Chris Sale comes in at #3 on our list.
October is a tricky time to write about fantasy baseball. The season has just ended, yet the Postseason rages on. While most players are resting and recuperating the players on playoff teams are giving maximum effort trying to win a championship. Meanwhile, teams who missed the playoffs are looking towards the roster decisions they will have to make concerning free agency and trade. 2018 is far from set, however, I have compiled my initial rankings of starting pitchers for the upcoming season as best I can.
I have arranged my rankings into tiers, each representing a level of performance expected from the pitchers therein. While the rankings within each tier are very close and could easily be rearranged, the cutoffs were very purposefully placed, and represent a gap between expected performance.
The first tier is the best of the best. You will pay top dollar for these four pitchers, but they are as good as it gets and as safe as you will find in this list.
The second and third tiers round out the top fifteen. These are all starters to be taken as a team’s first pitcher, but at a lower cost and more risk than the top tier. My ranking of Robbie Ray here will be a surprise to most, though I truly believe he has the tools to improve upon his already stellar 2017.
The fourth tier, the largest by far, includes 24 pitchers. I truly believe that Brad Peacock (39) could easily outperform James Paxton (16). This tier is extremely rich in talent and potential and could easily be rearranged in any particular order.
Tier five is dominated by veterans that either struggled or outperformed expectations in 2017. The sixth through ninth tiers all include a mix of young, unproven pitchers and fading veterans. These pitchers each offer some upside, though it will come with plenty of risk. The eighth tier, in particular, is comprised of many young pitchers that could all shoot up this list if they perform well in 2018.
