Happy Monday, Razzball faithful!
It seemed pretty fitting to lead with Shrek this week after being swamped with Easter preparations and candy gathering for the last seven days. Then, when I thought about it some more, it was a bit of a natural segue since, “Somebody once told me, the world is gonna roll me…”, sounds like a song we could’ve sung while we waded through the murkiest of nasty and stinky waters from last week’s SP201-300 list. Yuck!
If you remember the theme song from Shrek, you’ll understand why I chose this for our first installment of my modified Top 100 Starting Pitchers. For this week, I’ve got all Top 100 names, but I’ll only add blurbs from our #1 through #25. There’s sure to be some “All-Star(s)” in this group.
Just some notes before we begin…for the first couple of months, I used Rudy’s 15-team mixed league 2024 preseason rankings. When I started to piece this list together last week, I wondered how many of us play in those 15-teamers compared to the 12 or 10-team leagues that seem much more prevalent in our fantasy landscape.
So for this list, I used a bit of the 12 team mixed league rankings as a base for some of the names, and added in my own spin on how I feel about certain players for the duration of the season. Do I take any of the miniscule sample sizes from spring training or Week 1 into account? I think I’d be a bit of a swamp donkey to ignore those performances altogether, but they will not hold the supreme weight that the 2024 stats will as we move through the season.
I’ll spin through the SP1-25 in detail this week, follow it up with words about SP26-50 next week, and so on until we get to the end of the Top 100. Then I’ll try to follow with anyone who has had a good (or not so good) first month of the season. As I said above, we should have some decent data points or information to carve up by then. After all, the Top 100 is kind of like an onion…
The Top 100 SP has layers…and, hopefully, it doesn’t make you cry too much
Without further delay, let’s get to the ‘Happily Ever After’ that is…
The Top 100 Starting Pitchers for 2024…
(And let’s not forget to have a good old Easter egg hunt for those Marmo Buy and Rodzilla Sell icons, too!)
| RANK | Name | TEAM | BUY? NOTES? ANYTHING!? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spencer Strider | Braves | |
| 2 | Kevin Gausman | Blue Jays |  |
| 3 | Corbin Burnes | Orioles | |
| 4 | Zack Wheeler | Phillies | |
| 5 | Luis Castillo | Mariners | |
| 6 | Freddy Peralta | Brewers | |
| 7 | Pablo Lopez | Twins | |
| 8 | George Kirby | Mariners | |
| 9 | Yoshinobu Yamamoto | Dodgers | |
| 10 | Logan Gilbert | Mariners | |
| 11 | Framber Valdez | Astros | |
| 12 | Aaron Nola | Phillies |  |
| 13 | Zac Gallen | Diamondbacks | |
| 14 | Tarik Skubal | Tigers | |
| 15 | Tyler Glasnow | Dodgers | |
| 16 | Grayson Rodriguez | Orioles | |
| 17 | Blake Snell | Giants | |
| 18 | Max Fried | Braves | |
| 19 | Logan Webb | Giants | |
| 20 | Zach Eflin | Rays | |
| 21 | Jesus Luzardo | Marlins | |
| 22 | Bobby Miller | Dodgers | |
| 23 | Joe Ryan | Twins | |
| 24 | Shane Bieber | Guardians | |
| 25 | Chris Sale | Braves |
Spencer Strider (1) – Not much to say here. With the injury to Gerritt Cole, Strider is the best in the business…and it’s not particularly close. (Not that I necessarily think it was to begin with).
Kevin Gausman (2) – My AL Cy Young pick from our Razzball Staff Picks for 2024. Click on those blue words there to give it a once over. The short version? Gausman gave up 2 hits through 4.1 innings yesterday with 6 K’s (and a solo home run to Randy Arozarena). This follow-up to his 7 K’s in 3 IP against the Pirates last week should be one more sigh of relief from people who were worried about that shoulder. Hopefully, it was just a matter of taking things slowly during spring training.
Corbin Burnes (3) – New digs. New offense. New AL Cy Young contender? Absolutely. Burnes should put up 200 K’s this year, with some solid run support to help him chase down 20 wins – health permitting.
Zack Wheeler (4) – Speaking of 200 K’s…he’s tallied 195 strikeouts or more in 3 of the last 4 seasons (and, no, we don’t count that aberration that was the 2020 ‘season’). The ‘Wheels’ on the bus go whiff, whiff, whiff.
Freddy Peralta (6) – Grey said it more than once on the pod. A lot of the RazzStaff is in on this as well. I targeted Peralta as my SP1 in TGFBI and nearly took him before I took Framber in RazzSlam. I’m pretty sure we’re higher on him than anyone else on Freddy KBB. If anything happens to Spencer Strider, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Peralta take home that NL Cy Young award in 2024.
George Kirby (8) – His sub-9 K/9 is the only thing pushing him this low in the list. The fact that this knocked him down and he’s still a top 10 arm should be all you need to know about the sky-high reach of this ceiling. If he figures out how to ramp that K/9 up to double digits…Boom goes the dynamite.
Aaron Nola (12) – Following Kirby up with this seems a bit hypocritical since Nola has been able to post a 10+K/9 in 4 of the last 5 years. He’s a fine choice as an ace for your squad, but the price tag is too steep for me. A guy that has won more than 12 games just once in his nine-year career? Getting pumped for 12 H and 7 ER in 4.1 IP with 5 XBH allowed on Saturday doesn’t help his case here either. Pass.
Grayson Rodriguez (16) – This is another one from our Staff Picks article. I have Rodriguez down as my “Infatuation” for this year for a few reasons. From my February 26th article…
“I mentioned Cole Ragans last week and I feel like the Grayson Rodriguez observations are pretty similar as far as a tale of two halves of the season is concerned. Like Ragans, Rodriguez had a pretty atrocious first half of 2023 (27% HR/F rate, 10% BB rate, 5.32 ERA, 1,51 WHIP). Also like Ragans, this kid flipped a switch in the second half and didn’t look back. After ditching the cutter, (his worst pitch), and improving his velocity and command, Gray-Rod corrected all of the aforementioned problems and showed why he’s been touted by some as the next big ace in the American League. Be prepared to pay up for him in drafts, but things are looking good at Camden if you’re hunting for talent these days.”
Jesus Luzardo (21) – I mentioned the guys’ podcast earlier. Grey dives into the Luzardo well a lot more deeply than I will here, but his point of Luzardo going at 90 overall in drafts and that he’d rather take the Marlins’ young lefty here than a guy like Aaron Nola is a sentiment that I can agree with for sure. A repeat of 200+ strikeouts and a trip up our list here are two predictions that I’m comfortable making.
Shane Bieber (24) – The news bites are plentiful on Bieber this spring. Velocity is back up on his fastball. The changeup that he rarely used last year was tinkered with over the offseason and he’s comfortable using it more often now. The slider still looks great. Six scoreless innings with 11 K’s in the Guardians opener, (albeit against the hapless A’s). A lot of the check-boxes are filled on the “Shane Bieber Comeback” page already. Here’s hoping he can keep it up and move up our board.
Chris Sale (25) – I wanted to not include Sale here. I flip-flopped between him and Cole Ragans. The thin, white duke act should not be performed by a lanky starting pitcher with a history of arm issues…and I think I should get bonus points for managing to work in two Bowie references in consecutive weeks…but the crash that I expected hasn’t started yet. I found a quote from an MLB.com article on March 25th that sounds pretty encouraging.
“I’m still strong now, like I was at the beginning of spring,” Sale said. “Luckily, I didn’t really run into anything, no hiccups during spring, which was nice. That’s what all the hard work was for.”
This clip from his Braves debut might be a better indicator of how things started. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is yet another Alex Anthopoulos magic wand wave. I’m slowly going from a sell to a buy for Sale this season…with that pesky caveat of health lurking.
Chris Sale's @braves season debut:
5??.1?? IP
5?? H
2?? ER
2?? BB
7?? K pic.twitter.com/kuIjV9K9TM— Bally Sports: Braves (@BravesOnBally) March 31, 2024
BUT WAIT…THERE’S MORE!!!
Here’s the rest of the list! Make sure to jot this all down so you can participate in the Not-So-Celebrity RazzMatch fight in the comments when you see your guy ranked too low or a guy you dislike ranked too high. (smile emoji)
| 26 | Cole Ragans | Royals | |
| 27 | Dylan Cease | Padres | |
| 28 | Chris Bassitt | Blue Jays | |
| 29 | Shoto Imanaga | Cubs | |
| 30 | Joe Musgrove | Padres | |
| 31 | Hunter Brown | Astros | |
| 32 | Jordan Montgomery | Diamondbacks | |
| 33 | Tanner Bibee | Guardians | |
| 34 | Mitch Keller | Pirates | |
| 35 | Bryce Miller | Mariners | |
| 36 | Hunter Greene | Reds | |
| 37 | Justin Steele | Cubs | 15 day IL – left hamstring strain |
| 38 | Merrill Kelly | Diamondbacks | |
| 39 | Jose Berrios | Blue Jays | |
| 40 | Bailey Ober | Twins | Rough Sunday; 1.1 IP, 8ER |
| 41 | Justin Verlander | Astros | Throws sim. game today |
| 42 | Walker Buehler | Dodgers | Rehab assignment yesterday |
| 43 | Charlie Morton | Braves | |
| 44 | Sonny Gray | Cardinals | Mild hamstring strain – IL |
| 45 | Cristian Javier | Astros | |
| 46 | Reid Detmers | Angels | |
| 47 | Yusei Kikuchi | Blue Jays | |
| 48 | Nestor Cortes | Yankees | |
| 49 | Yu Darvish | Padres | |
| 50 | Carlos Rodon | Yankees | |
| 51 | Lance Lynn | Cardinals | |
| 52 | Eduardo Rodriguez | Diamondbacks | |
| 53 | Nathan Eovaldi | Rangers | |
| 54 | Michael King | Padres | |
| 55 | Brayan Bello | Red Sox | |
| 56 | Ryan Pepiot | Rays | |
| 57 | Aaron Civale | Rays | |
| 58 | Bryan Woo | Mariners | IL w/elbow inflammation |
| 59 | Nick Lodolo | Reds | Rehab assignment yesterday |
| 60 | Kenta Maeda | Tigers | |
| 61 | Eury Perez | Marlins | Elbow inflammation/long tossing |
| 62 | Triston McKenzie | Guardians | |
| 63 | Braxton Garrett | Marlins | Rehabbed 2 IP last Friday |
| 64 | Griffin Canning | Angels | |
| 65 | Jon Gray | Rangers | |
| 66 | Gavin Williams | Guardians | 15 day IL – elbow inflammation |
| 67 | Kutter Crawford | Red Sox | |
| 68 | Seth Lugo | Royals | |
| 69 | Gerrit Cole | Yankees | 60 day IL – out until at least early June |
| 70 | Nick Pivetta | Red Sox | |
| 71 | Sean Manaea | Mets | |
| 72 | Max Scherzer | Rangers | Avoids 60 day IL – could return in May |
| 73 | Kyle Harrison | Giants | |
| 74 | Brandon Pfaadt | Diamondbacks | |
| 75 | Cristopher Sanchez | Phillies | |
| 76 | Luis Severino | Mets | |
| 77 | Louie Varland | Twins | |
| 78 | Logan Allen | Guardians | |
| 79 | Garrett Whitlock | Red Sox | |
| 80 | Tyler Wells | Orioles | |
| 81 | Jared Jones | Pirates | |
| 82 | Shane Baz | Rays | TJS – 15 day IL |
| 83 | Garrett Crochet | White Sox | |
| 84 | Paul Skenes | Pirates | |
| 85 | Gavin Stone | Dodgers | |
| 86 | Marcus Stroman | Yankees | |
| 87 | Dane Dunning | Rangers | |
| 88 | MacKenzie Gore | Nationals | |
| 89 | AJ Puk | Marlins | Friday – 2 IP, 4ER, 6BB, woof |
| 90 | Edward Cabrera | Marlins | Shoulder impingement |
| 91 | Casey Mize | Tigers | Beat out Manning for SP5 |
| 92 | Jordan Wicks | Cubs | |
| 93 | Kyle Bradish | Orioles | 15 day IL. UCL sprain |
| 94 | Luis Gil | Yankees | |
| 95 | Erick Fedde | White Sox | |
| 96 | Dean Kremer | Orioles | |
| 97 | Ryan Weathers | Marlins | |
| 98 | Reese Olson | Tigers | |
| 99 | Jack Flaherty | Tigers | |
| 100 | Kodai Senga | Mets | Shoulder injury, threw last Wednesday |
Omitted but considered :
Jacob deGrom, Clayton Kershaw, Matt Manning, Brady Singer, Joe Boyle, Ryne Nelson, Clarke Schmidt, JP Sears, Zack Littell, Chris Paddack, Jordan Hicks, Trevor Rogers, Reynaldo Lopez, Tanner Houck, Bowden Francis, Max Meyer, Frankie Montas, Miles Mikolas, Michael Soroka, James Paxton, Ricky Tiedemann, John Means
Oh man. One thing I realized while feverishly sliding these names around like it was a chess set made of margarine…you could make a case for at least 150 names to include in this Top 100 SP list. Needless to say, this is an ever-evolving group and I look forward to seeing how the season unfolds so we can ride this chaos train together!
Omitted and not considered :
That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it! Next week, I’ll post the Top 100 Starting Pitchers with more blurbs in that 26-50 ranked section.
Drop some comments in the chat if you’re feeling extra fired up about some of the names I do (or don’t) have here. Have a great week!
Follow me @marmosdad on Twitter/X and Bluesky @marmosdad.bsky.social
