This article is part of our Pitching 3D series.
Corey Kluber (47)
Noah Syndergaard (49)
Dallas Keuchel (53)
Chris Archer (57)
Carlos Carrasco (59)
Felix Hernandez (65)
Sonny Gray (66)
After Gray, one needs to traverse a handful of players before coming to the next starter on the board, 73rd-ranked Johnny Cueto, so we'll consider the above group to be the upper-end of the second-starter options. Just as we did last week, we'll break down each pitcher's case with an emphasis on his fantasy-relevant stats over the past three seasons. At the end, I'll post my personal rankings for the seven pitchers who are under the microscope today. Please note: this order applies only to today's sub-set of starting pitchers, and does not reflect my overall ranking compared to the entire population of pitchers.
The major-league rankings are in parentheses for each category in the tables, with an asterisk (*) denoting a season in which the pitcher failed to qualify (minimum 162 IP) and ties represented by
Corey Kluber (47)
Noah Syndergaard (49)
Dallas Keuchel (53)
Chris Archer (57)
Carlos Carrasco (59)
Felix Hernandez (65)
Sonny Gray (66)
After Gray, one needs to traverse a handful of players before coming to the next starter on the board, 73rd-ranked Johnny Cueto, so we'll consider the above group to be the upper-end of the second-starter options. Just as we did last week, we'll break down each pitcher's case with an emphasis on his fantasy-relevant stats over the past three seasons. At the end, I'll post my personal rankings for the seven pitchers who are under the microscope today. Please note: this order applies only to today's sub-set of starting pitchers, and does not reflect my overall ranking compared to the entire population of pitchers.
The major-league rankings are in parentheses for each category in the tables, with an asterisk (*) denoting a season in which the pitcher failed to qualify (minimum 162 IP) and ties represented by a lower-case "t." The number of qualifying pitchers for each season were as follows:
2015 – 78 pitchers
2014 – 88 pitchers
2013 - 81 pitchers
Corey Kluber
I mentioned Kluber last week, and maybe I'm just an unabashed fan, but he would make a list of the top six or seven hurlers on my personal board, so getting him as the second pitcher on staff would be a major coup. He is one season removed from winning the AL Cy Young Award, and aside from a goofy-looking record that does more to undermine the utility of wins and losses that it does to undermine his particular set of skills, his 2015 season was much like the 2014 campaign that won him hardware.
Here are his fantasy-relevant stats and the corresponding major-league ranks over the last three seasons:
| STAT | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| ERA | 3.49 (31) | 2.44 (7) | 3.85 (56*) |
| WHIP | 1.054 (10) | 1.095 (15) | 1.262 (49*) |
| K's | 245 (5) | 269 (2) | 136 (66t) |
| Wins | 9 (71t) | 18 (4t) | 11 (51t) |
Kluber has league-leading upside in strikeouts thanks to a two-headed monster of a slider, which he will throw with a 12-to-6 break or with two-plane tilt. The "slydra" was responsible for 95 of his strikeouts last season and opponents hit just .139 with a .058 ISO in at-bats that ended on the pitch. The ERA ranking from last season looks a bit ugly, but one of the biggest mistakes made on draft day is to pay for last season's stats, as we'll see with other pitchers on today's docket. One of the surest bets for 2016 is that Kluber will improve both his ERA and his win total from last year.
Noah Syndergaard
Thor was the rookie revelation of last season, posting an incredible 5.35:1 K:BB ratio on the heels of the hardest-thrown fastball in the major leagues (among starting pitchers), averaging 97.7 mph on his heat. He struck out 10.0 batters per nine innings and walked fewer than two men per nine in his rookie campaign, while the only knock against him was a tendency to give up the longball. He fell 12 innings short of qualifying for the ratio categories, tossing 150 frames on the nose, but he threw another 30 frames in the minors and can be expected to break the 200-inning barrier if he stays on the mound all season.
| STAT | 2015 |
| ERA | 3.24 (20*) |
| WHIP | 1.047 (10*) |
| K's | 166 (39) |
| Wins | 9 (71t) |
Syndergaard's K rate of 27.5 percent would have ranked eighth in the game (right behind Kluber) if he qualified for the ratio categories. The Mets' rotation is full of studs and Thor is no exception, with 230-K upside this season if all breaks right. It remains to be seen whether his low hit rate is likely to regress or is an indication of his elite stuff, but the low walk rate will help to keep the WHIP down. Strikeout-to-walk ratio is one of the key stats that I consider when constructing my fantasy staff, and Syndergaard performed so well on both sides of the K:BB coin in his rookie season that the roof has been raised on his fantasy expectations.
Dallas Keuchel
Keuchel's 2015 season was the best on this list, and it's not particularly close. He ranked in the top 10 in every single fantasy category that a starting pitcher can impact (there's no such thing as the five-category fantasy pitcher), built on his 2014 breakout in every category, and came on like gangbusters in the second half to freeze out any concerns about his K rate and put to rest the doubters as to his legitimacy on the mound.
| STAT | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| ERA | 2.48 (5) | 2.93 (20) | 5.15 (79*) |
| WHIP | 1.017 (7) | 1.175 (29) | 1.536 (80*) |
| K's | 216 (9t) | 146 (57t) | 123 (83) |
| Wins | 20 (2) | 12 (50t) | 6 (131t) |
Keuchel fell fewer than nine innings short of qualifying in 2013, but that seasons was an unmitigated disaster. Had he qualified, Keuchel would have finished among the bottom three pitchers in baseball for ERA and WHIP. I like sinkerballers as much as the next guy, and watching Keuchel pounce off the mound with cat-like reflexes on defense is truly a sight to behold, but whenever a pitcher exhibits such rapid growth there is a lingering concern that he will revert back to a pumpkin after an offseason of rest. His exceptional performance in 432 innings over the past two seasons certainly buys him some leeway, but the bearded one is not without risk.
Chris Archer
It seems that Archer came out of nowhere last season, spearheading the Rays' rotation and becoming a DFS darling with his big-strikeout gems. But his performance has been remarkably stable from the standpoint of run prevention, with only a 0.11 run spread between his ERA marks of the last three seasons. He only pitched 128.2 innings in 2013, but he has been effective regardless of whether he has been racking up the strikeouts.
| STAT | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| ERA | 3.23 (19) | 3.33 (31) | 3.22 (25*) |
| WHIP | 1.137 (21) | 1.279 (58) | 1.127 (17*) |
| K's | 252 (4) | 173 (33t) | 101 (114t) |
| Wins | 12 (35t) | 10 (69t) | 9 (83t) |
The strikeouts were the big difference last season, and his fantasy value will be defined by whether he can sustain a strikeout rate that jumped from 20.3 percent across 2013-14 to the 29.0 percent rate of last season. The WHIP has been kept down thanks to low hit rates, and the key to his repertoire is a tight slider with heavy vertical movement that misses bats and encourages weak contact. Archer was an ace at times last year but also dealt with bouts of inconsistency, which represents his fantasy risk this season.
Carlos Carrasco
The hard-throwing Carrasco carries a diverse repertoire of effective pitches, with a fastball that averages in excess of 95 mph and a group of secondary offerings that batters struggled to hit last season. Carrasco's ratios have been excellent over the past two seasons, and in 2015 he set a personal best with 183.2 innings pitched. Durability has long been a concern with Carrasco, and though he may not be the prototypical horse that anchors a rotation, a healthy campaign could very well push him over the 200-inning threshold.
| STAT | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| ERA | 3.63 (37) | 2.55 (10*) | 6.75 (82*) |
| WHIP | 1.073 (11) | 0.985 (5*) | 1.757 (82*) |
| K's | 216 (9t) | 140 (68t) | 30 (384t) |
| Wins | 14 (14t) | 8 (94t) | 1 (390t) |
Carrasco was actually one of nine players in the majors with exactly 14 wins last season, as it has become harder to differentiate in the category thanks to the proliferation of the modern bullpen. His K:BB ratio was better than 5:1 last season as he kept the walks down and the strikeouts up, but like most of the other pitchers on this list, Carrasco has endured a rocky past. He pitched fewer than 50 innings of big-league ball back in 2013 with horrible results, as his ERA and WHIP were so high that they would have been the worst in the league given a larger sample size. Carrasco has an outside shot at being a big contributor in all four categories, but the downside is a lost campaign for a pitcher with a shaky track record.
Felix Hernandez
2014 wasn't that long ago. This is another ace masquerading as a No. 2, and any team that sports King Felix as the second arm on his/her staff has to feel pretty good about the pitching categories. Everyone looks at the innings and expects his arm to fall off at some point, but Felix has been a stud for 11 seasons and counting. Every pitcher is an injury risk, and it's funny how quickly the perception on workload can change as if there's a magic line where a pitcher converts from "managing a heavy workload" to "logging too many innings." Felix is just exiting his 20s, has survived with nary a scratch thus far with eight straight seasons of more than 200 innings pitched and 10 straight seasons of at least 30 starts.
| STAT | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| ERA | 3.53 (32) | 2.14 (2) | 3.04 (15) |
| WHIP | 1.180 (26) | 0.915 (2) | 1.131 (19) |
| K's | 191 (20) | 248 (4) | 216 (8) |
| Wins | 18 (6t) | 15 (15t) | 12 (40t) |
The King's coming off a rough year, by his standards, but that tough time still earned him the eighth-most votes for the AL Cy Young Award. He's had seasons like this before (2011) and came back fine. With no other indicators of substantial decline in terms of peripheral stats or stuff, I don't think that anyone will be all that surprised if he's in the running for the AL's top pitcher again this year. He suffered from a handful of disaster starts last season, as he gave up at least seven earned runs four times, including a 10-run embarrassment at the hands of the Red Sox in Fenway Park when he failed to escape the second inning. Such an outing will certainly leave a bad taste in the mouth of fantasy managers who had him rostered last season, but pitchers have a way of wiping the slate clean over an offseason. How quickly we forget that this was considered to be arguably the best non-Kersh pitcher in baseball just a year ago. He's also the only pitcher on today's list who pitched enough innings to qualify in 2013, and his year-to-year consistency is a key part of his value.
Sonny Gray
Gray is one of those players who's better in real life than in fantasy, a land where strikeouts rule the day. In the modern era, his low-impact K rate makes him a liability in that category; consider that he pitched 58 more innings than Syndergaard but only struck out three more batters. He has more value in leagues that count quality starts or those that do not have innings-caps, because he's pretty much a lock for 7.5 K/9 given his career trends.
| STAT | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 |
| ERA | 2.73 (9) | 3.08 (24) | 2.67 (8*) |
| WHIP | 1.082 (13) | 1.192 (33) | 1.109 (15*) |
| K's | 169 (34) | 183 (21t) | 67 (199t) |
| Wins | 14 (14t) | 14 (26t) | 5 (154t) |
He has never won as many as 15 games in a season, a trend that will likely continue this season while playing for an Oakland club that looks to be lacking in run support. The wins category could receive a boost given the risk of a midseason trade, which also means that Gray could be pitching home games in a less favorable ballpark during the second half of 2016. From a fantasy standpoint, this is a two-category pitcher whose strength in ratios is vulnerable to the trade whims of Billy Beane. The risk is just too high for Gray to be a No. 2 starter for my fantasy team.
Here is the order that I rank these seven players for the 2016 fantasy season:
1. Corey Kluber
2. Felix Hernandez
3. Noah Syndergaard
4. Chris Archer
5. Carlos Carrasco
6. Dallas Keuchel
7. Sonny Gray
As mentioned before, Kluber stands head and shoulders above the rest of this crowd, and I would have no problem taking him as the ace of my fantasy staff. There's a bit of a gap between Kluber and the next man on this list, and though Hernandez has been taking a bad rap in fantasy circles lately, his 2015 season was not out of line with previous performance, and he still has elite upside in at least three categories. The King's longevity and relatively low volatility put another gap after his spot in the rankings, as the group of hurlers after him are all hard-throwing right-handers with shorter pedigrees and greater theoretical upside.
I think that the pros and cons of Syndergaard, Carrasco and Archer are very similar. The K ceiling is immense for all three players, but one has to wonder whether a full allotment of innings is to be expected (especially in the cases of Carrasco and Syndergaard). There is another gap between this set of three pitchers and the last two men on this list, who bring up the rear for very different reasons. Keuchel could be amazing once again, and his in-season development is not to be ignored, but he lacks the stuff or the pedigree to raise confidence that he can repeat the excellence of 2015. The only fantasy category in which Gray has been a difference-maker is ERA, with a modest K rate, solid-yet-unspectacular WHIP and never having cracked more than 14 wins in a season.
