Happy Monday, Razzball faithful!

I’m BACK for another session of Preseason Starting Pitchers that will eventually turn into the Top 100 Starting Pitchers List (I promise!).

For this week, I was unsure as to whether or not I’d be able to roll out my Top 10 for 2026. As I said before, I don’t want to step in front of Grey’s rankings, so it’ll have to be next week for my creme de la creme of the upcoming season’s best arms.

Today? I went through some of the common stats that I use year after year to look for some hints of which way to look in the starting pitcher pool. What guys have the high strikeout rates? Which ones are giving up the hardest hit percentages? Who is atop that K-BB leaderboard for the previous year?

It seems like something that we keep going back to year after year. But if it works, is a repetitive process really that bad of a thing to employ?

First, a bit of housekeeping…

• If you missed it, I had a fantastic time hanging out with Mike and Jeremy last Wednesday night to preview the AL East. You can give that a listen wherever you download your podcasts, or you can listen to the Card & Categories Episode #124 here on the site! I’ll dip into a few names that we covered in that one here today.
• The 2026 Preseason Player Rater list that I referenced last week is up and running. Rudy has it up-to-date with the most recent breaking news. If you want to check that out, it’s here. Just a reminder that the default is for a 12-team ESPN league, and you’ll have to type in <SP> in the POS(ition) box to sort by starting pitchers.
• 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.

So, with the help of our favorite Groundhog Day enthusiast, let’s get to it!

Whiffs and Walks

TEAM	PLAYER	K/9	BB/9
TOR (SD)	Dylan Cease	11.52	3.80
BOS	Garrett Crochet	11.18	2.02
DET	Tarik Skubal	11.10	1.52
PHI	Jesus Luzardo	10.58	2.79
LAD	Yoshinobu Yamamoto	10.42	3.06
NYM (MLW)	Freddy Peralta	10.39	3.36
PIT	Paul Skenes	10.36	2.01
MIN	Joe Ryan	10.21	2.05
BOS (STL)	Sonny Gray	10.01	1.89
HOU	Hunter Brown	10.00	2.77

 

Honorable mentions: Logan Webb, Jacob deGrom, Bryan Woo, Christopher Sanchez.

Let’s start with the old faithful. I know a lot of people like the deeper dive into the more refined statistics, but I like to look at the old, repetitive basics to start us out each season. Which players bared their teeth and had the best strikeout numbers per 9 innings. Who were the ones that limited walks when averaged over that same time frame? It gives us a decent baseline to look for anyone who might not be slotted into the Top 10 of Starting Pitcher ADP, too.

Before anyone stomps on my groundhog mound, I’ll be honest and say that this is where I found Bryan Woo last year, and the BB/9 prompted me to dig a bit deeper despite him not throwing enough innings in 2024 to qualify for an overall walk leaders list.

The Difference Between Strikeout Percentage and Walk Percentage

TEAM	PLAYER	K/BB%
DET	Tarik Skubal	27.8
BOS	Garrett Crochet	25.7
PIT	Paul Skenes	23.7
MIN	Joe Ryan	22.5
SEA	Bryan Woo	22.2
TEX	Jacob deGrom	22.1
BOS	Sonny Gray	21.6
PHI	Jesus Luzardo	21.0
PHI	Cristopher Sanchez	20.8
SF	Logan Webb	20.8

Honorable mentions: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Hunter Brown, Dylan Cease, Nick Pivetta, Kevin Gausman, Max Fried.

At risk of overkill, here’s the one that many of the “experts” or us serious folk use as a one stop shop for seeking out names to research. If I see a name on this list that isn’t ranked as highly as the others, it warrants a deeper dive in my books. It’s an easy “go-to” that a lot will use in place of the traditional K/9 or BB/9.

Ya, ya. I know we have a lot of the same names here as we do in the first chart.

Well, guess what! I like K/9! And I like BB/9! So…

But, seriously, it’s a good stat to use if you want to have an easy one-stop shop. Just make sure to search the entire player pool if you’re in a deeper league as a lot of the sites default to “qualified players” only. If your guy didn’t pitch a full season in the majors last year, you’ll have to tweak the search criteria.

As a bit of an aside here, the list is a bit different if we sort by K/BB (ratio of strikeouts to walks), but not by much.

More strikeouts. Fewer walks. That’s the ticket.

Hard Hit Rate (Percentage of balls hit in play that were classified as HIT HARD with speed)

TEAM	PLAYER	HARD HIT %
LAA	Kyle Hendricks	26.6
CIN	Andrew Abbott	27.0
SF	Logan Webb	27.6
NYY	Max Fried	27.8
HOU	Hunter Brown	28.1
BAL	Dean Kremer	28.3
NYM (MLW)	Freddy Peralta	28.4
CLE	Tanner Bibee	28.5
DET	Tarik Skubal	28.6
KC	Michael Wacha	29.3

Honorable mentions: Nick Pivetta (tied with Wacha), Paul Skenes, Chris Bassitt (!), Matthew Boyd.

As for the other end of the list, I took the liberty of listing out some of our “dis”honorable mentions, just to see who was getting hit harder than Needlehead Ned.

If your pitcher is giving up hits, we want them to be of the “duck-snort” variety and not the “Adam Dunn moonshot” sort. The next list of guys are the ones at the other end of the list. Ya, that means not good, folks.

DIS-honorable mentions: Kyle Freeland (41.4), Brandon Pfaadt, Mitchell Parker, Yusei Kikuchi, David Peterson.

And, of course, this brings us to a few pitcher profiles to discuss.

Some are from the C&C podcast from last week, and some are names from the charts above that I deemed worthy of an extra word or two.

PITCHER PROFILES

Overall ADP (in brackets) is from last week’s NFBC average draft position default ranking. 

Ranger Suarez (183.5) – This was my BOS Buy from last week, and I was shocked to see that Ranger Suarez was ranked as the SP53. I figured with enough buzz around the Red Sox’s new lefty, there would be a significant boost in draft position. He ranked in the 84th percentile or higher in each of the following categories last year: xERA, Average Exit Velo, BB%, Barrel Rate, and Hard Hit Rate. If I hammer hitting in Rounds 9-through-15, Ranger will be on a lot of my teams as an SP3/4.

Sonny Gray (131.2) – I knew Mike and Jeremy were big Sonny Gray fans, and to be honest, I couldn’t disagree with them when they both had him as the BOS Buy. The stats are in those charts above, and regular readers will remember my labelling of gray as “Mr. Underrated” more than a few times last season. He’ll have some hiccups in Fenway, and his ADP is rising, but I’d still consider drafting experience over the younger upside of Chase Burns, Jacob Misiorowski, and Cam Schlittler who are going right in that zone. If I roll the dice on upside in the earlier rounds, give me Steady Sonny in the late 10th round of a 12-team draft.

Payton Tolle (488.3) – This was Brew’s Sell, and I get it. A lot of folks are penciling Tolle in like he already has a starting rotation spot locked in. Yes, the Red Sox dealt some of their young arms to St. Louis in the offseason, but here’s what they have left to contribute to that rotation for 2026 (as of right now).

Garrett Crochet

Sonny Gray

Ranger Suarez

Brayan Bello

Johan Oviedo

Kutter Crawford

Patrick Sandoval

Connelly Early

Kyle Harrison

Payton Tolle

Tanner Houck (out for the season – TJS)

I had Aroldis Chapman down as my Sell for the Sox, but also mentioned that I wouldn’t be surprised if Boston moved one or two of these kids to the bullpen if Chapman fell flat in Spring, or if they moved him before Opening Day. Tolle has the makeup of a closer (97 MPH FB), and would be as good a choice as any to throw at the back of that bullpen to shut things down in the 9th inning.

Is he a great choice in your draft at this price? Maybe. But I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised to see him head to the bullpen a la Garrett Whitlock in an attempt to get him some MLB innings without pushing his limits in a sophomore season.

Ryan Weathers (397.8) – Take what I said about Suarez and double down with Weathers. One of Cool Whip’s favorites was also my Buy for NYY. The giant elephant in the room with Weathers is his ability to stay on the field. In a quick search for news, I found a bunch of articles about how he was in the sauna when he found out he was traded to the Yankees. I also found a bunch of articles about how he’s going to be a big breakout candidate who has barely scratched the surface on his talent ceiling. The more we see those kinds of articles, the higher his ADP should rise, so I’d get in now while the gettin’s good, if you can.

Bryan Woo (45) and Dylan Cease (80) – At the risk of falling into a time loop like Bill Murray’s weatherman character, Phil Connors. I’m back to have a look at Bryan Woo. He wasn’t a focal point of any of our AL East discussion, BUT I did mention him in conjunction with my Dylan Cease BUY. 

If you’re wondering why, it’s an idea that makes sense (in theory).

Each year, Grey publishes his Pitcher Pairing tool that guides us fantasy baseballers to draft pitchers that can complement one another. It’s dependent on the projected stat categories, and oftentimes will point us in the direction of certain arms that will help limit the damage caused by pitchers we draft as our SP1 or 2s.

Bryan Woo has an NFBC ADP of 45 overall. That’s a 3rd or 4th round pick in your 12 or 15 team leagues, and will be a place where I’ll be comfortable targeting my first SP in some drafts.

If I can land Bryan Woo in that area of a draft board, I’m starting my pitching staff off with a top guy who has a stellar walk rate and some room to improve on some acceptable strikeout numbers.

4-5 rounds later is where the Blue Jay with the biggest offseason bag of cash, Dylan Cease, is being scooped up. Cease’s strikeout rate is elite, but, as I mentioned when I sat down with the guys last Wednesday, the walk rate will make you tear out your hair.

In theory, pairing up a guy like Bryan Woo and Dylan Cease should net us TWO great starting pitchers who can help mitigate the risk from one of the lesser elite skill sets and balance out our top two starting pitchers.

EDIT: Cease’s ADP is rising. He was a RD 7/8 pick last week but has moved up almost one full round since last Wednesday. He might price himself out of my Pitcher Pairing Plan!

 

I had three more names to write up today, but felt like we could save them for another day. As it is, it feels like this one could have been split into two separate articles but…your favorite Marmos is a Dad of the people so here we are.

I hope your day is as good as it can be, and that you don’t end up with a groundhog on your lap…unless that’s your kind of thing.

 

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

As I said above, next week should be my much anticipated Top 10 SP rankings for 2026.

See you next Monday!

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