Matt Boyd, Top 100 Pitchers, 2019 Fantasy Baseball

Not Your Grandfather’s Top 100 Starting Pitchers…

Overreaction is part of human and donkey nature. Recency bias is unavoidable. But in a world where those who adapt not only survive, but thrive, could the risks of overreaction be outweighed by the rewards of adaptation? Good question. You have a lot of good questions.

I remember a few years back when Grandpa-Donk smuggled a three pound rib-eye steak out of the grocery store under his shirt, even though he had $200 burning a hole in his pocket. Did my family overreact and make gramps come live with us? Of course not; we all had a nice laugh over some grilled rib-eye and went on with our lives.

But when Gramps-Donk caused a 12 car pile up on Dixie Highway, without a license, in a car he “borrowed” from his neighbor, that’s when we knew it was time to make a move. So we did what any good family would do and threw the old goat into that nursing home from Happy Gilmore. Adapt and thrive.

I’ll now relate this insensitive and poorly thought out analogy to starting pitchers in fantasy baseball. After a month of overreacting to mostly meaningless spring pitching performances, we finally have a two-start regular season sample for many pitchers; the March days of experimenting with drugs and new pitches are over, these guys are now trying their best to get hitters out. Two-starts may seem like a small sample, but in an age when most starting pitchers will only reach 25-30 starts, two-starts is actually 6-8% of their season. It’s time to start reassessing.

Before getting into some of my early season risers and fallers, I do want to address the Bartolo Colon sized elephant in the room: The re-juiced baseballs. Small sample sizes and that’s what she said jokes aside, I fully believe we’re headed for record power numbers this season. What does this mean for us as fantasy baseballers? I think it means the elite top tier arms are even more valuable than they already were. With a surge in power we can expect increased pitching rates across the board, meaning a guy who gives you 200 IP of sub 3.00 ERA can really move the needle. Just some food for thought as we monitor the ever changing landscape.

Now let’s take a look at some pitchers who may need to adapt to poor genital blood flow…

Chris Sale – (-4) The Red Sox claim they aren’t concerned about Sale’s decreased velocity. I have no idea what to think, but I’m concerned enough about a possible shoulder injury to move him down a bit. This could be a great buying opportunity, I just don’t want to risk it.

Ross Stripling – (-9) Chicken Strip’s fastball is looking less like fresh KFC and more like the week old leftovers Grey tosses out into my pen. I don’t want to yell fire prematurely on a guy I liked a lot preseason, well, I guess I kind of want to.

Miles Mikolas – (-10) The Lizard King has pitched about as well as I’d expect that gecko from the Geico commercials to pitch. I could qualify all of these with an “it’s early” tag, but Mikolas lacks strikeout upside in the first place so it’s hard to give him much of a leash if he’s going to be allowing more baserunners this year.

Jose Quintana – (-15) I saw Quintana first hand up at Miller Park Friday night and it wasn’t pretty. At least the Cubs only gave up Eloy Jimenez for him.

Matt Strahm – (-12) I pushed back the release of this post because I wanted to get another look at a few of these arms Sunday; Matt Strahm was the number one guy on that list. A huge part of the reason for my excitement about Strahm this preseason, other than his 18 egg per day diet, was the reports of his velocity increasing to 95-96 mph this spring. In his first start he topped out around 92 mph and was sitting 90-91 mph for most of the outing. It’s a couple innings into his second start right now and I’m seeing more of the same. I still think he can be a successful major league pitcher, but Strahm’s upside is limited a little if he’s only throwing 90-92 mph.

Then we have the pitchers who may need to contact their physicians due to erections lasting longer than one week…

Matt Boyd – (NA) I should be fired for not including Matty B in my preseason top 100, which counter-intuitively included 155 pitchers. Fortunately for me, no other writers would accept the sugar beet and hay compensation package offered for this position. Boyd’s insane 40.7% K rate and 20.2% swinging strike rate aren’t sustainable, but there could still be K’s in bunches here. Make sure he’s owned in your league.

Trent Thornton – (NA) We discussed Thornton in depth on our most recent podcast. There’s a wide range of outcomes here, but the stuff has been very impressive so far.

Joe Musgrove – (+9) We also discussed Musgrove in depth on our podcast back in early March. Thru his first nine innings, Musgrove boasts an incredible 73.3% first pitch strike rate and a sexy 15.3% swinging strike rate. What does it mean? The Itch speculates these rates could be leading indicators of a breakout, and I agree.

Freddy Peralta – (+23) Freddy P was absolutely lights out in his second start of the season against the Reds last week. His eight shutout innings came on the wings of a nice increase in fastball velocity. Peralta averaged 90.8 mph on the fastball in 2018 and has averaged 92.5 mph thru two starts this year. I saw him hit 95 and 96 mph multiple times in the 7th and 8th inning in his start against the Reds. This is BIG. Just beware that Freddy is a two pitch pitcher and has thrown over 82% fastballs so far this year. It’s really tough to take the next step as a two pitch guy, especially with that kind of fastball usage.

Tyler Glasnow – (+6) Glasnow is a 6’8′ horse who averages 96.6 mph on his fastball and, like Musgrove, he’s gotten ahead of hitters at an incredible rate with a 72.1% first pitch strike rate so far. Unfortunately, like Freddy P, he’s more or less a two pitch guy right now. But the stuff is so good for both Glasnow and Freddy, I just wanna dream.

Anyway, here’s my updated Top 100 Starting Pitchers for 2019 Fantasy Baseball:

Rank	Name	Previous Rank
1	Jacob deGrom	2
2	Max Scherzer	1
3	Justin Verlander	3
4	Blake Snell	5
5	Corey Kluber	6
6	Gerrit Cole	7
7	Trevor Bauer	8
8	Chris Sale	4
9	Carlos Carrasco	9
10	German Marquez	11
11	Walker Buehler	12
12	Aaron Nola	10
13	Patrick Corbin	13
14	Jack Flaherty	14
15	Noah Syndergaard	15
16	James Paxton	16
17	Mike Clevinger	22
18	Zack Greinke	17
19	Shane Bieber	19
20	Jameson Taillon	18
21	Madison Bumgarner	21
22	Stephen Strasburg	23
23	Tyler Glasnow	29
24	Zack Wheeler	20
25	Yusei Kikuchi	26
26	David Price	27
27	Jose Berrios	28
28	Luis Castillo	32
29	Charlie Morton	34
30	Chris Archer	31
31	Robbie Ray	30
32	Masahiro Tanaka	33
33	Joe Musgrove	42
34	Miles Mikolas	24
35	Kyle Hendricks	37
36	Hyun-Jin Ryu	41
37	Chris Paddack	40
38	Julio Urias	49
39	Joey Lucchesi	57
40	Yu Darvish	35
41	Freddy Peralta	64
42	Carlos Rodon	72
43	Collin McHugh	74
44	J.A. Happ	36
45	Kyle Freeland	45
46	Sean Newcomb	44
47	Domingo German	79
48	Steven Matz	81
49	Yonny Chirinos	86
50	Matthew Boyd	NA
51	Nick Pivetta	46
52	Jon Gray	47
53	Michael Wacha	63
54	Jon Lester	48
55	Corbin Burnes	66
56	Brad Peacock	65
57	Trevor Williams	69
58	Brad Keller	87
59	Reynaldo Lopez	43
60	Ross Stripling	51
61	Eduardo Rodriguez	56
62	Nathan Eovaldi	58
63	Rick Porcello	60
64	Trevor Richards	82
65	Jake Arrieta	62
66	Kevin Gausman	70
67	Caleb Smith	NA
68	Cole Hamels	73
69	Kenta Maeda	75
70	Sandy Alcantara	NA
71	Brandon Woodruff	77
72	Zach Eflin	129
73	Matt Strahm	61
74	Jose Quintana	59
75	Marco Gonzales	76
76	Pablo Lopez	NA
77	Wade Miley	83
78	Michael Pineda	115
79	Jonathan Loaisiga	109
80	Kyle Gibson	84
81	Jake Junis	90
82	Matt Shoemaker	130
83	Jhoulys Chacin	94
84	Anthony DeSclafani	110
85	Marcus Stroman	111
86	Julio Teheran	104
87	Aaron Sanchez	112
88	Trent Thornton	NA
89	Merrill Kelly	121
90	Frankie Montas	NA
91	Spencer Turnbull	NA
92	Jordan Zimmerman	NA
93	Tyler Skaggs	91
94	Vince Velasquez	102
95	Tyson Ross	131
96	Max Fried	NA
97	Zach Davies	137
98	Wade LeBlanc	148
99	Marco Estrada	NA
100	Brett Anderson	NA
101	Mike Fiers	89
102	Ivan Nova	123
103	Jake Odorizzi	93
104	Zack Godley	80
105	Lucas Giolito	117
106	Tyler Mahle	138
107	Mike Minor	118
108	David Hess	NA
109	Luke Weaver	106
110	Trevor Cahill	103
111	Felix Hernandez	NA
112	Dakota Hudson	92
113	Jordan Lyles	NA
114	Jeff Samardzija	101
115	Dylan Bundy	85
116	Tanner Roark	95
117	Nick Margevicius	NA
118	Aaron Brooks	NA
119	Kyle Wright	NA
120	Daniel Norris	NA
121	Eric Lauer	NA
122	Tyler Anderson	97
123	Anibal Sanchez	99
124	Matt Harvey	100
125	Adam Wainwright	116
126	Dereck Rodriguez	105
127	Ryan Yarbrough	107
128	Derek Holland	113
129	Sonny Gray	114
130	Drew Pomeranz	119
131	Jeremy Hellickson	NA
132	Jose Urena	139
133	Felix Pena	NA
134	Shelby Miller	NA
135	Jorge Lopez	NA
136	Drew Smyly	145
137	Hector Velazquez	NA
138	Thomas Pannone	NA
139	Mike Leake	153
140	Jason Vargas	NA
141	Ervin Santana	124
142	Lance Lynn	136
143	Chris Stratton	NA
144	Chad Bettis	NA
145	Alex Cobb	155
146	Andrew Cashner	NA

Injured: Luis Severino, Clayton Kershaw, Mike Foltynewicz, Rich Hill, Jimmy Nelson, Andrew Heaney, Alex Wood, Carlos Martinez, Clay Buchholz, CC Sabathia, Danny Salazar, Taijuan Walker, Danny Duffy, Ryan Borucki, Edinson Volquez, Matt Moore

On the Farm: Forrest Whitley, Alex Reyes, Jesus Luzardo, Mike Soroka, Touki Toussaint, Brent Honeywell, Mitch Keller, Joe Ross, Daniel Mengden, AJ Puk, Luiz Gohara, Justus Sheffield, Gio Gonzalez, Jamie Barria

Unsigned: Dallas Keuchel

Out of the Pen: Josh James, Luis Cessa, Chase Anderson, Nick Kingham, Martin Perez, Framber Valdez, Nate Karns, Dan Straily

Find Donkey Teeth on Twitter @DonkeyTeeth87. Subscribe to his podcast: Ditka, Sausage, and Fantasy Sports on Itunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All statistics courtesy of Fangraphs & Baseball Savant.