Happy Monday, Razzball faithful!

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.

There are only 10 spots in the Top 10 rankings of the 2026 Preseason Top 100 Starting Pitchers list.

If you’re surprised by that, wait until I tell you how many names we can fit into the Top 20. (Spoiler: it isn’t 33).

Yes. I know this to be true. Am I a Math-magician? I most certainly am not.

But why am I speaking like a robot?

Well, it’s a bit of a self-created internet bumper to shield me from the unavoidable monkey-poop-slinging that usually begins like this: “HA! You have <Player X> ranked way too high. And you’ve got <Player Y> ranked where? This has to be a troll job! You’re terrible!”

*Sheds single, frozen, sparkling, maple-syrup-flavored tear.*

This is all jokes, of course. And I’m fully on board with team “If you can’t stand the heat, get yourself out of the pizza pocket oven.”

But the tiny sliver of truthiness in the messaging here is, it’s tough to pack so many good pitchers into a Top 10 list – especially when there’s at least 15-20 names that deserve a spot in the elite pocket of rotation stalwarts. 

A Top 20? Yep, some could argue that there are 30-40ish names we could mix-and-match for that one.

It sounds dumb, I know, but criticism is expected when someone’s main gig is to rank players. 

I see a couple of pitchers I like, and I think deserve a boost up the rankings; then I see a couple who get pushed further down the list than I’m comfortable with, and feel the need to slot them ahead of a few other names. 

Some have an injury risk that I’m willing to push aside in favor of other skills that I’m more willing to gamble on. Others I don’t believe in as much and am more concerned about drafting them in the spot I’d have to use to secure them.

Some are so close, it’s tough to break the tie. In other instances, it becomes a bit of a game of “Would You Rather?” when players are deadlocked in a certain numerical slot.

But ties are for office nerds and soccer matches, so it’s officially open season for criticism. Gimme all those extra “WTFs” that you’ve got, and I’ll store them in my sack of sadness for future analysis.

Will I DEFINITIVELY claim that each of these pitchers MUST be drafted in this order from my rankings? No. But it’s an easy hedge when we remember that this list is part of an ever-evolving group of 100. A few guys will get pushed off, and some of those same guys will push their way back on at some point.

More than one of the injured guys will reappear mid-season (ahem…Gerrit Cole), higher than others who have pitched all year (Jameson Taillon). Some will disappear completely if they have the poor fortune of blowing out an arm tendon like it’s a candle at a four-year-old’s birthday party.

And to add some spice to the chili on a cold February afternoon, I’m adding in some extra columns with the list today.

I’ll have the rankings of my Top 20 starting pitchers, aligned with Grey’s rankings, nestled right up beside them. Then, I’ll include the up-to-date NFBC ADP for those starters. AND, I’ll put a column in that lists off where these guys are being drafted in Fantrax leagues, just to get us all in the mood for some Fantrax research heading into RCL season! (Vin, that one is just for you.)

And speaking of RCLs, I don’t want to give anything away, but I hear RCL#2 already has a manager you might like to hang out with, digitally, all summer long.

BUT WAIT! If you’re looking for the AL East Pod that I did with Mike and Jeremy, you can listen to that here!

If you want to check the spot I usually have open when flipping through my information on Sunday afternoons, you’re looking for that Player Rater leaderboard. This is always a great resource if you’re doing research. A bit of this, and a splash of that, goes into the prep work for our weekly Top 100 Starting Pitchers list.

Of course, if you’re one of those doubting-your-own-gut-instinct fantasy managers, or simply want to use a great resource that will point you in the right direction every week, The Streamonator is here to help you answer those burning questions. 

And, of course, if you haven’t signed up for it, the Razzball subscriptions are well worth the price of admission. This should be your go-to reference for the entire season. That resource that the other “experts” from other sites use as often as they look at Statcast or Fangraphs data? This is it.

ONE final caveat here: it’s tough to rank starting pitchers alongside the GOAT of starting-pitching rankings. At risk of getting a bit of brown on my nose, a lot of you have known this for as long as I have. FantasyPros knows it. Regular readers have known it for years (as have I).

These are not criticisms of Grey’s rankings. If anything, I defer to Grey’s rankings whenever I’m unsure of a player’s worth or potential just because I know how much research and consideration go into the boss’s list, and we all know his track record for success. Think of this as a supplement to Grey’s rankings—a bit of extra sprinkles on top of Grey’s multi-layered pitcher cake.

When in doubt, it’s best to quote our fantasy master lothario, especially when it directly applies to one’s prowess:

“Did I consult others’ rankings? Of course I did, it would be ignorant not to, but in the end these are my rankings”.

For what it’s worth, I haven’t looked at anyone else’s rankings outside of the ones we have listed here.

So with all of that out of the way, “Who’s in MarmosDad’s Top 20?”

I don’t know what yours looks like (yikes), but here’s my…

TOP 20 STARTING PITCHERS FOR 2026

Sorted by 12-team (RCL) rankings for Fantrax & 15-team default for NFBC

MARMO RANK	Name	Team	R$	GREY’S RANKING	NFBC RANKING	FANTRAX RANKING
1	Tarik Skubal	DET	40.8	1	1	1
2	Paul Skenes	PIT	35.8	2	2	3
3	Garrett Crochet	BOS	29.3	3	3	2
4	Yoshinobu Yamamoto	LAD	19.7	4	4	4
5	Cristopher Sanchez	PHI	23.2	7	5	5
6	Bryan Woo	SEA	19.3	6	9	9
7	Logan Webb	SF	19.4	10	14	10
8	Logan Gilbert	SEA	23.8	9	7	8
9	Hunter Greene	CIN	18.3	8	11	12
10	Hunter Brown	HOU	18.9	5	6	6
11	Cole Ragans	KC	21.2	22	12	14
12	Jacob deGrom	TEX	20.3	15	10	13
13	Max Fried	NYY	19.5	17	13	11
14	George Kirby	SEA	21.0	13	17	20
15	Kyle Bradish	BAL	10.8	11	21	24
16	Chris Sale	ATL	23.6	16	8	7
17	Dylan Cease	TOR	16.9	21	19	19
18	Joe Ryan	MIN	24.1	14	16	18
19	Framber Valdez	DET	17.9	24	25	21
20	Freddy Peralta	NYM	16.7	18	15	15

And now for a few words about some of the rankings.

SP1-5 – The Elite

These guys are the best of the best, AKA no one that the Razzball gang will be drafting in regular leagues this year. Y’all can scoop these guys up while I’m drafting 5-category hitters.

There isn’t much to be said about these guys that hasn’t already been said. The Top 3 are the biggies from the group, and if anyone has them ranked differently, they’re likely trying too hard to be different. 

Yoshinobu Yamamoto – The 37.1 extra innings in the playoffs pushed his season total up to 211 IP. That’s a pretty big jump from the 111 innings that he threw in 2024, so I get it if you’re expecting Yoshi to slide down the list a bit with that “how isn’t his arm tired” train of thought. I watched all of those World Series games (*sniff sniff…tears*), and if there’s one guy who looks like a cyborg when it comes to pushing himself to throw innings, it’s this guy. I’m trying to land him in any keeper league that I can, and if others in my draft room are scared of the innings peak last year, I’ll grab him if he drops in redraft leagues, too.

Cristopher Sanchez – This one’s for Harley. I looked at the Top 10 that I had drawn up way back in December, and I got stuck on the 5th spot. “I really want to list Woo in my Top 5, but it feels too much like a biased ranking”. Ya, that was kind of the thinking there. Do I trust Sanchez to be a Top 5 pitcher all year long? Uh…ya, I do. That’s why he’s here. I wrote him up in my second post of the year, and I have a feeling some people will push him up ahead of anyone outside of that triumvirate of superstars.

SP6-10 – Elite-ish

Bryan Woo – Yes, I know. I can’t stop writing about this guy. But you can’t blame me, can you? He ranked 5th in K-BB% last year and showed up in my fancy chart in last week’s Groundhog Day article. I outlined my strategy of trying to pair low BB% pitchers with higher K% arms to try to balance the negative effects from limited skill sets. If I can land Woo as my SP1, it’ll give me some freedom to pick up a guy like Dylan Cease, Jesus Luzardo, or Freddy Peralta as an SP2/3.

If you don’t believe me, give Grey’s Top 20 SP rankings another look. The chart there is *chef’s kiss* if you’re a fan of the WOOOOOOO!

Logan Webb – “I know I’m high on Webb here” is not something we’d hear escape from Wilbur’s mouth in that kid’s novel about Zuckerman’s famous pig, but it is something I’ll say about my Top 10. Webb checks in at the 10th spot in the K-BB% from last year’s qualified starters. Grey kind of put the two Logans side-by-side and mentioned that the biggest “pro” here with both of these guys is the strikeout upside and the impeccable command. Webb’s K/9 was 9.74 last year. His 2.0 BB/9 was the 8th best in MLB. He won’t drop too much in drafts, but if people nab one of the arms in this group that I was targeting, I’m fine scooping Webb as my SP1.

Logan Gilbert – Remember last year around this time when Gilbert was a slam-dunk Top 5 pick and was going ahead of Crochet and Yamamoto in some drafts? Because I sure do remember. Last week, I mentioned being careful with your research from the previous year and making sure you don’t forget to look up the guys who didn’t pitch enough to qualify for a “league leaders” list. Gilbert is one of those guys. If you take the qualifying bar out, Logan Gilbert’s numbers are pretty filthy. His 11.74 K/9 put him above Dylan Cease’s league-leading 10.56, and in the same company of smaller sample-sized flamethrowers like Chris Sale (11.82 K/9 in 20 GS), and Zack Wheeler (11.73 K/9 in 24 GS). Yes, please.

SP11-15: Bargain aces? Yes, please!

Cole Ragans – Uh oh. This is one of those, “Are you serious? You have this guy ranked above <insert your favorite team’s pitcher here>?” I get it. But I also don’t think this guy is going to have a lot of smoke on him unless he hits the ground running in Spring Training. I was drafting Ragans as an SP1 last year (ugh), and he was kind enough to give us 13 starts (14.30 K.9, 2.83 BB/9). Hopefully, your leaguemates look at the 4.67 ERA and dismiss him as a one-hit wonder. But to be honest, I’d be even more hopeful that the shoulder soreness and rotator cuff strain don’t resurface this Spring. If I land a good command SP1 and this guy is around when I’m shopping for an SP2/3, I’ll likely take the chance.

George Kirby – Here’s another one whose beefy ERA might scare some managers away. It’s kind of ironic that I had to change the “qualified pitchers” to “all” when I was looking up Kirby’s numbers. It’s the same thing I had to do before last year, when I was looking at Bryan Woo’s strikeout-to-walk numbers. The comparison still holds. 

Strictly ranking their K/BB, our Top 3 starters in Seattle are Logan Gilbert (5.58), Bryan Woo (5.50), and George Kirby (4.72). For the record, Luis Castillo (3.52) and Bryce Miller (2.18) are at least above average.

Kyle Bradish – And I thought I was pushing Bradish up too high! Grey’s ranking of SP11 made it even more of a personal confirmation bias; I wasn’t totally nuts with this Top 15 slot for Bradish. In a ridiculously small sample size of six starts, Bradish was “lights-out” and posted an otherworldly 13.22 K/9 along with a 2.83 BB/9. That’s top-flight closer-type stuff. No, he won’t repeat that kind of silliness, but can he post a 9-10 K/9 with an acceptable BB/9? I think so. Grey mentioned it in his Bradish blurb, and I won’t rehash the whole thing here, but I’m in agreement that it’s easier to get in on an injury return when the guy has had actual surgery to repair the problem. “Rest and rehab” is only good for those cocaine addicted marathon runners. That’s how the saying goes, no?

SP16-20: More affordable low end SP1 or high end SP2s

Chris Sale – It’s been well documented (by me) that I’m not a believer in Chris Sale’s injury avoidance potential. I wrote it up last year around this time. I said it again after a few starts. A guy who throws as nasty a slider as Sale does, from a frame that looks like it’s made of shaved bamboo…that’s not a recipe for 200 innings. Am I drafting Sale? No. Is he going to get hurt and miss a significant portion of the season? I hope not. I won’t say I told you so if it does happen, but this gets back to what I said above. There are some health risks that I’m more willing to roll the dice on than others. And Sale is one of the latter.

Joe Ryan – Ok. There’s an inevitable issue with Math when I rank a few guys higher than they’re showing up in other rankings. It pushes down some names projected to produce in a better draft slot. Do I believe in Joe Ryan’s metrics? Of course I do. When a 22.2 K-BB% lands you in fourth place between Paul Skenes and Bryan Woo, it seems really silly not to have said player ranked at least in the Top 10. My biggest question marks with Joe Ryan are how much support he’s going to get while he’s stuck in Minnesota, and was there anything under the hood that explains his rough finish to the season? Ryan’s last 7 GS looked like this…

I’m sure he’s fine, and I’m sure he’ll be a decent enough draft pick. I just have a gut feeling that I’ll be drafting more of the arms that land around him in draft room rankings instead of double-clicking on his name.

Final Notes from the Top 20

• R$ of “the next” SPs missing (from the Preseason Player Rater): Jesus Luzardo 19.4, Spencer Schwellenbach 18.3, Spencer Strider 16.6, Blake Snell 15.6, Nick Pivetta 15.2, Zack Wheeler 14.6.
• For the record, I had Blake Snell in the Top 20 until word got out that he “might” miss the start of the season due to “lingering shoulder issues”. Uh…if you’re someone who’s looking to shed an ‘injury prone’ label, this isn’t the best way to do it. I like him a lot, but this knocks him down quite a bit. 
• FWIW, the same goes for Shane Bieber – I had him in my Top 30 before news of him ending the season with ‘forearm fatigue’ crept up last week. He’s hoping to be good to go on opening day, but I’m taking a “believe it when I see it” approach here.
• Zack Wheeler would be a heck of a lot higher here if there were good news bites attached to his player profile. Keelin wrote about his injury recovery on Saturday in her Ambulance Chasers article. Grey has him at SP60. I’ll likely have him around there as well, at least until we get to see some positive performance and endurance after he gets back.
• The last two spots in this were a bit of back and forth with the group of Kevin Gausman, Luzardo, Shohei Ohtani, and Eury Perez. They’ll be in that next group of 10 when we launch the full list next week.

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!

Next week is the big one for Top 100 Starting Pitcher enthusiasts. I’ll have my full rankings for y’all to peruse (and carve up!), along with some ADPs for everyone to use as a springboard for your comparisons and pre-draft research. I’m not gonna lie, I’m already very excited to write up some of those arms from Grey’s “Get fitted for a tuxedo shirt now” tier. 

 

Have a great week, and I’ll see you next Monday!

 

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