We’re over 20% of the way through the fresh MLB season, so it’s a good time to kick off the Shuffle Up series. And we’ll start with the position everyone asks about the most: starting pitchers.
Pitchers are the sirens of fantasy baseball, forever teasing us and misleading us. Most pitchers, even the best of them, are constantly tinkering with their approach, their arsenal, their mechanics. And of course, throwing a baseball is a very unnatural act, so you never know who’s the next pitcher to need downtime — or a lost season.
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You want to make the fantasy baseball gods laugh? Rank the pitchers.
And that’s what the Shuffle Up series aims to do. What’s below is a set of salaries that reflect how I would price the starting pitching market if I were entering a fresh draft today, or considering pickups or trades. What’s happened to this point is merely an audition.
[Smarter waivers, better trades, optimized lineups — Yahoo Fantasy Plus unlocks it all]
The salaries are a combination of stats to this point, observations, gut feel and special sauce. You’ll have many disagreements, of course, because that’s why we have a game. I did a courtesy rank of the currently-injured pitchers at the bottom, but I will not discuss or debate that part of the list. Everyone can decide for themselves what a hurt pitcher is worth.
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In the weeks to follow, we will shuffle other positions. Assume a 5×5 scoring system as always, and away we go.
The Big Tickets
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$29 Tarik Skubal
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$27 Paul Skenes
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$25 Zack Wheeler
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$24 Michael King
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$24 Garrett Crochet
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$23 Hunter Brown
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$23 Yoshinobu Yamamoto
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$23 Bryan Woo
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$22 Hunter Greene
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$22 Cole Ragans
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$21 Logan Webb
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$21 Jacob deGrom
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$20 Max Fried
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$20 Joe Ryan
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$20 Chris Sale
So far, so good with the new version of deGrom, the so-called “dial it back” ace. His fastball is down a tick to 96.9 mph, which is intentional. The Rangers have been proactive in getting deGrom out of games, only pushing him past 90 pitches once.
I know there’s no universal way to save the pitcher in the modern game, but when Texas quickly lifted deGrom with huge leads in his last two starts, I nodded my head. It’s prudent. The strikeout rate has dropped and the walk rate is up, though 2.13 BB/9 is still excellent. There’s also been an uptick in ground balls.
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If this is the trade-off that has to happen, and we merely accept deGrom as a strong pitcher and not a demigod who separates himself, I can live with that. I’m just glad we can watch him every five days, and he hasn’t had any setbacks.
Fried has been a godsend for the Yankees thus far, but see the story for what it is. His expected ERA is 3.27, much higher than the 1.01 on the back of the card. His ground-ball rate bails him out of trouble and he doesn’t walk many batters, but the strikeout rate is merely average. He’s getting positive results from his four primary pitches, with the cutter notably improved this year. His ratios from his last two Atlanta years are still the way to bet.
Legitimate Building Blocks
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$19 Freddy Peralta
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$18 Nick Pivetta
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$18 Carlos Rodón
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$18 Framber Valdez
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$17 Nathan Eovaldi
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$17 Dylan Cease
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$17 MacKenzie Gore
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$16 Jesús Luzardo
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$16 Seth Lugo
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$15 Kodai Senga
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$15 Luis Castillo
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$15 Pablo López
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$14 Bailey Ober
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$14 Kris Bubic
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$13 Spencer Schwellenbach
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$13 Zac Gallen
Gore has long been viewed as a future ace; maybe that future is now. His walk and strikeout rates are moving in the right direction. The batted-ball profile validates his early ratios, and his Savant page is a glorious display of red sliders pushed to the right. It’s interesting that, for his career, he has reverse splits — lefties hit him better than righties — but it’s nothing to be alarmed about. I wish the Washington defense were better, but Gore misses so many bats, he doesn’t need as much help as the average pitcher. He’s occupying a slot much higher than whatever you projected in March. This feels legit.
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Is Lugo the most underrated starting pitcher in baseball? He’s been a full-time rotation guy since 2023, with these returns: 3.57/1.20 in 2003, 3.00/1.09 last year (where he was quietly Cy Young runner-up) and a 3.07/1.05 push to this season. The K/BB rate isn’t as tidy this year as what we’re used to, and the batted-ball profile says he’s about a run fortunate on the ERA. I’m not sweating any of that. This breakout story is 66 starts deep now, I’m trusting the results.
Talk Them Up, Talk Them Down
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$12 Aaron Nola
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$12 Sonny Gray
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$12 Jack Flaherty
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$11 Tyler Mahle
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$11 Tanner Bibee
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$11 Drew Rasmussen
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$11 Bryce Miller
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$10 Casey Mize
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$10 Robbie Ray
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$10 Clay Holmes
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$10 Kevin Gausman
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$10 Tony Gonsolin
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$9 Tylor Megill
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$9 Reese Olson
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$9 Brady Singer
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$9 Nick Lodolo
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$9 Matt Liberatore
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$9 Chris Bassitt
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$9 Brandon Pfaadt
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$9 Cristopher Sánchez
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$9 Shane Baz
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$9 Taj Bradley
Maybe we’re firmly in “what you see is what you get” territory with Nola. His fastball has dropped down to 90.9 mph, after living in the 92s for eight straight years (for what it’s worth, velocity often lags in the early part of a season and Nola feels that’s the case here). His 4.61 ERA is basically what he’s earned from his batted-ball profile. The Phillies might have the worst defense in the National League, so Nola pitching to contact comes at a price. He should be good enough to start for a mixed-league contender, but I’ve stopped expecting ace things from Nola.
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Because Mize is a sturdy 6-foot-3 and 212 pounds and he was the top pick in his draft class, it’s easy to imagine we’re looking at a horse in the Roger Clemens/Zack Wheeler mode. That’s never going to be Mize. He’s not a strikeout guy. Plus control and a decent ground-ball rate have sparked his quasi-breakout so far, and his expected ERA (2.91) is right in line with the front-door 2.70. Detroit’s defense isn’t exactly airtight, but it’s better than average. Stay grounded with the upside dreams, but Mize has shown enough to be considered a full-season story.
Some Plausible Upside
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$8 Roki Sasaki
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$9 Griffin Canning
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$8 José Berríos
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$8 Max Meyer
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$8 Yusei Kikuchi
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$7 JP Sears
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$7 *Ben Casparius
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$7 Dustin May
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$6 Jackson Jobe
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$6 José Quintana
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$6 Gunnar Hoglund
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$6 Sandy Alcantara
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$6 Ryan Pepiot
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$6 Luis Severino
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$6 Matt Boyd
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$5 Tyler Anderson
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$5 Andrew Heaney
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$5 David Peterson
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$5 Hayden Wesneski
The Dodgers are looking to stretch out Casparius; he was the secondary pitcher Monday (four innings, one run) after a one-inning opener. That gloriously K/BB rate speaks for itself (28 punch outs, five walks) and the fastball pops at 96.0 mph. The Chavez Ravine infrastructure is a plus, too.
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So many Japanese pitchers have seamlessly onboarded to the majors, perhaps I was unrealistic with my initial Sasaki expectations. The strikeout rate is low, the walk rate a screaming problem at the moment. Remember: the ball is different in America, not to mention the cadence of a rotation. His back class from NPB is what’s keeping me from collapsing his salary completely.
I wish I had a good theory for Alcantra’s struggles. Walks are way up, of course, and the strikeout rate is low — and he was never a strikeout dominator anyway, even in his Cy Young season. Miami wants to trade Alcantara at some point this year, but you need something to sell. Maybe drawing the White Sox on the weekend and Tampa Bay next week will improve the story, but whatever ceiling we might have dreamt about in March, it’s long gone now. I would not be averse to selling low.
Bargain Bin
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$4 Shane Smith
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$4 Andrew Abbott
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$4 Tomoyuki Sugano
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$4 Brayan Bello
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$4 Ronel Blanco
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$4 Merrill Kelly
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$4 Justin Verlander
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$4 Gavin Williams
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$4 Mitch Keller
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$4 Jameson Taillon
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$4 Michael Wacha
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$3 Tanner Houck
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$3 Grant Holmes
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$3 Jake Irvin
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$3 Mitchell Parker
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$3 Jeffrey Springs
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$3 Lance McCullers
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$3 Nick Martinez
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$3 AJ Smith-Shawver
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$3 José Soriano
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$2 Clarke Schmidt
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$2 Bowden Francis
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$2 Jack Leiter
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$2 Lucas Giolito
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$2 Erick Fedde
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$2 Michael Lorenzen
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$2 Zack Littell
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$2 Ben Lively
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$2 Taijuan Walker
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$1 Stephen Kolek
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$1 Luis L. Ortiz
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$1 Landen Roupp
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$1 Jordan Hicks
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$1 Logan Allen
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$1 Osvaldo Bido
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$0 Eduardo Rodríguez
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$0 Ben Brown
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$0 Miles Mikolas
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$0 Will Warren
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$0 Tobias Myers
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$0 Sean Burke
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$0 Andre Pallante
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$0 David Festa
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$0 Dean Kremer
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-$1 Chase Dollander
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-$1 Patrick Corbin
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Burke and Sugano are near the top of the good luck leaderboard, with ERAs that should be a couple of runs higher. Burke is also supported by the worst set of teammates in the American League, of course, and Sugano’s Baltimore club is probably the biggest disappointment in the A.L. this year.
It will be interesting to see how patient the Giants are with Hicks — he has an ERA over six, but the expected number is a reasonable 3.51. Hayden Birdsong has been excellent in long relief — Monday’s hiccup to the side — and is ready if anyone in the rotation has an extended slump or an injury. Landen Roupp, the team’s No. 5 starter, could be on notice, too.
Courtesy Injury Ranks — Not for Debate
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$19 Logan Gilbert
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$19 Shota Imanaga
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$19 George Kirby
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$17 Tyler Glasnow
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$17 Spencer Strider
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$15 Corbin Burnes
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$15 Blake Snell
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$13 Zach Eflin
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$8 Walker Buehler
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$6 Spencer Arrighetti
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$6 Max Scherzer
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$2 Kumar Rocker
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$2 Nestor Cortés Jr.
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$1 Reynaldo López
This news was originally published on this post .
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