Baseball is over! Wait, um, what World Series? My Brewers aren’t in it, so I’m not watching… i.e. I never watch the World Series…
2015 was a very interesting year for pitchers with a lot of unique things – guys coming out of nowhere, a lot of TJ surgeries, a crazy amount of Ks… Wait, OK, never mind, it was about the same! Hopefully with the doldrums of winter upon us for fantasy baseball, you hopped into some fantasy basketball leagues and can join us for an indoor fantasy sport!
Recapping February ranks can be pretty eye-opening. As in, seeing my Chris Archer rank makes me want to gouge my eye out! Maybe that would be eye-closing then… Anywho, for the second straight season I went through my top 100 from Spring to see what went right and what went Chien-Ming Wang. I think I did a little better than last year, especially when you consider James Paxton was easy to drop and didn’t just pitch bad all year…
You’ll find below in this War and Peace-esque recap SP sorted by my initial SP ranks in February, Grey’s SP pre-ranks in the top-400 sortable ranks post, ESPN’s SP pre-ranks based on whenever that list came out (I tried to find their most standardized ranks), then compared them to their Razzball Player Rater finish amongst SP. I also mention a few times my ranks edit right before the season, since it’s not really fair to grill me on Yu Darvish. No, Yu’re injury prone! With all those numbers thrust together to showcase best and worst calls, I review each pitcher and include which top-40 pitchers I failed to rank. I cut it off at 40 to make me look better, there were like 7 I didn’t rank between 40-50 and I’m lazy! Haha. And I promise, no more hyperlinks in the open! Here’s the recap to 2015’s starting pitching ranks:
JB’s Top 100 SP Recap
(pitchers listed on opening day team)
| SP, Team | JB’s RANK | Grey’s Rank | ESPN Rank | Final Rank | NOTE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Another season of “not much to say here”, and even with an iffy start, was the best pitcher in baseball down the stretch. Well, at least 1B to 1A… The 1A pitcher down the stretch is already getting me excited for this recap! |
| Chris Sale, Chicago White Sox | 2 | 7 | 4 | 10 | Wow, unlike last season, after Kershaw things got a lot more willy-nilly. Or is it spelled wily-nily? That just makes me think of Wily Peralta… Anyway, Sale’s redonkulous Ks made up for some inconsistency – mainly a few blowup games – but as we discussed on the last couple of Pods, a few of his metrics were actually BETTER than 2014 (2.17 ERA 0.97 WHIP vs. 2015 3.41 ERA 1.09 WHIP yet more Ks, less BB, .43 higher BABIP, and a 2.60 xFIP in 2015 vs. 2.83 in 2014). Nuts. |
| Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners | 3 | 2 | 2 | 15 | Well, at least I had this one closer to right than anyone else! Hah, I can’t really claim to be “down” on F-Her, but I thought Sale could best him with the K-rate. And it was true! Both were similar – both prone to some blowup games – but Sale’s Ks carried him higher on the Player Rater. |
| Max Scherzer, Washington Nationals | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | “Grey and ESPN, sitting in a tree! Ranking so sim-il-ar-ly!” Same top 3 for Grey, but everyone liked Scherzer and he didn’t disappoint. Although he did have a rough stretch in the second half that kept him from pushing for #1 pitcher overall. |
| Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants | 5 | 9 | 6 | 6 | Grey seemed to hate his teams getting in the Bum, but everyone else was happy with it in the Bum. Just so friggin’ consistent, and Grey’s concerns over post-season innings seemed unwarranted. |
| Corey Kluber, Cleveland Indians | 6 | 4 | 7 | 16 | Damn, THAT was annoying! Like Sale, had dynamite metrics get blown up by some horrible games. Had a minor injury late that made him inconsistent in September, but he ended on a fantastic 8-inning shutout, and on the eye level, looked great again last year. I’ll be investing around this range again in 2016. |
| Stephen Strasburg, Washington Nationals | 7 | 5 | 5 | 30 | Woooooooo, look at me owning this one! Damn, the Strasburg love was nuts coming into the season… Of course injuries riddled most of his 2015, but he went on a crazy run over his last 5 starts including 4 straight 10+ K games that will have fantasy owners crawling back for more. Around 10ish I’m guessing for me next season. |
| David Price, Detroit Tigers | 8 | 6 | 8 | 7 | Like Bumgarner, about as consistent as they come. I will admit I moved him down a few spots moving to TOR worried about the HR rate, and he was even better north of the border. Unless you count the playoffs! |
| Jon Lester, Chicago Cubs | 9 | 10 | 11 | 18 | Nothing too egregious here, a little bit of a rocky start hurt, and man does he have to work on holding baserunners… Should be a teens pick again in 2016. |
| Johnny Cueto, Cincinnati Reds | 10 | 12 | 9 | 28 | It was going just fine until he got to the Royals, but apparently he just was keeping his arm ready for one good playoff game. Then torched again… Then right as this was set to publish, he has a historic WS game! Most inconsistent playoff run from a SP pitcher in the history of the MLB, don’t fact check that though… I’ll be pretty unenthusiastic with Cueto next year. |
| Jake Arrieta, Chicago Cubs | 11 | 15 | 26 | 1 | YEZZIR! Dammit, I wanted to be a good 10 ahead of Grey… I think he copied my ranks and moved him up some more… Don’t fact check whose ranks came out first! I bought into the crazy run that was the majority of 2014, but of course didn’t quite see this. Top-5 next season after his Bob Gibson-esque run. |
| Zack Greinke, Los Angeles Dodgers | 12 | 8 | 10 | 3 | Hmmm, weird, I don’t remember feeling low on Greinke… In my original blurb I said that pitching was deep so I’d roll the dice on upside with Arrieta. At least that decision was right! |
| Jordan Zimmermann, Washington Nationals | 13 | 11 | 12 | 31 | Ouch. It hurts looking back sometimes! At least I was marginally the lowest! |
| Cole Hamels, Philadelphia Phillies | 14 | 17 | 13 | 20 | Luckily with this one, no one really won or lost. Not much changed with the numbers moving to Texas except he actually had some support to win some games. Probably a mid-teens guy again next year. A tween. |
| Garrett Richards, Los Angeles Angels | 15 | 41 | 27 | 27 | Eesh. Yeah this was poor form – at least the injury concern coming off the knee didn’t keep him from missing any time… But on the same token, maybe it cost him his numbers, as his K and BB numbers took major steps backwards after a breakout 2014. Nothing in his peripherals suggest he was unlucky, I might still hesitantly buy in 2016 as maybe that knee had him lacking a little confidence. |
| Yu Darvish, Texas Rangers | 16 | N/A | N/A | N/A | Huh, so I guess Grey updates his rankings at some point. Darvish got the ol’ TJ in March, and obviously was dropped out in my updated rankings right before the start of the season. |
| Carlos Carrasco, Cleveland Indians | 17 | 19 | 24 | 14 | Who DIDN’T like Carrasco last year?! And what’s amazing, is even with a lot of inconsistencies, ended up 14th on the Razzball Player Rater. Certainly didn’t feel like a 14th overall finish owning him in several leagues! Wait, I was the high guy, I should be showering golden praise! Oops, bad phrasing there… |
| Gerrit Cole, Pittsburgh Pirates | 18 | 18 | 19 | 8 | Wow, consistent rankings and an even better season. Nice work everyone! |
| Alex Wood, Atlanta Braves | 19 | 20 | 33 | 69 | Man, somebody take Grey and I out back and shoot us… This did not go well, even though everything in Wood’s 2014 seemed very replicable. The metrics and everything looked pretty bad in 2015, I will not be buying next year. SEPTEMBER 7 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Jeff Samardzija, Chicago White Sox | 20 | 13 | 14 | 92 | Hell yeah!!!!!! Didn’t get him anywhere, and I shall quote myself from Feb due to narcissism: “Look I get his control was fantastic, but after 3 years of striking out a batter per 9, the K rate fell to 8.28 and he had a 2.99 ERA on a .283 BABIP. Win potential since he goes deep should be nice, especially with the nice O, but not overly investing.” |
| Julio Teheran, Atlanta Braves | 21 | 28 | 16 | 58 | Oh lord, ESPN, what happened here?! I remember talking with Grey about Teheran in the offseason on the Pod, and I will forever be enamored with his call on this one, citing a velocity loss and dropping K rate. Nice one Grey! |
| Matt Harvey, New York Mets | 22 | 25 | 20 | 11 | To be fair, in my updated ranks right before the season, I moved him up to 9th and that looks pretty saucy now. Before seeing him in Spring Training, there obviously were the post-TJ doubts, but Harvey was all-in-all great and still looks good in the postseason. |
| Alex Cobb, Tampa Bay Rays | 23 | 45 | 28 | N/A | Certainly feels like Grey had an update here as well! I still can’t believe the Rays took so long to figure out he needed TJ, wouldn’t that just be the first thing you look for these days?! |
| Collin McHugh, Houston Astros | 24 | 33 | 42 | 25 | Almost on the nose! A roller coaster season for McHugh, whose ERA was McHuge early, but he turned it around in the second half and stayed healthy with a decent K rate all year. All you need to finish with a top-30 value. |
| James Paxton, Seattle Mariners | 25 | 61 | 107 | 177 | Welllllllll, that didn’t go so well… To be fair, it was another season plagued with injuries (it’s officially a trend), and before doing something funky to a finger tendon, was on an absolute roll his 4th-9th starts, with a 1.63 ERA over that span. The K:BB still wasn’t pretty during that time (29:18 in 38.2 IP), but he started throwing a ton of fastballs and getting consistent weak contact. He continued to show flashes when off the DL in Sept. Lord help me, I’ll be a buyer again next year, although obviously with a much lower rank. SEPTEMBER 14 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Tyson Ross, San Diego Padres | 26 | 14 | 22 | 32 | At least I come back with another win! I shall once again quote myself from February: “I know I won’t get him, but can’t put him any lower. K rate was great, walk rate was fine but still pretty bad, yet I still hate his side-step quick release mechanics. Seems so prone to control issues, and his final 9 starts he had multi-walks in all for a 52:25 K:BB in 53 innings and a 3.23 ERA. Minus the WHIP that’s still usable and all, but even as an elite groundballer I think he’ll be a WHIP liability. Even with a 2.81 ERA last year, 1.21 WHIP.” Despite great Ks, all he did was lead the Majors in walks. Score for JB! |
| Masahiro Tanaka, New York Yankees | 27 | 23 | 25 | 26 | Whoa, look at that ranking and result! Everyone wins, beers on me! |
| Sonny Gray, Oakland Athletics | 28 | 30 | 15 | 13 | I thought Grey loved Gray! Turns out, only ESPN loved Gray… At least they got something right! |
| James Shields, San Diego Padres | 29 | 39 | 18 | 34 | Then ESPN does THAT to you! Shields perfectly split the difference of Grey and I’s ranks (USED WRONG AGAIN), with a very odd homer-prone and K-heavy season. A decent finish just by attrition. |
| Matt Shoemaker, Los Angeles Angels | 30 | 26 | 73 | 105 | Yikesssssss. ESPN gets a W with their very low Shoe rank, kinda like Reebok. Does anyone really wear Reebok?! |
| Drew Smyly, Tampa Bay Rays | 31 | 36 | 57 | 98 | Obviously we’ll never really know, but it’s telling that he finished top-100 on the player rater in 12 starts. Crazy Ks and nice ERA/WHIP will do that, now just needs a healthy 2016… |
| Yordano Ventura, Kansas City Royals | 32 | 32 | 43 | 46 | There’s CG, QS, then I think there should be IS. “Inconsistent start”. Would be virtually every outing for the fireballer/F-bomber. Maybe it works out at some point and he had a few nice stretches at the end, but I will be ranking him right around 30-40 again next year. |
| Jacob deGrom, New York Mets | 33 | 29 | 23 | 9 | Ewwwwww, the F did I have deGrom so low?! To be fair, I realized the fallacy of my ways and had him up to 23 in my update. Just a fantastic season as the Mets are looking really dangerous the next decade. |
| Michael Pineda, New York Yankees | 34 | 37 | 45 | 49 | The metrics sure made this one look good for a while! But like the Indians guys, Pineda was just too prone to blowup starts, even with a crazy-good K:BB. xFIP was sub-3.00, compared to a 4.37 ERA. I’ll like him for 2016. |
| Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals | 35 | 24 | 17 | 154 | I can’t gloat here, he looked pretty good and his injury was a fluke Achilles. BUT I’M RIGHT AND EVERYONE ELSE IS RONG! |
| Brandon McCarthy, Los Angeles Dodgers | 36 | 75 | 68 | 182 | And now to flip that logic, I think this could’ve turned out right and we’ll never know! Had 29 Ks in 23 IP, with a – wait for it – 37.5% HR/FB. THAT was bound to go down! Then his UCL gave out. Womp womp. |
| Hisashi Iwakuma, Seattle Mariners | 37 | 16 | 31 | 50 | Given he had a nice little run to wrap it up with a no-hitter in there, but my injury concerns here made the rank correct. Me in Feb – “…the injuries on Iwakuma’s medical sheet are lengthy… It goes front and back! Had injury issues in Japan, and is already 33 and will be 34 most of the 2015 season.” |
| Scott Kazmir, Oakland Athletics | 38 | 85 | 52 | 48 | Grey hates the Kazmir family! And he was wayyyyy wrong most of the season, but then Kazmir went winless over his last 8 starts and the ERA ballooned. If he had more than 7 wins – something like 11 or 12 -he’d be right at my rank. Cha-ching! |
| Phil Hughes, Minnesota Twins | 39 | 22 | 47 | 97 | That might be Grey’s worst-ranked SP this year… I mentioned in my blurb that at the eye level his stuff just didn’t look that good, and hitters agreed! |
| Lance Lynn, St. Louis Cardinals | 40 | 40 | 32 | 37 | Grey cheated off my paper! We both get an A+ on this rank. |
| Dallas Keuchel, Houston Astros | 41 | 47 | 46 | 4 | Dammit, I thought I was much higher than the consensus on this one! I guess I just have to take a marginal victory… Like that time they told me I had crabs and it wasn’t Hep C… |
| Mat Latos, Miami Marlins | 42 | 21 | 36 | 162 | Eesh, not to be outdone with the Hughes rank, Latos happened… Another win for me! But dayum, I did not see him virtually pitching himself out of baseball… |
| Anibal Sanchez, Detroit Tigers | 43 | 58 | 38 | 93 | At least ESPN was higher… Nice work Grey! Bad, Anibal, bad… Go to your cage! |
| Kevin Gausman, Baltimore Orioles | 44 | 67 | 86 | 123 | I moved him down to 73 in my update, as the Orioles seemed to want to Joba him. Waffle me back and forth, baby! Raw stuff still seems there, they gotta figure out how to extract it. |
| Zack Wheeler, New York Mets | 45 | N/A | N/A | N/A | Obviously fell out of the ranks in the update. Was too bad… Glad the Brewers trade for him fell through, the Astros deal was sooooooo much better. |
| Shane Greene, Detroit Tigers | 46 | 103 | 97 | 293 | This looked awesome for 3 starts! Then he was horrific. But in my defense, after showing some signals in 2014, he had hand numbness all year and needed surgery for added bloodflow. i.e. a Viagra injection. His hand kept turning SUPER GREEN! APRIL 20 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Mike Minor, Atlanta Braves | 47 | 71 | 102 | N/A | I dropped him to 79 in my updates, with a swift omission afterwards. Shoulder issues turned into an exploratory surgery that turned into a torn labrum. Likely outside the top 100 next year unless he does something dramatic in Spring Training. |
| Gio Gonzalez, Washington Nationals | 48 | 38 | 21 | 65 | Back in the winner’s column! In pre-ranks I said “he is starting to abandon the curveball and the fastball has lost 0.5 MPH the past two seasons. Slower fastball with more change-ups… Not loving it.” FB velo didn’t change at all, but change-up went up 1 MPH. No bueno. Cha-ching! |
| Jake Odorizzi, Tampa Bay Rays | 49 | 48 | 49 | 39 | Wow, look at that consistent rank! And Odorizzi ended up with a really surprising 2015, dropping ERA and WHIP by a good margain and maintaining a solid K:BB. He needs to drop the HR rate, but if he does that, 2016 could be a real breakout. |
| Mike Fiers, Milwaukee Brewers | 50 | 27 | 56 | 57 | The Fiers Kool-Aid hath been drunken by Grey! That sentence may have all sorts of syntax issues… Grey went bold here and it didn’t pay off, except that one no-no. Made Grey have an explosion of payoff! |
| Homer Bailey, Cincinnati Reds | 51 | 55 | 30 | 254 | Tried to bounce back from injuries and ended up tearing his UCL. Doh! |
| Danny Salazar, Cleveland Indians | 52 | 99 | 103 | 17 | The only reason I wanted to use my initial ranks! Admittedly, I fell off the bandwagon when he was assigned to the Minors, but initially I killed it! Maybe Grey and ESPN had their final changes after the news to the Minors too… |
| Marcus Stroman, Toronto Blue Jays | 53 | N/A | N/A | 138 | Ohhhhhhh, look at me, I was the only one to rank him! Not my fault it was pre-injury! Had a ridiculous recovery off an ACL tear to put up a few solid starts, and he had some crazy good-lookin’ pitches. I wish he pitched in a better park, but I’ll like him a lot next year. |
| Hyun-Jin Ryu, Los Angeles Dodgers | 54 | 46 | 48 | N/A | Shoulder issues ended up costing him the season. |
| Chris Archer, Tampa Bay Rays | 55 | 34 | 34 | 12 | F it, I’m not doing any more of this post! That’s me when I saw this… I cited his walks and low HR rate as issues, and not only did he cut over a walk a game, HIS K RATE JUMPED BY 2.7 PER 9!!! Even after a ton of professional innings indicating control might be elusive, and a big backtrack from 2013 to 2014, he proved everyone wrong. Tip of the arch – er. APRIL 27 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Michael Wacha, St. Louis Cardinals | 56 | 63 | 29 | 21 | Whoa, for a guy who had some rough stretches and lost the Ks at times, pretty impressive finish. Perhaps more impressive is his broken shoulder thing didn’t cause any major issues this season. Still a little risky to me in 2016. |
| Francisco Liriano, Pittsburgh Pirates | 57 | 31 | 39 | 24 | Three straight whiffs right there! I got a golden sombrero. Liriano had probably his most consistent season since, I dunno, Guitar Hero was cool. |
| Ervin Santana, Atlanta Braves | 58 | N/A | 142 | 115 | My initial ranks are certainly the oldest since this was before the suspension, then Ervin wasn’t that great anyway when back. At least the PED suspension saved any bad-ness of this pick! |
| Doug Fister, Washington Nationals | 59 | 74 | 35 | 171 | There we go! Grey and I were vehemently against Fisters, and supporters took it in the rear. |
| Cliff Lee, Philadelphia Phillies | 60 | N/A | 239 | N/A | The adverb might have ended his career, sadly. |
| Jose Quintana, Chicago White Sox | 61 | 43 | 44 | 43 | I mean, fine… Was Quintana a permanent staple on any team in 10 or 12’ers though? He’s great mid-range value in deeper leagues, but I think I’ll rank him around here again. Just no upside. |
| Jered Weaver, Los Angeles Angels | 62 | 44 | 40 | 136 | I think what you should take away from this season is that 2015 was the year Grey loved Samardzija and Weaver. |
| Andrew Cashner, San Diego Padres | 63 | 49 | 37 | 133 | Wow, I hated Cashner! And boy oh boy, cha-ching! Gimme da cassshhhhhhh! You gotta push the little red button to load it! |
| Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers | 64 | 72 | 53 | 73 | The ranks had Grey and I in the correct range, but that run Verlander went on from July 24 to the finish was maybe the most surprising thing to happen this year for me, across all pitching. 91 K:20 BB in 99.2 IP, with a 2.27 ERA. |
| Derrick Holland, Texas Rangers | 65 | N/A | 66 | 179 | Is it just me, or was there a ridiculous amount of Spring injuries this year…? |
| J.A. Happ, Seattle Mariners | 66 | N/A | 126 | 45 | Better late than never! A crazy run on the Pirates inflated his season-long value. Long live Searage! |
| Kyle Hendricks, Chicago Cubs | 67 | N/A | 95 | 53 | Surprised Grey did rank Jimi! It was low end, but usable. |
| Ian Kennedy, San Diego Padres | 68 | 70 | 41 | 68 | Grey and JB fa life! ESPN loved the presidential pitcher, but his continual shakiness and awful HR rate kept him from being rosterable all year. |
| Jason Hammel, Chicago Cubs | 69 | 56 | 77 | 35 | Nice one Grey! I thought I had him a little higher, and indeed moved him up to 60 in the re-rank. It’s always interesting looking back, since I was the one defending him after his hamstring injury, and you were right Razzball Nation! He never really got it back in the second half. |
| Mike Leake, Cincinnati Reds | 70 | N/A | 75 | 51 | Grey had a Leake in his ranks! Had some must-own stretches with the Reds, and after a salivating park change to the Giants, never really got into the same groove. |
| Jake Peavy, San Francisco Giants | 71 | 42 | 83 | 78 | Hmmmmm, interesting boldness there Grey! But in Grey’s defense, injuries were the biggie. In defense of me and ESPN, injuries were the biggie. Was solid when he got healthy in the second half. |
| Drew Hutchison, Toronto Blue Jays | 72 | 35 | 65 | 125 | I knew this one was gonna make me feel warm & fuzzy! Here’s me in February! “I watched a few of Hutch’s starts, and my takeaway was he relies on pinpoint fastball command without it being an overpowering pitch. Sure he had a K per 9 and a BB rate under 3, but I think there in Toronto the HR rate goes over 9.7% and I’m not a huge believer on the stuff.” He had some unlucky metrics, but the K rate fell and the HR rate went up. Cha-ching! |
| CC Sabathia, New York Yankees | 73 | 73 | 71 | 158 | Hah, look at those similar ranks! I’d pour one out for Sabathia’s career, but he’d yell at me for being wasteful… |
| Carlos Martinez, St. Louis Cardinals | 74 | 68 | 74 | 23 | Crazy breakout for the porn king of twitter, and another one where I admittedly cooled off after it looked like he might be going to the bullpen. Then of course, Jaime got hurt again. APRIL 13 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Jimmy Nelson, Milwaukee Brewers | 75 | 64 | 91 | 64 | Pinpoint control from Grey! A Phil Hughes-ian amount of control right there! Had a few good runs, was maddeningly inconsistent overall. |
| Kyle Lohse, Milwaukee Brewers | 76 | N/A | 88 | 269 | When it falls apart, it REALLY falls apart. |
| Chase Anderson, Arizona Diamondbacks | 77 | 108 | 129 | 126 | I thought this one turned out a little better than that! But yeah, the K rate really fell and he only allowed 2 HR through April and May, which regressed harrrrrrd. |
| A.J. Burnett, Pittsburgh Pirates | 78 | 52 | 84 | 63 | Of all people, I wouldn’t have expected Grey to be all about a vet in his final season! It certainly paid off though, as he was must-own the first half before injuring his flexor. |
| Trevor Bauer, Cleveland Indians | 79 | 66 | 94 | 70 | After one game my rank looked awful! Then Bauer went back to his inconsistent ways… |
| Wily Peralta, Milwaukee Brewers | 80 | 51 | 85 | 218 | Grey is all 90s and likes it big Wily style! That one didn’t work out, as Wily continued to struggle to get Ks and had a long-term oblique injury. Dem some big obliques! |
| Chris Tillman, Baltimore Orioles | 81 | 57 | 64 | 124 | Remember when I was all about some Tillman as it looked like he was about to go on his typical 2nd half run? No? My February self is glad you don’t listen to the Pod! My Feb hate paid off! |
| Jesse Hahn, Oakland Athletics | 82 | 60 | 69 | 102 | Was awful out of the gate, started to get a little better, then TJ. Hope he has a speedy recovery and gets back to being a curveball maestro. |
| Jose Fernandez, Miami Marlins | 83 | 88 | 50 | 87 | If in a very limited moves league, Grey and JB win! Of course JoFer was awesome when he got out there, but had another injury. Yikes, is he top-10 next year?! |
| Carlos Rodon, Chicago White Sox | 84 | N/A | 109 | 86 | One of my best calls on the back end here. Both in liking him in seasonal stats, and I had to defend him like crazy for continual high weekly ranks while he was walking everyone. I said something to the effect of “all he needs to do is cut 1 BB per/9”. 68:41 K:BB in the first half, 71:30 in the second half, with an unbelievable August and September. I’m going to be the highest on Rodon in all the land next year. MAY 11 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Daniel Norris, Toronto Blue Jays | 85 | 105 | 98 | 153 | Crazy he was pitching with a tumor all year. Doctors said he could pitch through it, and he still showed flashes. With a tumor and playing through it and with the living in a van in the offseason thing, it’s tough to not be a big Norris fan. AUGUST 3 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Rubby De La Rosa, Arizona Diamondbacks | 86 | 102 | 185 | 74 | Wow, ESPN hates to get all Rubby! Attrition was the big thing having Rubby finish top-75 as he stayed healthy, as he was only usable as a streamer. About a month in, I thought I saw a big run coming, but he just doesn’t have the finer points of command in his arsenal – leaves too many hittable pitches in the middle of the zone. |
| Noah Syndergaard, New York Mets | 87 | 95 | 146 | 29 | JB wins all of Thor’s hammers! MAY 18 PITCHER PROFILE |
| Shelby Miller, Atlanta Braves | 88 | 50 | 63 | 52 | I hated on him a little too much, but dayum if you had him all year and somehow had a decent score in W! A lot of his value was in the first two months. |
| Matt Cain, San Francisco Giants | 89 | 78 | 58 | 258 | Like Lohse, when it falls apart, it REALLY falls apart. |
| Danny Duffy, Kansas City Royals | 90 | 101 | 67 | 128 | Continues to have inexplicably bad K numbers with power, good looking stuff. |
| Jon Niese, New York Mets | 91 | N/A | 79 | 119 | Everyone’s favorite streamer against the Phillies was good enough for NL-only, and that’s about it. |
| John Lackey, St. Louis Cardinals | 92 | 120 | 60 | 19 | Look at that range on Lackey! About as wide a spectrum as his belt line. Honestly though, would it have surprised anyone if he fell apart like Cain or Lohse? Anyone who took the super-boring flier got a very nice ROI. |
| Drew Pomeranz, Oakland Athletics | 93 | 111 | 99 | 107 | A couple saves helped boost the value! Hah! |
| R.A. Dickey, Toronto Blue Jays | 94 | 83 | 54 | 59 | Stays healthy and pitches a ton of innings. Was he really a #4 or #5 pitcher for you all year on a winning 12 team league? Didn’t think so. |
| Matt Garza, Milwaukee Brewers | 95 | 79 | 59 | 272 | Thank God, as soon as I saw I had Garza ranked at all, I almost threw up on my keyboard. Luckily I was by far the lowest! |
| Tom Koehler, Miami Marlins | 96 | N/A | 138 | 84 | Everyone’s favorite kitchen sink pitched a lot of innings, and that’s about all you can say. Didn’t improve from 2014 at all. That said, LOOK HOW RIGHT I WAS! |
| Taijuan Walker, Seattle Mariners | 97 | 62 | 62 | 56 | Damn, I thought I was going to look realllllly bad on this one, but Walker had his inconsistent stretches as well. I mean, he barely finished higher on the player rater than Dickey! I don’t feel so bad now… |
| Wei-Yin Chen, Baltimore Orioles | 98 | 59 | 92 | 36 | Grey gets the final home run ball! Dropped the ERA, dropped the WHIP marginally, and added Ks. If he had won 16 games like 2014 (11 in 2015), he would’ve pushed top-30, which is crazy. Just shows how barren the pitcher landscape can be with injuries. |
| Tim Hudson, San Francisco Giants | 99 | N/A | 90 | 150 | Happy retirement, Timmay! |
| Tony Cingrani, Cincinnati Reds | 100 | N/A | 175 | 257 | On March 16th they said they were converting him to a reliever, and he was dropped out of my updated ranks. |
Top-40 (per Razzball Player Rater) SP Unranked
- Marco Estrada (22) – As a Brewers fan, and well – a fantasy player – all I have to say is, WHAAAAA?! Holy crap, he ended up with a 3.13 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in 181 innings?! This isn’t tongue-and-cheek, you’re reading my actual response to this, I had no idea he stayed that strong all year! I know he had those no-no flirts, but dayum! The most frustrating thing as a Brewers fan is he cut his horrid 13.2% HR/FB rate to 8.7% in an even worse home park and against AL competition with DHs. Hah, he had a .216 BABIP, nearly 80% left on base, and a 4.93 xFIP. Yeah, let’s go ahead and call him a top-25 pitcher next year!
- Jaime Garcia (33) – Lord, the ONE time he stays kinda healthy. Still didn’t even get to 130 innings… But was good while out there – his modus operandi – except in more innings than I/most people expected.
- Dan Haren (38) – Back in the ‘Zona days, he was one of my favorite pitchers. Wait, did he finish 38th in the ranks or is he 38 years old?! He’s retiring, nice to do it off a decent season. Slow clap.
- Edinson Volquez (40) – Looks decent in the postseason! Easily outside of draftable in standard 12ers next year…
And there you have it! Hopefully your ERA and WHIPs stayed low all year and you had a nice 2015 of pitching. Can’t wait to get back out there in 2016, and have to justify a high rank of James Paxton yet again! Happy Winter, Razzball Nation!
