Preseason Starting Pitchers: Old Lists And Player Rater Twists

Happy Monday, Razzball Nation!

I hope you all had a good bit of time to sit down and sift through a week’s worth of new baseball content! It’s always exciting to see our writers back in action, and if you haven’t checked out the other daily articles, make sure you give them a read. There’s a lot of excellent stuff in there to help you with your pre-draft planning.

Speaking of pre-draft planning… our Razzball tools are up and running for your perusal. If you’re looking for that edge over your competition, this is it. The Streamonator alone makes it worthwhile, but you’ll also get access to Rudy’s War Room software AND an invite to RazzSlam 7! Pretty, pretty sweet.

Now that that’s out of the way, I’m back this week to follow up on my preseason pieces before (eventually) releasing my Top 100 Starting Pitcher list for your consumption (and, inevitably, your criticism!).

This week, as promised, we’re headed back to the past to compare the final Top 100 Starting Pitchers list from 2025 to our shiny, new 2026 Preseason Player Rater (sorted by SP).

You can click those blue clicky links above to open the two lists in a new window if you want to follow along with what I’m looking at for this week’s comparison.

It’ll be broken into three sections today. 

• Players I ranked in that final 2025 list that are pretty close to the 2026 Preseason Player Rater rankings.
• Players that were ranked much lower in the final 2025 list, but are slotting into a Top 100 position in the Preseason Player Rater.
• Players I ranked higher in that end-of-season list than the Player Rater has them ranked for 2026.

Just a couple of caveats that I’ll go into much more detail about later this preseason.

My final 2025 list is a snapshot from the end of the season. It was the final stage of the ever-evolving and constantly changing list. I’ll get into that later, but the bottom line is you won’t see guys who finished the season injured, and recent production affected final rankings more than it would in an overall recap list.

The 2026 Preseason Player Rater is also a dynamic reference. Rudy is great at updating the playing time, roles, and subsequent predicted stats based on offseason moves or gathering new information to consider. Today’s 2026 list may change as early as Thursday morning, or some names might stick in their spot all the way up to opening day. 

Lastly, I have a Top 10 established for this year, but I don’t want to throw my giant snowy boots on the boss’s toes. I’ll wait until Grey publishes his “Top 20 Starting Pitchers” post before putting my guys out to the masses. I’ll likely include Grey’s rankings in that one, too.

SO without further ado, let’s get to it!

The 2026 Preseason Player Rater ranking is the first number listed. My final 2025 Top 100 ranking is the number in brackets.

CLOSE ENOUGH

Players who are “close enough” in the 2026 Preseason Player Rater and my final 2025 list.

George Kirby 9 (13) – If there’s one thing that we need to pay attention to when it comes to analysing the Player Rater rankings, it’s that starting pitcher wins are a major driver of value. 

Cool story, MarmosDad. So why is a guy who went 10-8 last year ranked in the Top 10 on the 2026 Player Rater?

That’s a fair question. I should point out that both wins and walk suppression are major factors in propelling a player into the upper tier of “guys we want to draft,” (at least as far as the robot is concerned). 

Kirby’s ERA was a career worst (4.21), but his 9.8 K/9 was the highest of his career. That’s encouraging. But his calling card is, and always has been, his walk rate. If Kirby had amassed enough innings, his 2.07 BB/9 would’ve had him just miss the Top 10 overall, right between Joe Ryan’s 2.05 and Matt Boyd/Kyle Freeland’s 2.10.

Let’s not forget that Georgy Kirby and Logan Gilbert were two hot picks heading into last year’s drafts, and both managed to overcome some setbacks to post some solid walk rates…although not quite the best from that Seattle rotation!

Max Fried 13 (9) – Fried was one of the guys who had a spot in my final Top 10 from 2025. As Grey has said before, I also kept waiting for Fried’s arm to fall off at some point. But Fried has posted back-to-back seasons with heavy innings totals averaging 185 IP since the start of 2024.

If you were in the same camp as the Fantasy Master Lothario and your guy, MD, I think it’s time to acknowledge that this guy is as “safe” as anyone who toes the rubber every 5 days in the regular season. If you’re in an auction draft, make sure you mention the 7 ER he gave up to the Blue Jays in the ALDS when you call out his name for bids.

Ryan Pepiot 49 (40) – I wanted to find a name around the middle in both of our lists, and took a crack at some names that I assumed some people would be “in on” from a breakout or sleeper perspective. Lo and behold, here’s one who checked all the boxes.

I’ll get into this on Wednesday when I record the AL East pod with Mike and Jeremy, but I won’t be in on a Pepiot breakout this year. I said the same thing last year. I don’t feel comfortable rolling the dice on Pepiot at his current draft price. Last year, he was going off the board as the 61st SP. This year? According to NFBC ADP, he’s the SP39. I’d rather snag someone like Emmett Sheehan (SP37) or Trey Yesavage (SP45) there if I want to gamble on a kid with upside. Call it personal preference over cold, hard data if you must.

WHAT? WHO?

Players I had/have ranked lower than the 2026 Player Rater.

Christopher Sanchez 7 (17) – Oh, baby. If I had a dollar for every “sleeper’ list that this guy is going to be on this Spring, I could buy groceries without applying for a loan. All jokes aside, this guy is going to be the starting pitcher darling in everyone’s queue for the 2026 draft season. Think back to Hunter Brown and Spencer Schwellenbach from last year.

The helium is going to push him into Top 5 SP status, if it hasn’t reached it already, and the NFBC ADP also has him going off the board as such (if we exclude the ranking of Shohei Ohtani as the SP1). My ranking from last September was admittedly low, likely because Sanchez got roughed up twice in his final month of games at NYM and LAD.

Hedging spoiler alert: “Mini Zack Wheeler” won’t be anywhere near my final ranking from September when my February list comes out.

Framber Valdez 18 (30) – If you’re a regular Razz-Veteran who purchases the tool package, first “Thank You!”, and secondly, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. Framber Valdez has been a War Room favorite for as many years as I can remember. He and Jose Berrios just hung around at the top of the sheet as we worked our way through round after round in those 2025 drafts. Could Valdez’s Player Rater ranking be affected by his choice of home jersey when he signs his free agent deal with a new club? Maybe. But the Player Rater loves this guy so much, I can’t see it pushing him much further down than the Top 5-10 SPs. 

In that final 2025 list, Framber was my first “Dumper” that warranted a “More below” write-up…

“Framber Valdez – 4.2 IP, 5 ER, 6 H, 4 BB, 4 Ks, and his 4th straight loss. We already used the “I wonder if he blamed this one on his catcher, too” joke two weeks ago, and now it’s gotten to the point where I’d be concerned if I were an Astros fan. He’s given up 19 ER in his last 4 starts (20.2 innings), and his 7-inning shutout against Colorado on August 27th sticks out like a good thumb on a hand full of broken digits (that’s how the saying goes, no?). With this tailspin he’s on, I’d even consider sitting him at LAA this week.”

And that’s me quoting me! I wouldn’t shy away from Framber as much as I did at the end of last year, but his poor finish to the season should certainly mean we need to keep an eye on (a) where he signs, and (b) see if his control is sharp enough in his March starts. He gets a bump up in QS leagues, too.

Jameson Taillon 65 (N/R) – This one caught me so off-guard that I had to screenshot it and send it to Truss in a bit of a “WTF?” moment. Mr. “Irish Whiskey” has been the ultimate “Up/Down” guy over the last couple of seasons, sliding off the Top 100 one week and clawing his way back up in that bottom ten section more than once or twice a month. But an SP65 ranking? Taillon has enough juice left in the tank to start 2026 on my Top 100 list, but I can’t see him cracking my Top 85, let alone anything higher than that. Here’s hoping he can stay healthy and let that Cubs offense give him a pile of run support. 

EDIT: I somehow ended up at a pitcher-only version of the Preseason Player Rater sorted by games/innings/wins predicted when I first typed this up, and Jameson Taillon was the SP3 behind Logan Webb and Framber Valdez. That’s a Joey Lawrence-sized, “WHOA!”

YEAH! That’s what I’m talking about!

Players I have ranked much higher than the 2026 Player Rater.

Kyle Bradish – 34 (26) – I don’t want to publish all of my talking points in that C&C pod that we’ll record this week, but seeing Kyle Bradish ranked as low as he is in the 2026 Player Rater projections was a surprise. My guess is the suppression is linked to Bradish’s late comeback from Tommy John Surgery, and the low start total (6 GS) from 2025. I remember writing Bradish up at the end of the season and being downright giddy about his solid finish.

The good news is that he was pretty awesome in those games: 32 IP, 23 H, 10 BB, 47 Ks, 2.53 ERA, 1.03 WHIP. The bad news is he’s not exactly an under-the-radar starter for 2026. He won’t start in my Top 10 in February, but he’s not very far from that cutoff line. I won’t give anything away, but I will say he’s quite a bit higher than that SP26 slot in my new rankings. Bottom line: We’re both too low on him here, and I can see his ADP rising a lot over the next few weeks before potentially pricing me out in redraft leagues.

Trevor Rogers 97 (10) – I almost went with Blake Snell here (Player Rater: 89), just because I didn’t want to load up on two Baltimore arms, but here we are. If we can ignore the hyperbole, Rogers’s season was pretty otherworldly last year. If we also ignore a big hiccup in his final start (3.2 IP, 6 ER at NYY), he rifled off 15 straight starts from late June where he allowed TWO OR FEWER earned runs.

When a guy finishes his season with a line like this: 109.2 IP, 70 H, 22 ER, 103 Ks, 1.81 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, it’s tough to argue that he’s not worthy of a Top 10 spot. That said, he’s not cracking my Top 10 for 2026, or at least not the first edition of it. The Preseason Player Rater kind of hates him (see photo below), but I’m taking a starter in that SP34-44 section if that NFBC ADP holds up. In NFBC ADP, Rogers is the SP43, nestled between Edward Cabrera and Ranger Suarez (for now).

At least he’s ranked higher than Taj Bradley!

Cam Schlittler 82 (49) – This one gives me Pepiot-vibes in that I know he’s going to be a very solid pitcher this year, but I’m not going to want to pay the price to enjoy the ride on my fantasy rosters. If Schlittler had started enough games to qualify for overall stats rankings, his 10.36 K.9 would’ve slotted him in a tie for the 7th best strikeout rate in the league.

But MarmosDad, who is tied with him for such a great strikeout rate?

I’ll give you a hint. He pitches in Pittsburgh, has a newly sprouting moustache/beard after an ill-advised offseason shave, and has a new Cy Young award on his mantle at home. 

Schlittler is currently the SP34 in NFBC ADP, and, like with Pepiot, I don’t want to pay that price to reel him in. I’d rather take the risk with the guy directly above him (Jacob Misiorowski) or below him (Nick Lodolo) than draft the 24-year-old sophomore with a top 130 pick. The strikeouts are going to be off the charts, but I prefer The Miz or falling into that continual trap that we like to call The Lodolo.

 

To sum it all up today, there are a few differences between the final 2025 Top 100 Starting Pitchers list and this season’s 2026 Preseason Player Rater. If anything, a lot of this underscores how much the offseason moves and player roles change the dynamic of team planning and, thus, our fantasy preparations.

I think it’s safe to say we’ll have a few more changes on the horizon as the calendar creeps closer to Opening Day and a few of our last-minute straggler free agents finally decide on a new home.

Don’t worry, I’ll be here to guide you along the way!

 

That’s it for this week! Regular readers know the drill. If you have anything to share or comment on, feel free to drop it in the comments, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

As I said above, I’ll be back next week to look through some of the statistics I used to sift through names and put together my Top 10 for 2026.

See you next Monday!

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