Pitching Tiers for 2021
STARTING PITCHING
| PLAYER (TEAM) | Notes |
| Tier 1 Aces | |
| Gerrit Cole | |
| Yu Darvish | |
| Lucas Giolito | |
| Max Scherzer | |
| Aaron Nola | |
| Ascending Aces | |
| Walker Buehler | They’re still babying him and that’s a common theme with the Dodgers overall. |
| Tyler Glasnow | The Rays season hinges on Glasnow becoming an elite front of the rotation starter for 6 months. You can lock up a ton of strikeouts with him in category leagues and he has potential to dominate H2H when he has 2 starts. |
| Jack Flaherty | Had an extremely rough 2020 which can be chalked up to the pandemic. He is fine going forward. |
| Tier 2 – You know what you get | |
| Lance Lynn | Almost everyone in this tier falls into the category of a guy who will take the ball and give you 100+ pitches, decent strikeout rates and hardly any horrible outings. Nobody fits that mold more than Lance Lynn though, who now with the White Sox should be back to winning 12+ games. |
| Kenta Maeda | |
| Zack Wheeler | |
| Stephen Strasburg | Can he stay healthy? He is the one exception in this tier in that regard. If so, you’re gonna get 180 innings with a high SO/IP ratio, sub 1.15 WHIP and a sub 4.00 ERA. Strasburg is a SOLID selection that will not do you wrong unless … well, he gets hurt. |
| Kyle Hendricks | The Cubs won’t win a ton of games but Hendricks has been very good pitching in Wrigley Field for them and should contribute well to your staff in the non win categories. |
| Trevor Bauer | Has no issues throwing 100-120 pitches and is going to dominate teams the first few times he faces them. After that they start to jump on his stuff early knowing that it’s not a matter of working him deep into counts. |
| Tier 2 – Ascending | |
| Jesus Luzardo | These |
| Jose Berrios | Guys |
| Max Fried | Are |
| Lance McCullers | All |
| Zach Plesac | The |
| Ian Anderson | Same |
| Shohei Ohtani | Except this fella. MVP and Cy Young potential. I’m in love with Ohtani this year. |
| Tier 3 – You know what you get | |
| Patrick Corbin | |
| Hyun-Jin Ryu | |
| Corey Kluber | Kluber was someone I loved to target last year going into Texas (where I felt the new park would benefit him). Unfortunately he got hurt and so we will never know on that. Now as a Yankee he’ll get 10 wins easily if he stays healthy but it remains to be seen exactly if he goes back into Ace category or not. I would project him as a SP4 right now. |
| Kevin Gausman | |
| Dylan Bundy | Bundy could be pushed into a higher tier if he continues to rely on his non fastball arsenal. Going into LA certainly helped him avoid the moon shot homers he was giving up in Camden Yards. |
| Tier 3 – Ascending | |
| Sixto Sanchez | Flame thrower is ready to finally blossom. He’s the most talented arm on a good young staff. |
| Zach Eflin | A lot of sharp people I know are extremely high on Eflin this year and the metrics all support it. |
| Sandy Alcantara | |
| Dinelson Lamet | Those who follow me in DFS know that I’m not as high on Lamet as the world is. Yes, the slider is elite and he dominates lefties with it in particular. But I’m not a believer in a late blossoming pitcher (age 28) like this suddenly becoming an ace with just one pitch and over the course of a 162 game season I don’t think you’ll get full production out of him. |
| Brady Singer | |
| The rest | |
| Frankie Montas | |
| Marcus Stroman | |
| John Means | The Orioles ace, which isn’t saying much. John Means showed positive signs last year and should be trusted to pitch a good amount of innings for Baltimore this season |
| Marco Gonzales | |
| Jameson Taillon | |
| Jakub Junis | Seems to have solidified a spot in the rotation and worked hard in the off-season to add an extra pitch. He’s someone that when he has favorable match-ups is a must start for you but when he faces high ISO teams, you keep him on bench. |
| Jose Urquidy | |
| Mike Soroka | Recovering from a rough achillies injury. |
| Jake Odorizzi | |
| Aaron Civale | The Indians may not score many runs but they still have a good staff. 25 year old pitcher going into his third season which is usually an ascension year for young arms. |
| Andrew Heaney | |
| Elieser Hernandez | |
| Dylan Cease | Continuing to get better and better. He might make White Sox fans forget about Michael Kopech for now. |
| Nathan Eovaldi | |
| Mike Minor | Veteran is back in KC, should pitch well in their park but doesn’t offer much punch. |
| Triston McKenzie | Young kid is going to have his ups and downs but looked very sharp in 2020. |
| Matthew Boyd | |
| Taijuan Walker | Mets are going to count on him and Stroman early in the year. |
| Young / Dynasty | |
| MacKenzie Gore | Number one pitching prospect in the game. |
| Casey Mize | Came up last year and showed his K% is going to be fantastic. Needs to limit walks. |
| Asa Lacy | Will replace Gore as the #1 prospect once Gore is up — or until Jack Leiter is drafted. |