Top 100 Starting Pitchers for 2021: Week 16

Holy frijoles it’s another Monday — Prince’s favorite day of the week — and with that brings another manic update about the okayest hurlers in the business. Gerrit Cole’s about the only healthy one left, right? And is he really healthy without spider tack? Are any of us really healthy without sticky hands? Let’s check in with some of the best pitchers of the past week and get you ready for the home stretch of the fantasy baseball season.

Robbie Ray: 

• The Ronaldo of the North continued his quest to secure a long-term contract with a major market team not playing in a minor league stadium this week, charting as the #1 SP on the Razzball 7-Day Player Rater. To be fair, Alec Mills was up there a few times as well over the past few years, so it’s not like you’re winning an actual award for being the best of the All-Star break, but it’s something, right? Especially when you’re outperforming contemporary Whiffers Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito, Walker Buehler, and Kwang Hyun Kim. Yeah, told ya it’s not always all-stars. What’s really wild is that Ray’s just doubling down on his fastball, reaching 81% usage three starts ago, 76% two starts ago, and this last start was about 70%. Again, Ray’s just becoming more and more like a reliever. If we think back to winter 2021 [shudder], we’ll recall that Ray was on a one-year “prove it” deal with the Blue Jays, who were the only team in MLB that were willing to chuck veteran money at Ray. OK, now that Mr. Lululemon has proven his elasticity, he’s playing for another contract, right? What MLB team in their right mind would sign a starter that throws 80% fastballs? Who’s the closest starter over the past few years that throws 80% fastballs? Nobody. OK, how about 70%? Lance Lynn, J.A. Happ, and then nobody. OK, how about 65%? Brad Keller.  Yeesh. You get the idea; almost all starters need a reliable second — and preferably third and fourth — pitch.  So maybe Ray’s got a little bit of nut-scratcher in him — and I’m talking about Lance Lynn and not those pants — but if fantasy managers are going to seriously consider Ray as a keeper, he’s got to start showing off those secondary pitches ASAP. Otherwise, Ray will remain on cruddy contracts that will limit his dynasty value. Oh, but for redraft, yeah, let Captain Fastball sling his way to your fantasy championship.

Kwang Hyun Kim: 

• My Canadian friend who lives in Japan makes the best bulgogi pizza. Whenever I tell people about bulgogi pizza, they’re either: A) horrified, B) trying to search Wikipedia to figure out what “bulgogi” is, and C) delightfully full of curiosity why a Canadian dude in Japan is putting a Korean dish on top of Italian-American flatbread. We’re so cosmopolitan here at Razzball! But let’s get on with our second favorite Korean dish: Kwang Hyun Kim. OK, maybe Hyun Jin Ryu is actually our second favorite, but Kim gets the spotlight today. Check it out: Kim’s ERA since mid-June is 1.64. Sure, his xFIP is 5.02, but who cares about how lucky pitchers are getting, right? I mean, we’ve got a guy with a [checks notes] 5.63 K/9. My sweet Yeezus. OK, you can probably see why Kim should be — I dunno, what’s the word — treated with the same skepticism that people treat bulgogi pizza (did you look it up yet?). He’s been useful for the past month, but batters are putting the ball on his pitches at an alarming rate. Kim’s a master of soft contact, and his 1.8% barrel rate over the past 6 weeks is enticing for those of you in need of IP and ERA-lowering skills. So, if you’re one of the lucky ones to be sitting on a deGrom/Burnes pair to start the year and don’t care about Ks, then you’re OK to roster Kim. Everybody else, find another pitcher who can get you the sweet K-im chi.

Chris Flexen: 

• Speaking of sweet Korean style pickles, former KBO all-star Chris Flexen has been flexing on everybody recently. Over the past six weeks (same time frame as the Kim blurb), Flexen has thrown 40 IP with a 1.39 ERA…and a 4.19 xFIP and a meager 6.5 K/9. It’s like watching a Netflix movie you love and then going to read the Wikipedia and finding out the director hates puppies and once spit on an astronaut. You love guys like Flexen and Kim on the surface, but you realize that deep-down, they’re just not meant to be on your team for very long. Flexen has a similar soft-contact profile to Kim, except batters hit him way harder. Same caveats apply to rostering Flexen right now: he’s your SP5-6, and keep him away from power hitters.

Mike Minor: 

• Let’s flip from the good to the bad, shall we?  Minor’s been abjectly, dismally, frightfully, not so gosh darn great (sorry for my vulgarity at the end of that) over the past month. Minor’s ERA is near 9 and he’s K’ing about 6 per 9. Wait…6/9. That’s nice. ACKSHUALLY, that’s the K-rate that Chris Flexen and Kwang Hyun Kim have…so you’re telling me that the other/other side of not striking out batters is turning into Mike Minor. OK, now I’ll listen to EWB about bulgogi pizza. Minor’s been messing with his pitch mix a ton over the past weeks, trying to compensate for losing his breaking pitches. He’s nearly doubled his fastball usage compared to the beginning of the season, and, well, he still sucks. Regression will hit, but not enough that 22% of managers in RCLs should be rostering him. As Moises said, “Let my Minors go.”

Jacob deGrom: 

• Out with forearm soreness [face palm]. Sometimes you wonder how good a player would be if they were on another team. What if deGrom was on a team with capable owners and capable medical staff? Somebody get on Twitter and yell at Steve Cohen to give deGrom a break before he…ya know…breaks something that takes 18 months to heal.

Gerrit Cole:

• Remember when I said Gerrit Cole was OK despite the lack of stick? Now he’s gone 23:4 K:BB in 15 IP (including a CG shutout) since getting blown up earlier in the month. Sometimes aces just need to adjust. Let him fly.

Andrew Heaney: 

• [EWB stands in front of a mountain wearing a jean jacket] I JUST CAN’T QUIT YOU, HEANEY! Actually, I can because I’m pretty sure I didn’t draft him anywhere. Like, it’s completely absurd what’s going on with Heaney. Over the past month, he’s got an 11.2 K/9 to a 2.70 BB/9. That’s like, Shane Bieber-worthy. Yet, Heaney’s ERA over that time was 8.50, which is Mike Minor-worthy. Heaney’s BABIP is .400, and his xFIP is nearly 4.00 points lower than his ERA. What about Statcast metrics? Barrel rate is 9.7% over the past month and hard hit rate is 36%, both of which are more than acceptable. Swinging strike rate? 12.5%. Yeah, everything’s checking out. Like, you know who had higher barrel rates than Heaney? Max Scherzer and Trevor Bauer [shudder]. What about that swinging strike rate? Right in line with Yu Darvish, Trevor Bauer [barf], Zack Wheeler, Luis Castillo (hey!), Charlie Morton, and Tyler Mahle. Heaney’s HR/FB rate is basically the same as Shane Bieber’s (Lazarus reborn soon). Heaney’s BABIP is challenged by the likes of Bieber and Nola. So, we’re still looking at a pitcher who is getting freaking killed by his defense (Angels are 2nd worst in the league in defensive WAR, trailing only the Tigers; both DET and LAA are nearly twice as bad as their nearest bad competitor, the Dodgers). And, I’m not out on Heaney yet. Heaney will be next year’s Robbie Ray, mark my word. If Heaney can move on to a team that supports him defensively, it will be a race to acquire him (I mean, look at those comps above). If Heaney stays on the Angels, then you’re basically looking at a German Marquez situation, where Heaney is a SABR darling but completely useless in fantasy because of his supporting crew. So, DFS players, enjoy Heaney for now. Season-long fantasy managers, you’re gonna have to hold tight to get any value from the Angels’ de facto number 2 starter.

Space:X Rankings

It’s the “second half” and that means many “other” rankers are putting out their bi-annual rankings. Can you imagine rankers who don’t put out weekly rankings? What do they do with all of their time? So, me and Nick Pollack are basically the only weekly rankers of pitchers. And, as I’ve told y’all many times, I work at Pitcher List too and I don’t cross the fantasy streams there. So, I’m not talking about Nick. But, there are other rankers out there. Some of those rankers think you should be all in on Zac Gallen (4+ BB/9, 5 ERA/5FIP, failed to make it past 5 IP in 3/5 starts) and Shane Bieber (still not throwing) to finish the season. And I can’t blame those rankers, because I’ve still got Bieber way up high, right next to fellow IL-er Clayton Kershaw. Every week, I try to point out that my rankings have evolved towards confidence in answering “Should I start this pitcher if they are playing?” As confidence goes towards 1, the answer is yes. Of course, data doesn’t speak for itself. That’s where I — and you — come into play. Hopefully I’m providing you with the knowledge to make that informed decision that you can be confident — or not confident — in starting a pitcher or pursuing a pitcher based on their current stats. That said, my rankings are not geared towards “here are the best pitchers rest of season, end of story,” because I personally don’t know when Clayton Kershaw or Shane Bieber will be back. Maybe Cleveland wants to suppress Bieber’s innings so they have an edge in arbitration. Should I change his rankings based on that?  None of us know for sure. That’s the wonder of fantasy baseball. I mean, in a wonder-esque “When will they be healthy again” sentiment, which I think we all share in this time of Covid. So, I prefer to include injured players on the rankings to help give you enough information that in the case of the pitcher playing, you can make the determination of whether they should start/sit for your team. Sound cool?

If you’re the home brewer, here’s my updated CSV for my pitcher ranks. I’m excitedly working on many projects, so keep tuned to Razzball throughout the end of the year as I bring some of those updates to y’all.

Cheers all, and I’m off to the verdant green lands of northern WI for the week, so bear with me if I’m not down in the comments right away.

Week 24 Pitcher Data.xls