2015 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Starting Pitcher (SP) - February Update

Last month, we brought you RotoBaller's preliminary starting pitcher fantasy baseball rankings. The February update is here. We'll be releasing all the other positional rankings updates this week, with analysis from all the RotoBaller writers on their favorite risers and fallers at each MLB position.

Make sure to also check out our MLB Fantasy Baseball Rankings blog, along with all of RotoBaller's starting pitcher rankings content. 
 

2015 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings

Brad Johnson (Lead MLB Editor)

You may recall my bullish ranking for Carlos Carrasco in our first release. I've since moved him down the rankings - from fifth to 10th. I still expect great things from Carrasco, I simply felt it was necessary to tweak my adjustments for his short track record.

Deep rotations make certain rankings very difficult. The Indians and Nationals have potentially valuable starting pitchers outside of their starting five. In Cleveland, Danny Salazar, T.J. House, Zach McAllister, and Josh Tomlin are expected to battle for one job. You'll notice I've ranked Salazar and House relatively highly. In Washington, it's Tanner Roark who is left without an immediate role.

Kyle Bishop (MLB Writer and Editor)

My early prediction for the biggest bust of 2015: Madison Bumgarner. He's an excellent pitcher, but with that dominant postseason run still fresh in everyone's minds, it will be all but impossible to draft him at a reasonable cost. Even if you hold his rights in a keeper league, his innings total from last season should scare the crap out of you. I've seen a couple mock drafters take him before Clayton Kershaw, which is just...babytown frolics.

Kyle Braver (MLB Writer)

There might be no pitcher I enjoy watching more than Jose Fernandez. It's no surprise then that a statement from Marlins GM Dan Jennings saying that the young ace could return as early as June 15^th has boosted Fernandez in my rankings. While 100% healthy, he's on my short-list for the top 5 pitchers in the game and the hope of having 3.5 months of that kind of production is enough to push him into my top-30 starting pitchers.

Positive reports about the course of his rehab were also enough to bump Garrett Richards up a spot in my rankings. While it's still early, he could be a very quick riser given a strong spring. I'd monitor him closely.
 
 
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Jeff Kahntroff (MLB Writer)

Max Scherzer took a large leap in my rankings when he landed in possibly the best possible spot: a good NL team in a division with the Phillies and Braves.  Garrett Richards and Cliff Lee likewise climbed the charts due to updated injury reports suggesting speedier recoveries than I anticipated.  Despite moving to the NL in a pitchers’ park, Shields did not experience a large leap due to going from arguably the best outfield defense to possibly the worst.

Harris Yudin (MLB Writer and Editor)

I move Adam Wainwright up to number six, and appear to be the only one who still considers him to be an elite starting pitcher. Over the past five seasons, Wainwright has managed a sub-3.00 ERA four of those years, including a career-low 2.38 ERA last year. The strikeouts were a bit down, but he did set career bests in HR/9 and WHIP in 2014. At just 33 years old, he shows no signs of slowing down, and I don't expect him to. Steamer's projection of a 3.38 ERA doesn't make sense to me. He will still be pitching to the best backstop in the game in Yadier Molina, and the Cardinals just brought in 2x Gold Glover Jason Heyward to play right field. Seeing a ranking outside the top 25 is mind-blowing to me, as I think he should be able to maintain elite numbers in 2015.

Josh Leonard (MLB Writer)

I think the biggest story this year is going to be the emergence of Gerrit Cole. He is 6’4” 240 lbs and he throws 101 mph fastballs. My Dad thinks the Pirates are going to the World Series, and if Cole turns into an ace, they could. I would rather have Gerrit Cole than Jeff Samardzija, who has a similar skillset and is typically being drafted ahead of Cole. Cole is six years younger and pitching in the National League. Plus, he is taking the Buccos to the World Series.

Alex Roberts (RotoBaller Co-Founder)

Starting pitching is the proverbial never ending gold mine of fantasy baseball.  It's not just during the draft either, as each year a solid handful of starters arise out of relative obscurity to be legit contributors on their MLB teams and fantasy squads savvy enough to pick them up.

In our initial starting pitcher rankings for 2015 fantasy baseball, I offered a list of 12 pitchers, all taken well after their draft slot, who returned serious value.  It's obviously tough to predict who these pitchers will be each year, but there are certain categories of players you can target, and others you can avoid.

Who to target

1) Young pitchers who took a skills-based step forward in 2014. Pitchers such as Alex Wood, Gerrit Cole, Tyson Ross, Carlos Carrasco, and Jake Arrieta will all likely be undervalued in most drafts and can return value if taken around pick 100 or later. Garret Richards, Zach Wheeler, and Marcus Stroman also fall into this category but should go at or after pick 150.

2) Injury bounce backs. These starting pitchers are understandably risky, but if you can get them at the right price, they have the opportunity to return enormous value. Cliff Lee (ADP 150), Masahiro Tanaka (ADP 95), Michael Wacha (ADP 156), Mat Latos (ADP 162), Homer Bailey (ADP 181), and Mike Minor (ADP 250) are the most prominent names in this category. By no means should you draft more than 1-2 of these players on any given team, but they can all turn into draft day gold.

3) The pitchers people still don't believe in even after a solid display of skills in 2014. This is by far the largest group, and also offers the most opportunity for draft day alchemy. This group includes pitchers like Danny Salazar, Dallas Keuchel, Colin Mchugh, Scott Kazmir, Mike Fiers, Jose Quintana, Matt Shoemaker, Ian Kennedy, Brandon McCarthy, Francisco Liriano, etc, I can go on.  I will be targeting the ones that fall in my drafts.

Who to Avoid

Any pitcher in the first 3 rounds. Any pitcher who had a huge breakout in 2014 and is still the talk of the town, any pitcher showing declining skills for more than a year (think Justin Verlander), and mostly any pitcher that I can't fit into one of the above three categories.

Being able to spot undervalued starting pitchers is perhaps the most important skill to research and practice for your fantasy baseball drafts. Not only does it let you draft pitching gold in the middle and later rounds, it also reduces the pressure to draft a "legit ace" and frees up those high picks for mashers. Always remember that your hitter slots are much harder to fill since they are position specific. Starting pitchers are a dime a dozen in this sense. They are much easier to trade for and away during the season - they are more "liquid" in this sense.

2015 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Rankings