Top 100 Starting Pitchers for 2021: Week 21

It’s back-to-school week! Do we have any students out there reading this, or is it all just all people who last updated their phones when Bell Northern went AWOL? Still can’t believe the price I used to get on long distance. With each passing week, we’re watching a couple more pitchers fall to the injury, so let’s try and focus on finding some replacements for the arms that just hit the IL.

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Starting Pitchers

Freddy Peralta: The Milwaukee Brewers were supposed to be limiting his innings down the stretch in preparation for the playoffs. I was supposed to be pitching for the Blue Jays according to my career plans in 1987. What’s in common with each of those plans? Those plans completely collapsed. Peralta’s fastball velocity was actually increasing recently, then only 2 innings into Wednesday’s start, he departed with shoulder discomfort. There’s some disagreement about whether Peralta incurred the injury while batting (shades of Jack Flaherty). The next day, he hit the IL with shoulder inflammation, which is basically a fantasy manager’s nightmare. The Brewers have Peralta under a very friendly team contract for many more years, and they really have no incentive to rush him back when they were already trying to limit his pitch count. When Flaherty hurt himself swinging earlier this year, he missed 2 months of action. Seriously, can we make pitchers hitting an optional thing? Sure, Ohtani does well. The other pitchers? They have a 50% K rate and a collective .100 batting average. Yeesh. Hey Manfred — you want to change baseball for the better? Don’t make Freddy Peralta swing a bat. For all of us fantasy managers, the most we can do is keep fingers crossed that Peralta returns in short order.

Jake Arrieta: I mean, how much drama can we have in a week? Arrieta got kicked off the Cubs and then the San Diego Padres signed him, despite his 6+ ERA and FIP, and then he got rocked for 5 ER in 3 IP in his Padres debut. Maybe the Padres just wanted fodder to play in Coors Field? In the Razzball chat, we’re mostly baffled why the Padres are doing everything possible to keep MacKenzie Gore down in AAA. It’s fair to note that Gore had blister issues this year and people are flipping out about his control issues, but we’ve seen plenty of pitchers need the MLB scene instead of the squalor of the minor leagues. See players like Zach Thompson, Trevor Rogers, Alek Manoah (who had only 30 MiLB innings to his name!). ENYWHEY. This is about Arrieta, and why you should stack against him.

Patrick Sandoval: Hit the IL with a “lumbar spine stress reduction.” I love that band. He might miss the rest of the season. He’s OK to drop in redraft and you’ll need to find another late-season ace.

Chris Bassitt: Suffered multiple facial fractures after a line drive hit him in the face. He also might miss the rest of the season, and the concussion could be career-affecting. Doctors report that Bassitt’s vision is unaffected by the injury, which is great, but we are far too close to the injury to say anything definitive. Robbie Ray was hit in the head by a Luke Voit liner in 2017 before finishing the year strong. However, the long-term effects of the concussion basically brought his career to the brink for 2-3 years until his 2021 reinvention. I know Robbie Ray is doing well this year, but we need to remember back to late 2020 [shudder] when the Diamondbacks basically paid the Blue Jays to take Ray off their hands; the Diamondbacks were just as awful a team last year as they are this year, too. Back to Bassitt: fingers crossed that Bassitt heals quickly and doesn’t have long-term effects from the injury. From a fantasy perspective though, you shouldn’t expect him to pitch again this year.

Huascar Ynoa: Came back from a broken hand for 5 IP, 4 K, 3 H, 0 ER. 13.8% swinging-strike rate in his first start back, fastball sitting about 1MPH lower than before his bench-punching incident. A healthy Ynoa in the starting rotation for the playoff-chasing Braves could be the addition your team needs for the 2021 championship. Ynoa’s swinging-strike rate bodes well for a 2021 keeper / dynasty leagues.

Chris Sale: Still available in 10% of Yahoo leagues. 13K / 1BB in 10 IP so far. Y’all think he’s a reliever or something? He’ll likely be without a IP limit as the playoffs come into focus so if you’re staring at him on the waiver wire for some reason, go get him.

Trevor Bauer: Of course fantasy baseballers are asking if they should pick him up because fantasy baseballers are degenerates (<Grey’s mom’s words but used in my language). MLB still has months of investigations and criminal and civil cases are still open against him. He’s not touching the mound again this year and probably not for quite some time to come.

Corey Kluber: Yankees are bringing him back from a shoulder strain that was likely caused by going the distance during his no-hitter. Kluber spent nearly 2 years on the IL and then came back adequately earlier this year before the strain that sidelined him for months. The Yankees are in the pennant race and Kluber has 3 years of Division Series and 1 year of World Series experience with a 10+ K/9 in those games to his resume, so you know for sure they want him to get some innings before October comes. Hesitant add for your teams as he finishes out his rehab and will likely be up in September.

Dylan Cease: Hey, let’s play that game where I list stats from mystery players and you guess who they are:

OK, you ready? Player A = Gerrit Cole; Player B = Dylan Cease; Player C = Andrew Heaney. We cool now? If you read me in the preseason, I preached that starting pitchers really don’t matter all that much to your fantasy team (fighting words, I know). Did you draft Gerrit Cole in round 1? Yeesh. Should you have drafted Dylan Cease and Andrew Heaney in the late rounds and white knuckled? You betcha. Indeed I cherry-picked the starts somewhat — they’re an 11 game time frame but they’re not all the same time frame — but the point of the matter still stands. Dylan Cease is available in 30% of leagues still. He’s extremely volatile but he tends to go in phases of good/bad, with the current “bad” phase likely finishing up. He faces the Blue Jays next (avoid) but then gets the Cubs (START) and the Royals (START) and that’s the kind of fantasy baseball management that gets you to the playoffs.

Shohei Ohtani: Here’s one for Coolwhip — I’m completely wrong on Ohtani. Let’s recap: Ohtani struggled with control a ton early in the year, and as he surpassed 100 IP, I fully expected the Angels to start shutting him down. The Angels aren’t in the playoff race, and Ohtani hadn’t really thrown in 2 years (see also: Kluber, Corey). Instead of playing it safe or smart, the Angels management went with the “MLB The Show” approach and are letting Ohtani fly to finish the season. I discuss this with Coolwhip in Razzball chat nearly every week: I’m so freaking worried that the Angels are mismanaging Ohtani’s innings and they’re going to lead him to injury. Yet, Ohtani has clearly never missed arm day at the gym, so perhaps he falls into that category of “unicorn with 4 horns” that we just don’t see every day. Maybe Ohtani got Bartolo Colon’s surgery guy who managed to milk another decade out of that broken arm. Maybe…who knows. I’m still going to be worried because I don’t want to see Ohtani go Jameson Taillon with 2 Tommy John surgeries. In the meantime, enjoy the last month of the year with Ohtani cranking at full speed.

Nestor Cortes: Who’s up for a Yankee pitcher with a 5.00 xFIP and seemingly planned obsolescence once the big arms come back? Cortes has great control but the 24-degree launch angle and 1.57 HR/9 over his past month screams “Stack against me!” Still, he’s K’ing 9 per 9 and not walking anybody and pitches for a team of Avengers so roll those dice to see if he’s the Ant Man to your league’s Thanos.

Tylor Megill: Been a low-key top 50 SP over the past month, and the Mets IL list continues to get their medical advice from Dr. Death. Seems like Megill might keep a spot in the rotation for now.

Carlos Hernandez: Available in more places than Verizon 5G. Low key championship strategy: stream AL Central pitchers while the division has a race to the bottom. Obviously skip the White Sox.

Space:X Rankings

Week 24 Pitcher Data.xls