Happy Monday, Razzball faithful!

I teased this a bit last week, but, as anticipated, things have been full out chaotic in MarmoLand for the past 7 days. Between coaching U13 soccer games, (or football to those of you who are from across the pond), two separate U13 and U10 baseball teams, a school Junior 3-pitch team, and trying to put together some ideas for this week’s article, I almost had enough fodder to help distract me from working on report cards for the end of our school year.

Almost.

When procrastination is on the menu, take a big bite…and construct a backyard trampoline with your kids.

I thought that I’d switch up the format a bit today, so, keeping with the report card theme that was my week of insanity, I decided to dish out some report card marks for some of our Starting Pitchers and do a bit of assessment of their performance now that we’re officially through 1/3rd of the MLB season. Our school year is broken up into three terms up here, so we can think of this as a ‘progress report’ or a Term 1 Report Card.

The good news? We’ve got quite a few A+ marks for the Aces of the league.

The bad news? Ooh, baby. Summer school is gonna be full this year.

For those of you who enjoy the regular format with my list and notes on every pitcher, fear not. I’ll be back to that next week with all of our jumpers, dumpers, stumpers, and bumpers. But for this week, I’ll be using our Top 100 Starting Pitchers from the 2025 Player Rater to provide the list. It’ll be a good opportunity to see where I’m higher, lower, or just right on certain names and performances from this year too.

But first, as always, I need to remind you to lock in your Razzball Fantasy Baseball Subscription. This should be your go-to reference for the entire season. The Streamonator is also a helpful resource when making lineup decisions. Rudy’s tools are well worth the price of admission. 

Incomplete or Insufficient Evidence – This list is mostly filled with players who are injured or were injured coming into the season. 

We’ll label the players in this section as “incomplete”. That “I” assessment refers to our subject having an incomplete base of data or insufficient evidence to accurately report on their progress. These guys either didn’t hand in their work or didn’t have enough time to even start the assignment.

Jared Jones (ugh), Gerrit Cole, Eury Perez (was supposed to return last week), Shane McClanahan, Reynaldo Lopez, Grayson Rodriguez (ugh again), Kutter Crawford (setback June 7), Justin Steele, Shane Bieber (setback June 6), Brandon Woodruff (setback June 5), DJ Herz.

(Some pitchers expected to return sooner than later or working through a pitching plan are listed below)

And now…

The 2025 First Term Starting Pitcher Report Card

Grade A: These are the high achievers of the bunch. An excellent season (so far), and the promise of even better things to come!

This is Principal Grey’s Honor Roll for the first term. If we’re going with percentages, these are our 100% to 85% achievers.

Hunter Brown (1)  – Whoa! If you tuned in today expecting to see a different #1 in our rankings, you might be a bit confused. We could argue that Tarik Skubal, Zack Wheeler, or Paul Skenes should be atop the list, but the Player Rater took all of the data into account and calculated our top academic of the first term. With just four SPs in the $30 ranks, Hunter Brown’s $34.3 narrowly ekes out his peers for the top spot today. The strikeout rate is the highest it’s ever been (10.54 K/9), and his ratios are pristine. There may be more popular names in the school trophy case, but this one is poised to take top honors if he keeps working hard through the rest of the year.

Tarik Skubal (2) – Here’s my SP1 from the Top 100 List. He started the preseason as my SP2 way back in February, so we’ll take a good mark on our report card there, too. There’s not much to say about this guy that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll include this graphic to sum it up.

The roar from this Tiger has been deafening

Kris Bubic (8) – Based on his ADP in draft season, this is the surprise of the year. Bubic showed potential in the past, but his ability to put forth a consistently strong effort every time out has been the real difference maker. The 5-3 record doesn’t do him justice, but the 9.44 K/9, 1.43 ERA, and 0.966 WHIP are enough to qualify him for the Prom King shortlist.

Grade A-: These are the ‘students’ still working above grade level. Our ‘A-’ students are giving us more than some of us expected, and are excelling.

I lumped the next group of pitchers here just because I couldn’t snip the Top 20 all together. Many of these pitchers could be in the Top 20 but, as I’ve said before, you can only fit twenty names in the Top 20. This should be considered our A- group.

Logan Webb (17) – To be honest, any of the names in this section could jump into the top tier as soon as this week. Logan Webb is no exception. The Player Rater values wins more highly than a lot of other data systems, and if the Giants gave Webb more run support, his 5-5 record would be more like the 8-game winners in the top tier. He’s also one of the 15 SPs with a 10+ K/9.

Bryan Woo (20) – Finally, one of the Teacher’s Pets. Frequent readers will know how much faith I had in this guy at the beginning of the year. And he’s done nothing to dampen those expectations. The consistency is only outweighed by the reliability. Excellent results and excellent effort!

MacKenzie Gore (23) – If we sent Big MacK to a private school where he had more one-on-one support, he would flourish. But, despite leading the league with a 12.90 K/9, Gore has just 3 wins this term. Keep working hard and doing your best every day, MacK, and your efforts will be rewarded!

Spencer Schwellenbach (28) – Schwelly is one arm that I took some heat for ranking too low. I get it. He’s a great pitcher and was on everyone’s sleeper list heading into the year. Should he be one of the Top 20 SPs? Maybe. And if his 4-4 record and 3.24 ERA were a bit better, it would give us even more evidence that he should get top grades in this report. Review your notes and keep up the good work!

Grade B-: We’ve got some very good and some average achievers in here, but also some with the potential to improve if they can sharpen up their skills or put in a more consistently strong effort.

Kevin Gausman (31) – A 15-inning 8 H, 1 ER, 0 BB run at the end of May fuels the boosted marks for this one. Do I believe that Gausman deserves to be ranked ahead of Chris Sale and Cristopher Sanchez? No. Do I think he’s been peeking at others’ papers during test times? No…or maybe not. He’s been solid this year, but I don’t know if I can buy in that he’s an SP just outside the Top 30 just yet. Monitor.

Chris Sale (33) – Uh oh. I can almost feel the seething anger of some readers with this ranking. I don’t like to criticize the Player Rater often, but this feels like a student who performed poorly on one standardized test that was weighted far too heavily in their final assessment. Don’t worry, I’ll use my ‘professional judgement’ to not penalize the low win total and focus on the whole picture next week when putting together the new Top 100 list.

Tomoyuki Sugano (37) – This is one of our regular ‘bottom 25’ pitchers from the regular Top 100 list. The lack of strikeouts drives his position there, but the rest of the output has been excellent. He may never be a league leader in the strikeout category, but his contributions to every other Roto-category push him even higher than I would’ve guessed on the Player Rater.

Grade C: This group straddles the 50% mark, which would usually be reserved for failing grades, but some of these kids only need one or two changes to help them move up for a “B” Grade.

Zack Littell (48) – Here’s one of our arms that I hadn’t even added to the Top 100 list until last week. Littell had a tough start to the year with 13 ER in his first 3 GS (17 IP). Once he settled into the routines, Littell ripped off 10 consecutive starts with 3 (or fewer) earned runs allowed. The 6-5 record and 3.68 ERA is a bit misleading, and his strikeout total isn’t going to win any awards, but Littell is like a Sugano-lite. He’s going to get some more attention in next week’s list, too.

Michael Wacha (53) – In last week’s article, I wrote up Lance McCullers as our lede, but we could have just as easily run with Michael Wacha’s outing vs Tarik Skubal and the Tigers. Here’s my note from last week: “7 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 6 Ks, and the no decision. In Saturday’s instalment of “Anything you can do, I can do better…” Wacha and Skubal were pitching so unbelievably that even the hitters just stood there and watched.” And that’s me quoting me! Wacha gave up 2 HR on Saturday to CWS, but he’s still one of the more underrated students in this year’s MLB school.

Logan Gilbert (56) – I took some heat on the Interwebs last week for ranking Logan Gilbert as our SP36 in the Top 100 list. The bottom line here is that his first term output has been negatively impacted by his poor attendance. Frequent absences have affected Gilbert’s ability to display his true potential. He’s scheduled to make his third rehab start tomorrow and should be back as early as this weekend. Be careful expecting greatness, though. His velocity has been down through his recovery.

Grade C-: Uh Oh. Things are getting pretty questionable now. Most of these kids have put forth an inconsistent effort over the first term and are not showing their true potential.

Matthew Liberatore (63) – Liberatore is one of our students who will be great someday, but just hasn’t figured out which strategies to use to maximize his potential. The 3-5 record is misleading, and the 1.127 WHIP means I’d gladly add him to my class list to help me improve my ratios. His velocity was down in his last start, and he told his coaching staff that he was suffering from ‘fatigue’, but I think anyone can say that if they work in the education system in June. (Oli Marmol said they aren’t concerned with Liberatore’s early exit from his last start).

Gavin Williams (64) – Williams is one of our pitchers who gives us varying levels of effort from week-to-week. One week, it looks like he studied all of his notes and approached his learning with a positive attitude. The next week, it looks like he skipped all of his classes and spent the day out in the smoke hole with the kids, the older staff labelled as ‘slackers’. Back-to-back quality starts means that the phone call home to his parents worked…for now.

Jesus Luzardo (73) – Oh, Jesus. I’m not going to get into religion class here, but who is the last pitcher we’ve seen ascend so quickly, then plummet to the ground like a fallen angel? Luzardo put together 13 innings with 4 ER and 20 Ks just before the end of May…then coughed up 20 ER in just 6 IP against the Brewers and Blue Jays in his last 2 GS. The good news is the velocity is still up. Next steps include: finding someone who can help him improve his command.

Grade D: Named after my favorite old Cleveland Outfielder, most of the kids in the “Grade D” section need some remediation or teacher support in order to show they understand the content covered in lessons.

Bailey Ober (76) – I’m going to be sick. The only ranking I took more heat last week for than Logan Gilbert was Bailey Ober’s. Pushing him up to SP15 in my list was, admittedly, an overreach, but I honestly believed he’d be at least a Top 40 arm on the Player Rater. When I saw this ranking, it felt like I’d eaten a rancid Sloppy Joe from the school cafeteria for lunch. 

Ronel Blanco (78) – Ronel’s 3-4 record and unimpressive ratios were enough to justify this D grade. Sure, there are some pitchers in our list who are injured long term or out for the rest of the season, still ranked in the Player Rater. Blanco’s failure may not be completely his fault, but the internal brace procedure means he’ll need to repeat the year. He’ll be out until late 2026.

Walker Buehler (87) – There isn’t much to say here other than Buehler has not come anywhere near the success he had in his early years. He’s like the kid who won the academic award in 3rd Grade, and everyone is expecting him to be an academic superstar now that he’s in high school. He’s going to need some serious tutoring if he hopes to be anywhere near as successful as he was in his best years (2019/2021). For the record, even Buehler has admitted that his performance has been “embarrassing”.

R: Extensive remediation is required – These students struggle with new content and have not shown much growth in the first term.

Long gone is the infamous “F” grade. Failing a grade is much more difficult to do these days. So much so that they’ve changed the lettering as to not emotionally scar anyone for receiving that shameful “F”. These are the reports that ended up with an “R” (which basically is the same as an “F”).

Shane Baz (91) – 5 wins in 12 GS and fewer strikeouts than innings pitched? That’s not a good way to get yourself to the head of the class. Baz’s quality start percentage is just 33%. He has a lot of extra credit work to do to bring those ratios down. 

Cole Ragans (94) – “Wait, what?! This guy was a Top 10 starter early in the year!” In his last 25 innings, Ragans has an unbelievable 15.12 K/9…but that’s where the impressiveness ends. He has just one win over those 6 GS with a 7.92 ERA and a 4.32 BB/9. Yuck. Maybe it’s time to go see the school nurse to figure out how to fix that groin problem. I won’t be ranking him this low next week, but he’s due for a drop in the rankings.

Zac Gallen (104) – An old friend of mine used to have a saying about the ‘academically challenged’: “Hey! The world needs ditch diggers, too!” Gallen might need to take an extended summer break (IL stint) to sort out his issues.

And now, our class valedictorian (if our MLB season ended at the same time our school year does).

I present to you, our A+ Ace…

That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it! If you’re feeling extra fired up about some of the names I do (or don’t) have here, drop some comments in the chat. Have a great week!

 

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