The Final Top 100 Starting Pitchers Dive For ’25 – Crowing, Cringing, and Crying

Shhh…

Guess who’s back. Back again.

So, I managed to sneak in the back door of Razzball HQ after the regular season finished, and before the security guard padlocked the door.

I don’t want to get anyone too excited. But I have some good news.

We’ve got ONE MORE Top 100 Starting Pitchers post to dive into for the 2025 season!

I’ll give you all a moment to wipe up the coffee/water you undoubtedly spilled after that inevitable explosion of jubilation.

All jokes aside, it is GREAT to see you all (digitally) again! 

I’ve started my Divisional Previews over on the hockey side of things, but I was happy to put together another baseball post for this week, too. Plus, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give Grey some extra time this morning to snuggle up and split a bag of bacon treats with Ted.

I’ll cut to the chase pretty quickly today, as I’m sure you’re all wondering what the format will be like.

First, I’m going to run through some of the early/preseason calls to see how I did way back in that 2025 staff predictions poll, as well as our very first Top 100 list from this past season. You can click on the links above if you want to check those out.

After that, I’m going to post the final Top 100 Starting Pitchers from Rudy’s Player Rater and run a list of comparisons with my final list of the year (again with the clicky linky thingies there), just to see if any names lined up or were glaringly different from each list when we look at them side by side.

Needless to say, it’s a beautiful thing to be able to come back for one more baseball visit.

Almost as beautiful as this.

The hottest hitter in baseball. Figuratively speaking.

Without further ado, let’s get to it!

The Cringing – Early Season predictions that were kind of meh.

These were picks or predictions that weren’t necessarily wrong, but they weren’t 100% right either.

Gavin Williams – WAY back in February, I launched my first list of rankings for the year. I had quite a few favorites in that one, indicated by the Marmo icon in the final column of buy/sell recommendations. I did whiff on a few “Skibidi Jordan Montgomery” calls (sorry, Max Fried and Carlos Rodon), and there was a time when I thought the Gavin Williams “buy” image was going to turn into a “barf” emoji.

Williams flip-flopped between decent starts and bad starts all year until the end of July. He became a bit of an auto-sit for me in a mixed league because my ratios couldn’t handle the risk he brought with him each week. My “Most Valuable Fantasy Pitcher” pick looked like it was going to be about as good as my 2023 Alek Manoah Cy Young pick (woof).

Well, except for a couple of hiccups in August, a funny thing happened when we got to July.

In his final 14 games, Gavin Williams posted a line that made old MarmosDad feel a lot better about the preseason callout.

Sure, the walk rate was still too high, and his control was not strong enough for managers to ‘set and forget it’ each week, but the turnaround mid-season salvaged what looked like it might have been a Skibidi call in late Winter.

The Crying – Early Season predictions that were harbingers of sadness

These were picks or predictions that were wrong and/or brought nothing but grief and despair before the end of April.

Garrett Crochet – I almost had Crochet down in the “Cringing” section just because it wasn’t like I expected Crochet to be terrible this year. But, in the Razzball Staff Picks, I did call him out as my bust pick of the year just because I didn’t trust the health record and thought that he didn’t have the stamina to get through the season unscathed. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I really like Garrett Crochet. But he’s going off the board as the 5th-ranked Starting Pitcher at the 32nd pick…overall (NFBC). Ok, so maybe Crochet isn’t exactly lanky when he’s weighing in at 245 lbs. And maybe I’m wrong when I say that I have a bad feeling about Crochet increasing his innings total, but I’d rather pick Rafael Devers (at 31) or Matt Olson (at 33) instead.” 

Well, not only did Crochet produce for the Red Sox this year, but he blew past his career high in innings (146) and racked up 205.1 IP in those 32 starts. And that’s not even including the mastery that he showed off in that gem of a Wild Card game he threw against the Yankees. 

If you’re wondering why I left out the part about picking Devers or Olson instead, uh…ya, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Eek.

Jared Jones – This could have been listed in the “Cringing” section simply because there’s nothing we Fantasy Managers can do to control injuries. If you read these early in the year, you might remember that I announced that I paired my Bryan Woo pick in every league with an equally exciting Jared Jones selection. I’m choosing to focus on being happy about Woo’s health holding up despite the watery eyes that I get every time I think of what kind of breakout season Jared Jones could have had if he’d been able to keep his arm attached to his shoulder before April 1st. Worst April Fool’s Day joke ever.

The Crowing – Early Season predictions that we nailed

These are the picks that we nailed and have already fired up the megaphone to announce to the world. Forget the victory lap, we’re in the middle of a victory marathon already.

As much as I’d like to point out my Jo Adell (Infatuation) and Bo Bichette (Comeback) picks, we need to stick with the SPs!

Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal (likely Cy Young Award Winner for NL/AL) – Well, this one wasn’t all that difficult to put together, and I certainly wasn’t alone in picking at least one of these guys. The funny thing is, the only other Razzball staffer who picked the Skenes/Skubal double tap was The Itch. Now, I know the award hasn’t been officially announced yet, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that we nailed this one, as it’s not exactly a Raleigh/Judge kind of debate on either side. Yes, the official Cy Young announcement hasn’t been made yet, but if anyone wants to bet that the awards don’t go to these two, I’ll take that bet (in USD, please!).

Taj Bradley – There was a lot of hype heading into the season about Taj Bradley. Here’s what I said back in that first Top 100 post of the year.

“ Do I believe Taj Bradley has huge potential to be an ace? Yes. Is Taj Bradley’s K/9 over the past couple of years a thing of beauty? Also, yes. Registering 10 strikeouts per nine innings is impressive for anyone, but when it comes from a 23-year-old kid in 138 MLB innings, that’s something to pay attention to. It sounds like I put Taj in the wrong section here, so I’ll cut to the chase. I don’t trust the command, and I think the 1.43 HR/9 will go up in that minor league park the Rays are headed to for 81 games. I’d be fine with picking up Taj in a keeper league, but I’m not touching him in redraft if I can grab a more stable arm in Zach Eflin or Tanner Houck in that 200-ish ADP section.”

I still wouldn’t give up on him in a dynasty league, but if you put your faith in this guy, you can’t say you were happy with a 6-8 record, the 5.15 ERA, and the minor league demotion just before the Rays flipped him to Minnesota.

The not-so-fun fact here, too, was that Bradley posted an even worse line with the Twins after he was recalled from St. Paul, finishing with 6 GS, 2 losses, a 6.61 ERA, and a 1.41 WHIP. Add in 6 HR allowed in 31.1 IP along with a 32:12 K to BB rate, and there’s only one thing to be said. Yuck.

Bryan Woo – Oh my. If you stuck with it for this long, you knew this one was coming. 

“With Woo, I’m fully prepared to take the L this year. The hamstring injury from last year concerns me a lot less than the possibility that his forearm soreness resurfaces. Why push so hard to snag Woo on my teams this draft season? I believe his 7.49 K/9 from last year is due to jump, big time. He posted a 9.55 K/9 in 18 starts in 2023, and I assume that he’ll make his way back to the 9-10 range very quickly in April. The walk rate? Well, at 122 IP, Woo didn’t qualify for the BB/9 title, but if we included him in the list, his 0.96 BB/9 would have ranked him first overall. Yes, that’s ahead of his rotation-mate George Kirby’s 1.08 BB/9.”

I don’t want to be too big of a, er, rooster, with this megatonic crow, and I did throw the tiniest hedge in at the beginning where I acknowledged the risk factor this year, but I’ll let the numbers speak for themselves with our best West Coast sailor.

The Rime of the Not-So-Ancient Mariner was even cooler than the poet who penned the original. And there’s no doubt that Bryan authored himself a Cy Young-worthy season. The consecutive QS streak was one thing, but the rest of the peripherals were also a thing of beauty. Anyone who managed to pull this guy in as a keeper should be pretty ecstatic that it didn’t cost you much to land him. 

Bravo, Woo-Bot. If only there were a GIF that we could use to encapsulate the excitement of rostering the 25-year-old for his breakout season.

Honorable mention

This one wasn’t so much an early-season call as it was a quick shout to fantasy managers to add the kid when he was called up three weeks ago. On September 15, I posted this in a Trey Yesavage update.

As I wrote all of this up on Sunday afternoon, it was not easy to stay focused.

“But why, oh MarmosDad, did you have such a difficult time locking in on this final write-up?”

I’m glad you asked, random italicized voice.

If you didn’t have access to a television or the internet, or are a Yankees fan who smashed their fist through the TV screen before the end of the 4th inning, you might have missed this one.

Drink maple syrup

[image or embed]

— Razzball (@razzball.bsky.social) October 5, 2025 at 2:51 PM

And, also this…

"I LOVE YOU GUYS." ?

An emotional Trey Yesavage joins @thehazelmae after his masterful #Postseason debut. pic.twitter.com/dISKX3QlmV

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 5, 2025

I mentioned the week after his call-up that fantasy managers in keeper leagues might want to do whatever they can to get this kid locked in on their keeper rosters. I hope you all had a chance to do that before this week’s record-setting playoff outing.

Ok, before we get swept away with the Blue Jays Fever, I did say that I would do a quick run-down of the end-of-the-year Player Rater rankings with some comparisons to my end-of-the-year Top 100 list.

You can follow the links or peep-out the chart I’ve put together below.

Final 2025 Player Rater (sort by SP in position tab)

Final Top 100 Starting Pitcher article from September 22nd

Caveat: The Top 100 list is an ever-changing and evolving beast, while the Player Rater is an analysis of the entire season’s worth of pitching stats and is driven by innings pitched and wins. Viewer discretion is advised.

PLAYER	TEAM	FINAL PLAYER RATER RANKING	FINAL TOP 100 SP RANKING
Garrett Crochet	BOS	SP1	SP3
Tarik Skubal	DET	SP2	SP1
Paul Skenes	PIT	SP3	SP2
Bryan Woo	SEA	SP4	SP7
Freddy Peralta	MLW	SP6	SP5
Nick Pivetta	SD	SP11	SP20
Yoshinobu Yamamoto	LAD	SP10	SP4
Trevor Rogers	BAL	SP20	SP10
Chris Sale	ATL	SP23	SP12
Framber Valdez	HOU	SP25	SP30
Cade Horton	CHC	SP33	SP22
Nolan McLean	NYM	SP81	SP23
Quinn Priester	MLW	SP37	SP27
Gavin Williams	CLE	SP24	SP33
Shane Bieber	TOR	SP131	SP35
Eury Perez	MIA	SP66	SP37
Dylan Cease	SD	SP64	SP48
Tanner Bibee	CLE	SP46	SP56
Mitch Keller	PIT	SP88	SP62
Andrew Abbott	CIN	SP26	SP83
Taj Bradley	MIN	SP140	N/R

That’s all for this week AND FOR THIS YEAR! 

I hope you enjoyed the Top 100 Starting Pitchers articles this season. I know I said it in my last post, but I would like to again thank everyone for showing up and taking the time to sift through the words of a silly Canadian here each week. Whether you visited once this season or once a week, I appreciate every single one of you!

Like I said above, if you’re jonesing for some more Marmos, the bad news is I’m off to hide in my ice hut for the next few months. The good news? I’m happy to report that Grey managed to find me some insulated Ethernet cable, so I’ll be writing over on the hockey side for a bit. Come peek in on the NHL side of things each Wednesday as I’m running through divisional previews for Viz through October, then covering every Tuesday night of hockey action each Wednesday morning until baseball starts back up (or until I drive myself crazy trying to swing both!).

Finally, and most importantly, thanks again to Truss, Rudy, and Grey for the opportunity to hang out with you as an over-the-internet friend each week. It’s been a great year, and I hope to see you all back in January when we fire things up for ‘26!

Come back and visit, have a great offseason, and check back in around Christmas time because I just might have another present for our baseball readers around the holidays again!

Follow me @marmosdad on Twitter/X and Bluesky @marmosdad.bsky.social