Fantasy baseball starting pitcher preview: Rankings, tiers, targets, top prospects and more

We’re almost there, everybody: After a long, cold, frustratingly slow offseason, MLB’s regular season begins on Wednesday, March 20, with the Dodgers and Padres squaring off in Seoul (the 28 other teams will get things started on Thursday, March 28). With precious little time to go until Opening Day, now is the time to start cranking up your fantasy baseball drafts — and we’re here to be your one-stop shop for all things draft prep. We just recently unveiled our top 300 overall for redraft leagues in 2024, as well as top prospects to know; now it’s time to start breaking things down position by position, giving you the lay of the land along with positional rankings, tiers, sleepers, busts and breakouts.

Next up: starting pitcher, something of the running backs of fantasy baseball. They’re the backbone of any successful fantasy team, but they come with substantially more risk than any other position, and everyone’s got their own theory on how to approach them come draft time. Me personally? Unless I’m in something like a draft and hold or NL-/AL-only league, I tend to punt top starters, generally dipping in for my first around pick 50 or so.

The reason is simple: It’s a volatile position, and there are so many pitchers to choose from each year. Our tiered ranking below illustrates this, with two giant blobs — and plenty of breakout candidates — comprising the middle class. If you want to pass up a five-category hitter to burn a first-round pick on Gerrit Cole or Spencer Strider, be my guest, but time and again we see cheaper pitchers come out of nowhere and expensive ones blow up in their owners’ faces. Where might some of that value be? Let’s investigate.

Starting pitcher tiers

Tier 1: Spencer Strider, Gerrit Cole, Corbin Burnes, Zack Wheeler
Tier 2: Kevin Gausman, Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Pablo Lopez, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Freddy Peralta, Zac Gallen, Logan Webb
Tier 3: Logan Gilbert, Tarik Skubal, Jesus Luzardo, Framber Valdez
Tier 4: Aaron Nola, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Max Fried, Zach Eflin, Justin Steele, Eury Perez, Joe Ryan, Grayson Rodriguez, Sonny Gray, Bobby Miller
Tier 5: Tanner Bibee, Dylan Cease, Walker Buehler, Mitch Keller, Hunter Greene, Joe Musgrove, Chris Bassitt, Cole Ragans
Tier 6 (mega-tier 1): Kodai Senga, Justin Verlander, Jordan Montgomery, Braxton Garrett, Merrill Kelly, Bailey Ober, Jose Berrios, Bryce Miller, Hunter Brown, Eduardo Rodriguez, Shane Baz, Bryan Woo, Ryan Pepiot, Michael King, Nathan Eovaldi, Charlie Morton, Aaron Civale, Nick Pivetta, Carlos Rodon, Chris Sale, Gavin Williams, Cristian Javier
Tier 7 (mega-tier 2): Lucas Giolito, Seth Lugo, Shane Bieber, Kyle Bradish, Max Scherzer, Nick Lodolo, Cristopher Sanchez, Shota Imanaga, Nestor Cortes, Triston McKenzie, John Means, Kenta Maeda, Taj Bradley, Edward Cabrera, Kutter Crawford, Marcus Stroman, Brayan Bello, Brandon Pfaadt, Dean Kremer, Michael Wacha, Andrew Abbott, Reese Olson, Chris Paddack, Reid Detmers, Kyle Harrison, Luis Severino, MacKenzie Gore, Emmet Sheehan, Jon Gray
Tier 8: Lance Lynn, Tanner Houck, Trevor Rogers, Robbie Ray, Louie Varland, Griffin Canning, Clarke Schmidt, Jameson Taillon, Sean Manaea, Matt Manning, Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Ranger Suarez, Jordan Hicks, Frankie Montas

Starting pitcher sleeper

Bryan Woo, Seattle Mariners

Woo’s still in the process of figuring out his secondary stuff, but his four-seamer is diabolical already, running a 16.3% swinging strike rate in the Majors as a rookie. Lack of feel for his sweeper and cutter left him a bit more vulnerable to left-handed batters, but this is a polished pitcher in a great home park on a team with a track record of developing quality starters. It’s not hard to see Woo taking a leap in year two, and I’ll bet on a younger guy who’s already demonstrated strikeout stuff and just needs to demonstrate a bit more refinement to really take off.

Starting pitcher breakout

Eury Perez, Miami Marlins

The Marlins yanked Perez around a bit in an effort to keep their precocious young righty as healthy as possible, but the training wheels should be off this season. Perez threw 128 innings between the Majors and Minors last season; 150-160 this time around should be eminently doable, and if he hits that mark, there won’t be 15 starters more productive than the flame-throwing 20-year-old. You can make the argument he’s got the best stuff in baseball, with a slider, curveball, and changeup that were all in the top 10 in the entire league in whiff rate as a rookie.

Starting pitcher bust

Tyler Glasnow, Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers didn’t acquire Glasnow for May, or July; they acquired him for October, and they’re going to be extremely careful with their righty to make sure he gets there healthy and ready to rock. He’s yet to throw more than 120 innings in a season, and he seems unlikely to clear that mark by a significant margin in 2024 — if only because L.A. has the depth and the offense to take it easy on him. There are no concerns about his performance when healthy. But Glasnow has been on the 60-day IL three separate times in the past five seasons with an elbow or forearm injury, and while it’s possible he’s past that – his IL stint last season was due to a left oblique injury – I just don’t see how you can justify this kind of price for that kind of injury history.

Top starting pitcher prospects

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles Dodgers

Age: 25
NPB stats: 17-6, 1.16 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 171 IP, 28 BB, 176 K
ETA: Opening Day

The Dodgers are pretty good at this, and they made him the richest pitcher in baseball history for a reason: Yamamoto comes with elite production in Japan, plus an eye test to match — explosive high-90s fastball, wipeout splitter, impeccable command, the works. Plus, he’s only 25, he’s got a pretty clean bill of health, and he’s about to pitch all year for one of the best teams in baseball.

Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates

Age: 21
Minor League stats: 6 2/3 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 10 K
ETA: Midseason

Skenes’ fastball isn’t as overwhelming as you’d expect triple-digit gas to be thanks to a subpar shape, but it should be good enough to hang in the Majors — and set up his truly elite slider, which is already one of the best on Earth. Skenes dominated the college ranks at LSU, and it won’t be long before he joins a young Pirates rotation short on impact talent.

Jackson Jobe, Detroit Tigers

Age: 21
Minor League stats: 2-4, 2.81 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 64 IP, 6 BB, 84 K
ETA: Midseason

Health has really been the only thing holding Jobe back, and once he returned from back trouble last season, he looked every bit the top-five pick he was back in 2021. Jobe’s slider is a thing of beauty, and his numbers last season were truly eye-popping; he’ll need some time to build up his strength and stamina, and injuries will be a concern until they’re not, but he’s get legit ace upside and should be in Detroit at some point this season.

Kyle Harrison, San Francisco Giants

Age: 22
Major League stats: 1-1, 4.15 ERA, 1.154 WHIP, 34.2 IP, 11 BB, 35 K
ETA: Opening Day

Harrison seemed to get his command a bit more under control during his late cameo in San Francisco, and now he’s a got a rotation spot basically sown up in a great pitcher’s park. It wasn’t so long ago that the lefty was considered among the top pitching prospects in the sport, and while the shine has come off a bit, there’s still a lot to like here — especially if he can continue to throw strikes.

Ricky Tiedemann, Toronto Blue Jays

Age: 21
Minor League stats: 0-5, 3.68 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 44 IP, 23 BB, 82 K
ETA: Midseason

Last season brought some concerns to light for what was thought to be a rock solid pitching prospect, the most obvious being durability but the most serious being an incompatibility between Tiedemann’s fastball and changeup — two pitches whose wipeout characteristics require different release points, almost as if he’s tipping his hand. Then again, he had 16.8 K/9, so maybe this is all much ado about nothing.