This week…was a project. I had to miss last week (although I did get to run into Johan Santana and Rod Carew at Target Field…you know, NBD) so there was a lot to catch up on this time out. I also have to qualify that with only a handful of weeks left in the season, you can take these ranks to be more fluid than in the past. The vast majority reading this are in standard 10-12 team mixed leagues. In those leagues, you can pretty much stream plus matchups with anyone outside of the top 60 and worry less about the actual ranking. Take full advantage of the Streamonator. Pick on the worst offensive squads in baseball – the White Sox, Orioles, Mets, Royals, Padres, Marlins, and Tigers are punching bags. Even the Reds, Giants, and Twins have been bad over the second half thus far, and sure aren’t going anywhere fast.

We have unfortunately lost Johnny Cueto for the season with Tommy John, and we’re still a ways off from the return of Stephen Strasburg, Carlos Martinez, Yu Darvish, or Michael Fulmer. Oh, and another qualifier: the Rays are making this list harder for me to make with this whole “Opener” business. I obviously have Blake Snell on the list, but I’m gonna go ahead and treat their long relievers that actually go fiveish innings as starters. Yonny Chirinos and the newly acquired Tyler Glasnow make the list, though their roles are somewhat murky. Fantasy-wise it’s actually a bit of an advantage for these guys as far as accumulating wins. Fewer starters than ever in MLB are going 5+ innings to qualify for the win; with the Opener taking care of the first inning, all the other guys have to do is toss four innings to qualify for the dub. There’s a lot of new blood on the list this week, so rather than spending time with some of the risers and fallers, we’ll peep the newbs. That’s as cool as my slang gets, by the way.