 SLG (.455 xSLG) and a decent 15.9% Put Away rate per Statcast.  Not bad for a foundational four-seamer. But this year? It’s yielding a .326 average (.340 xBA) and .488 SLG (.558 xSLG). The Put Away rate is halved at 7.8%. The metrics say it should be even worse for him! My trust is gone until consistency there improves.

-Eury Perez is a stud but definitely will need to evolve from “thrower” to “pitcher” if he wants to avoid giving up some long home runs. Cincinnati strikes out a bunch so it was a friendly debut (4 ⅔ IP, 7 K) and now we just hope Miami gives him some run. He threw 77 innings at age-19 last year and will undoubtedly have his workload managed. Let’s make the most of those frames.

It's only two innings so far but worth noting: Eury Perez is averaging 2,644 RPMs on his fastball so far

That's the same average spin rate Emmanuel Clase has on his fastball, and that leads the league

— Ben Palmer (@benjpalmer) May 12, 2023

-Alek Manoah has a FIP, xFIP, and SIERA all above 6.00. His xERA is 7.05! You don’t need my blessing to let him go. He’s not missing bats, giving up home runs at nearly double the usual clip (1.6 HR/9, career 0.92) with a horrendous 1.4% K-BB%. That’s the fourth-worst K-BB% out of 144 SPs with at least 20 innings pitched. Hitters are slugging .737 against his slider, when he can even locate it near the zone, of course. Oy very.

After walking two to begin the 5th inning, Alek Manoah has now thrown more balls (48) than strikes (44) today. A rarely seen pitching line that's prompting John Schneider to go to the bullpen. Manoah, a Cy Young finalist a year ago, having trouble finding the zone this season

— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) May 16, 2023

**I was going to bed but saw the Matthew Liberatore news. Without confirmation that this is more than a spot start, I'd say he slots in around 80. The upside is likely worth an end-of-the-bench roster slot for those of you in 12-teamers.

Gavin Stone also had a nice Triple-A tilt, racking up 24 swinging strikes and 10 strikeouts after being held in reserve in case Noah Syndergaard couldn't make his start for LAD. He's still around the back of the pack but those seeking upside need to keep him in mind.

Top 101 Starting Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball - Week 8

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