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Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Top 40 Starting Pitchers

The Fake Teams writers give you Part 1 of their consensus starting pitcher rankings.

New York Mets v Washington Nationals Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images

I must confess that The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational nearly delayed these rankings. But in between plotting everyone in League 1’s demise, yours truly found some time to polish up the ranks and get everything together.

If you’re itching to follow along with TGFBI, check out the post on the site where you can scope out draft boards for any of the 20 leagues. Fake Teams has an entrant in League 1 (Heath), League 5 (Zack), League 17 (Punk), League 19 (Joe), and League 20 (Mark). Go get ‘em boys!

As for the ranks, today is the first 40, tomorrow is the next 40. That’s five more than last year, when we did a Top 75. I’ll be honest, after 40 or so hurlers I just wait and take the guys I like. So my ranks might look a little funky after that juncture (and even a little before). That said, I don’t see anything overly insane in Part 1. I really, really, really like the Clevinger-Flaherty-Taillon grouping, and that’s about as low as I would go for my SP1 if I was waiting. Those three, and Berrios.

It should go without saying, but since this is a fantasy sports advisory space I’ll say it anyway: Clayton Kershaw is no longer a safe pick. Not with that balky shoulder. You can assume injury risk in the form of Paxton and Strasburg, except those guys aren’t currently shut down like Kershaw is. Draft him at your own (considerable) risk. Share your thoughts below! When would you take Kershaw?

Top 40 Starters

Name Team Rank Avg Rank Heath Punk Joe Zack Mark
Name Team Rank Avg Rank Heath Punk Joe Zack Mark
Max Scherzer WAS 1 1.20 1 1 2 1 1
Jacob deGrom NYM 2 2.60 2 3 3 2 3
Chris Sale BOS 3 2.60 3 2 1 5 2
Justin Verlander HOU 4 5.20 8 4 5 3 6
Gerrit Cole HOU 5 5.20 5 6 7 4 4
Corey Kluber CLE 6 6.20 4 5 11 6 5
Aaron Nola PHI 7 7.00 6 8 4 9 8
Blake Snell TB 8 8.00 10 7 9 7 7
Luis Severino NYY 9 9.40 7 9 10 10 11
Trevor Bauer CLE 10 10.20 9 14 8 8 12
Noah Syndergaard NYM 11 10.60 12 12 6 14 9
Walker Buehler LAD 12 12.60 13 11 12 11 16
Carlos Carrasco CLE 13 13.00 11 10 15 12 17
Patrick Corbin WAS 14 14.40 14 16 16 13 13
Stephen Strasburg WAS 15 14.60 17 13 13 16 14
James Paxton NYY 16 16.40 16 17 14 19 16
Clayton Kershaw LAD 17 16.80 21 15 17 21 10
Mike Clevinger CLE 18 17.20 15 20 18 18 15
Jack Flaherty STL 19 19.00 20 18 21 15 21
Jameson Taillon PIT 20 20.60 18 19 19 25 22
Jose Berrios MIN 21 21.40 19 24 22 22 20
German Marquez COL 22 21.80 24 23 27 17 18
Zack Greinke ARI 23 22.00 22 21 20 24 23
Zack Wheeler NYM 24 25.80 23 22 33 23 28
Mike Foltynewicz ATL 25 26.40 27 27 34 20 24
Luis Castillo CIN 26 26.40 26 29 24 26 27
Madison Bumgarner SF 27 26.80 30 26 23 30 25
Charlie Morton TB 28 29.80 31 30 26 32 30
David Price BOS 29 30.20 28 25 36 36 26
Robbie Ray ARI 30 30.60 29 35 32 28 29
Masahiro Tanaka NYY 31 30.80 32 28 30 33 31
Miles Mikolas STL 32 30.80 25 32 28 50 19
Nick Pivetta PHI 33 35.00 34 37 39 29 36
Tyler Glasnow TB 34 35.60 43 41 35 27 32
Nathan Eovaldi BOS 35 36.20 37 45 25 39 35
Chris Archer PIT 36 36.80 40 31 42 37 34
Shane Bieber CLE 37 37.40 33 34 41 40 39
Yu Darvish CHC 38 37.60 39 33 38 45 33
Eduardo Rodriguez BOS 39 39.20 35 40 40 35 46
Josh James HOU 40 43.20 46 65 29 31 45