The season is here baby! Boy what an awesome opening day… The Cardinals are in dead last in the NL Central! So beautiful…
Hard to believe we’re going into year 4 of the Pitcher Profiles. So much profiling! And it’s the 3rd year of the weekly re-ranks. I’m doing so much SP heavy-lifting that I might have a UCL injury!
Speaking of injuries, a lot has changed since I put out my initial ranks exactly a month ago, but it feels like this Spring was a little more injury-free than last year. In fact, the biggest elbow injury wasn’t even a pitcher! Take that, pitching detractors! It’s mostly been some surprise risers (my K:BB obsession gave me a Juan NicasiO-face looking at his stats!) and some guys losing their opening day rotation spot (wahhhh Paxton, whyyyyy?!). As always, green for ascenders and red for The Descenderists, who as a band should be marked in red. I haven’t heard anything about them for years!
We’ll be getting into the Profiling next week (everyone watched those first 3 games, seems silly to profile any of those Opening Day guys), so get ready for some GIFfing magic! Here’s my updated top 100 SP for the first week of the fantasy baseball season:
Updated Top 100 SP
(rankings for ROS based on 12-team Roto, green for risers, red for fallers)
| RANK | SP, TEAM |
|---|---|
| 1 | Clayton Kershaw, LAD |
| 2 | Jake Arrieta, CHC |
| 3 | Chris Sale, CWS |
| 4 | Max Scherzer, WAS |
| 5 | David Price, BOS |
| 6 | Jose Fernandez, MIA |
| 7 | Jacob deGrom, NYM |
| 8 | Madison Bumgarner, SF |
| 9 | Matt Harvey, NYM |
| 10 | Corey Kluber, CLE |
| 11 | Chris Archer, TB |
| 12 | Carlos Carrasco, CLE |
| 13 | Noah Syndergaard, NYM |
| 14 | Gerrit Cole, PIT |
| 15 | Stephen Strasburg, WAS |
| 16 | Dallas Keuchel, HOU |
| 17 | Jon Lester, CHC |
| 18 | Felix Hernandez, SEA |
| 19 | Zack Greinke, ARI |
| 20 | Carlos Martinez, STL |
| 21 | Danny Salazar, CLE |
| 22 | Carlos Rodon, CWS |
| 23 | Cole Hamels, TEX |
| 24 | Francisco Liriano, PIT |
| 25 | Marcus Stroman, TOR |
| 26 | Jeff Samardzija, SF |
| 27 | Justin Verlander, DET |
| 28 | Patrick Corbin, ARI |
| 29 | Joe Ross, WAS |
| 30 | Taijuan Walker, SEA |
| 31 | Tyson Ross, SD |
| 32 | Johnny Cueto, SF |
| 33 | Sonny Gray, OAK |
| 34 | Masahiro Tanaka, NYY |
| 35 | Yordano Ventura, KC |
| 36 | Luis Severino, NYY |
| 37 | Raisel Iglesias, CIN |
| 38 | Drew Smyly, TB |
| 39 | Adam Wainwright, STL |
| 40 | Michael Wacha, STL |
| 41 | Steven Matz, NYM |
| 42 | Jason Hammel, CHC |
| 43 | Hisashi Iwakuma, SEA |
| 44 | Jose Quintana, CWS |
| 45 | Michael Pineda, NYY |
| 46 | Mike Fiers, HOU |
| 47 | Wei-Yin Chen, MIA |
| 48 | Jake Odorizzi, TB |
| 49 | Ian Kennedy, KC |
| 50 | Garret Richards, LAA |
| 51 | Collin McHugh, HOU |
| 52 | James Shields, SD |
| 53 | Jordan Zimmermann, DET |
| 54 | John Lackey, STL |
| 55 | Vincent Velasquez, PHI |
| 56 | Andrew Cashner, SD |
| 57 | Kyle Hendricks, CHC |
| 58 | Aaron Nola, PHI |
| 59 | Gio Gonzalez, WAS |
| 60 | Julio Teheran, ATL |
| 61 | Shelby Miller, ARI |
| 62 | Kenta Maeda, LAD |
| 63 | Robbie Ray, ARI |
| 64 | Jared Eickhoff, PHI |
| 65 | Lance McCullers, HOU |
| 66 | Anthony DeSclafani, CIN |
| 67 | Tyler Glasnow, PIT |
| 68 | Jimmy Nelson, MIL |
| 69 | Kevin Gausman, BAL |
| 70 | Nate Karns, SEA |
| 71 | Juan Nicasio, PIT |
| 72 | Scott Kazmir, LAD |
| 73 | Blake Snell, TB |
| 74 | Yu Darvish, TEX |
| 75 | Jaime Garcia, STL |
| 76 | Adam Conley, MIA |
| 77 | Ervin Santana, MIN |
| 78 | Taylor Jungmann, MIL |
| 79 | Jose Berrios, MIN |
| 80 | Clay Buchholz, BOS |
| 81 | Jake Peavy, SF |
| 82 | Eduardo Rodriguez, BOS |
| 83 | Edinson Volquez, KC |
| 84 | Nathan Eovaldi, NYY |
| 85 | J.A. Happ, TOR |
| 86 | Mike Leake, SF |
| 87 | Andrew Heaney, LAA |
| 88 | Rick Porcello, BOS |
| 89 | Derek Holland, TEX |
| 90 | Matt Moore, TB |
| 91 | Henry Owens, BOS |
| 92 | Jon Niese, PIT |
| 93 | Bud Norris, ATL |
| 94 | Josh Tomlin, CLE |
| 95 | Kris Medlen, KC |
| 96 | Kyle Gibson, MIN |
| 97 | Aaron Sanchez, TOR |
| 98 | Marco Estrada, TOR |
| 99 | Hector Santiago, LAA |
| 100 | Shane Greene, DET |
Dropped Out: James Paxton, SEA (wahhhhhhh!), Brandon Maurer, SD (that didn’t work out at all, did it?!), Trevor Bauer, CLE (bullpen), Daniel Norris, DET (broken back), Hyun-Jin Ryu, LAD (broken shoulder), Rich Hill, OAK (broken pitcher)
- I can’t remember the last time I drafted an injured pitcher. I just can’t do it. So some big dropoffs from the guys entering the year on the DL, even though all the guys I moved down have pretty brief timetables. That is, if there’s no setbacks. Then there’s Minor League rehab starts… It’s too much!
- I love the vote of confidence the Phillies gave Vincent Velasquez, putting him in the opening day rotation. Sure he’s likely getting a lot of early yanks and not staying in the rotation all year most likely, but I think he could start hot.
- I’ve been really impressed by Jimmy Nelson his last few Spring outings. Off-speed looked crisp, his fastball looked like it was in mid-season form… I’m not going crazy for him, but gave him a little boost.
- I’m not going full O-face for Juan Nicasio either, but he does obviously deserve to be in the ranks and there’s some upside. I might even roster him over some of the guys ahead of him on the off-chance he starts off nuts, but building in the risk he flames out in ROS ranks.
- With Paxton sent down, at least I really like his replacement! Here’s my blurb on him in the original ranks: “Sometimes the research can surprise you, and it certainly has for Karns, who I think is being MASSIVELY overlooked this year. Unfortunately, the Mariners might be overlooking him as well, as a long-term rotation spot is in question. Looking back at his numbers, I see a lotttttt of 10+ K-rates in MiLB stints, was 9.47 K/9 in AAA in 2014, and 8.88 in the Majors over 147 innings last year. He needs to get the walks a little better under control (3.43) and he gave up a few too many homers (19), but he remains in a pitcher’s park with the move to Seattle, and not too many guys this late have 9ish K-stuff that we’ve seen in the Majors ALREADY! Could be a huge last-pick anchor on your mixed league squads if we get word he’s making the rotation before your draft day. Pitcher Profile – June 15, 2015” And that’s me quoting me!
- Obviously not too excited for that new crop filling out the back end (that’s what she said!), and I just couldn’t help myself with that #100 ranked guy. Hey, he had some scary blood clots and tried to pitch through his hand being numb in 2015, and his Spring has been awesome. Maybe there’s a chance we can be SUPER GREENE again!
Happy opening day, Razzball Nation! I hope you got off to a great start in the first few games yesterday and may your week 1 pitching ratios stay low-to-da-flo! See you next Monday with the first full Profile!
