Early 2025 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Top 40 at starting pitcher offers only a glimpse of the position’s depth

1 Skubal looked like the best pitcher in Fantasy over a small sample in 2023 and turned out to be exactly that in 2024, capturing the AL pitching Triple Crown while leading all the majors in strikeouts. Nothing in his profile would suggest it’s a fluke either, so the only reason you might shy away from him at No. 1 is the big innings increase from 85 to 211 (minors and postseason included). 2 Wheeler continues to improve even as he enters his mid-30s, having just delivered career-bests in ERA and WHIP while striking out more than 10 batters per nine innings for the second time. He’s come to be the most reliable of aces and a relatively worry-free choice at a position defined by its volatility. 3 All the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft did in his first professional season was lead the majors in both ERA and xERA (minimum 100 innings), showing that there’s much more to his arsenal than just a high-octane fastball. Some would rank him ahead of Wheeler for the upside, but I’d rather play it a little safe since we haven’t seen Skenes take on an ace workload yet. 4 Sale is sort of the default choice after a clear-cut top three at starting pitcher, and seeing as he just secured the pitching Triple Crown in the NL, no one should doubt his capability at this point. His availability is another matter. This past season was his first mostly healthy one in five years, and he wasn’t even completely healthy, losing velocity down the stretch as he battled a sore back. 5 Burnes’ bat-missing capabilities continued to erode in 2024, marking a fourth straight year with a declining strikeout rate, and it finally became a problem for him in August. That’s when he went to work on his cutter, regaining much of its lost movement, and he finished the year on such a high note that I see no reason to back off him as a Fantasy ace. 6 Having just led the majors in both innings and WHIP, Gilbert would be more widely recognized as an ace if not for his 9-12 record, which, of course, he had little control over. While he may have had some batted-ball luck, he also improved as a bat-misser, placing sixth with 220 strikeouts. 7 Ragans’ stud turn late in 2023 indeed forecasted a breakout season for the 26-year-old, who emerged as an ace despite occasional control lapses. His velocity slipped a little in the second half, which is noteworthy since a velocity bump helped to fuel his breakthrough, but given that his first- and second-half splits were nearly identical, it’s not a justification to downgrade him. 8 So much has been made of Snell’s early-season struggles that you may be surprised to learn he has a 2.82 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and 12.0 K/9 over the past three years. We should probably just treat him like an ace, then, regardless of how those numbers are distributed over the course of the year, and trust that if he does start slowly, better days are ahead. 9 Cease’s first season with the Padres had its ups and downs, but the whole of it saw him deliver a career-best walk rate, putting him back on the right path after he stumbled in 2023. He’ll never be a control artist, but if he can throw enough strikes to make good on his elite bat-missing ability, he can pass as an ace in Fantasy. 10 Though the White Sox put Crochet in bubble wrap in the second half, hoping to preserve his trade value, he still led all pitchers (minimum 100 innings) with 12.9 K/9 and was a distant No. 1 in strikeout-minus-walk rate. The expectation is that whatever contender trades for him this offseason will turn him loose next year, making him a presumptive ace. 11 Long considered the gold standard at starting pitcher, Cole occupies an unfamiliar spot in the rankings after a year marred by a nerve issue in his elbow. He pitched well enough after returning in mid-June but lacked the usual bite on his pitches, particularly the slider, which raises doubts as to whether he’s totally out of the woods even while an ace outcome remains on the table. 12 The most hallowed name among starting pitchers heading into 2024, Strider lasted only two starts before needing season-ending elbow surgery. But his UCL was intact, remember, just in need of stabilization due to a bone fragment, so he should be ready for the start of 2025. The opportunities for a setback and/or intense workload management exist, but no one can match Strider’s strikeout upside when healthy. 13 Kirby is the best strike-thrower in baseball and, as such, will always be a standout in WHIP, but all those strikes can make him hittable at times, putting his ERA in a precarious spot. He takes on a big workload and probably hasn’t shown us his best yet, but for me, he marks the start of a second tier, lacking the upside of those ahead of him here. 14 Valdez was struggling to miss bats early in the season, eking by merely on the strength of his ground-ball reading, but then he began to throw his curveball more, leading to the most dominant stretch of his career. His 1.91 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, and 10.3 K/9 over his final 13 starts ultimately served to bring his full-season numbers in line with his career norms, but there’s a chance he will maintain his more dominant form into next year. 15 King’s transition to a full-time starting role got off to a bumpy start but was ultimately a rousing success, yielding a 2.42 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, and 10.5 K/9 over his final 24 starts. He’s a master at suppressing hard contact and has a variety of pitches capable of generating whiffs, so as long as the big workload increase doesn’t do him in, he should have more of the same in store for next year. 16 Imanaga’s first year stateside went as well as anyone could have hoped for, his pristine control and killer splitter helping him to maintain an ERA below 3.00. That’s probably his absolute best-case outcome, given his vulnerabilities to the long ball, but overall, his outputs aren’t so different from Kirby’s, apart from his starts being spaced out a little more. 17 Yamamoto was considered a bigger-ticket item than Imanaga coming over from Japan last year, and on a per-inning basis, he basically lived up to expectations. The problem was that his innings were so limited, mostly because of a rotator cuff strain that sidelined him for three months but also because of early hooks when he was healthy. 18 The improvements for Greene this past year were subtle. He didn’t throw harder or expand his arsenal in any meaningful way. He just threw what he had better, with improved command and a more optimal shape, and the result was a 1.02 ERA, 0.74 WHIP, and 10.2 K/9 over his final nine starts. Concerns over durability and consistency remain, but the 25-year-old is trending up. 19 Glasnow would rank at least 10 spots higher if not for the ligament damage in his right elbow. The Dodgers have classified it as a sprain and don’t think he’ll need surgery, but you’ll want to exercise caution in case there’s another shoe to drop. As good as Glasnow is on a start-by-start basis, he still has yet to throw even 140 innings in a major-league season. 20 Lopez’s changeup isn’t what it was earlier in his career, and his sweeper was also less sweepy this year, costing him 36 strikeouts from his career-high 234. He still churns out innings while missing enough bats to deliver a nice strikeout total, but anyone still clinging to the idea he’s an ace should note that he’s only once delivered an ERA below 3.60. 21 After two years of unmitigated acedom, coinciding with him joining up with the Mariners, Castillo relived some of his past inconsistencies in 2024, his ERA approaching the high threes as he forfeited more than a strikeout per inning. You might dismiss it as typical baseball variance, but seeing as Castillo had his lowest-ever fastball velocity and swinging-strike rate, it could be genuine decline. 22 Like Castillo, Nola saw his rate strikeout decline in 2024 (for a fourth straight year, actually), but unlike Castillo, the mid-to-high-threes ERA has become more the rule than the exception. Nola rounds out a trio of former aces who we should probably just admit are second-tier now, valuable mostly for their ability to log innings. 23 Innings have always been the main draw for Webb, who eclipsed 200 for a second straight season even as his ERA continued to inch upward. He offers a nice floor as an elite ground-ball pitcher with plus control, but he’s an unremarkable bat-misser who struggled to get a feel for his best pitch, the changeup, in 2024. 24 Another strike-throwing ground-ball specialist, Fried is perhaps an even safer bet for ERA than Webb — and a better bat-misser, too, if still unremarkable in that regard — but the durability just doesn’t compare. He dealt with forearm issues for a second straight year and has only once reached 180 innings in a season. He’s also a free agent this offseason, raising doubts about the kind of run support he’ll get in 2025. 25 Ober is much like Kirby and Imanaga in that he rarely walks anyone and generally puts the ball in the air. It’s a skill set that makes for few baserunners (i.e., a low WHIP) but lots of home runs (i.e., an elevated ERA). Ober ranks well behind those other two because his ERA was a particularly skewed 3.98, but if you take out just his two worst starts, it drops to 3.18. 26 Gray got back to being a strikeout pitcher in 2024 after a couple of years of pitching more to contact, but his 3.84 ERA left something to be desired. His 3.12 FIP and 2.82 xFIP serve as better indicators of how he actually pitched, though, so as long as you’re not counting on 180 innings from him (a mark he’s reached just once in the past nine years), you’ll probably be pretty happy with what he gives you. 27 After watching him put together one of the all-time offensive seasons, it’s surreal to think that Ohtani is an ace-caliber pitcher as well — one capable of working deep into games while racking up big strikeout totals. You have to expect the Dodgers will heavily restrict his usage, though, after a year lost to elbow surgery. In most cases, you’re better off using him as a hitter anyway. 28 You may wonder why deGrom hurried back from Tommy John surgery to make just a handful of abbreviated starts in a lost cause of a season for the Rangers , but those 10 2/3 innings went a long way toward reassuring us he’s healthy … for now. Of course, he hasn’t stayed healthy enough to throw even 100 innings in a season since 2019, so the reward here comes with considerable risk. 29 Consider this a first entry in the race for a most hyped pitcher of 2025. It’s hard to single out what was most impressive about Schwellenbach’s rookie season, be it the six-pitch arsenal, the willingness to mix up his pitch selection, the George Kirby-like strike percentage or top-15 swinging-strike rate, but together, they made him a top-eight Fantasy pitcher over the final three months. 30 If it feels like Steele was a worse pitcher in 2024 than 2023, you might want to check those numbers again. His ERA and K/9 rate were virtually the same. His WHIP was actually improved. The biggest difference was that he won 53 percent of his starts in 2023 compared to just 21 percent in 2024, which seems mostly like rotten luck and makes for a possible draft discount. 31 Brown’s 2024 is all the more impressive when you remember how bad he was at the start, sporting a 7.08 ERA through two months. That’s when he began fading his fastball for a variety of secondary offerings and went on to deliver a 2.27 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and 9.6 K/9 over his final 21 starts. He’s not a supreme bat-misser but is among the best at inducing weak contact, mostly on the ground. 32 Like Brown, Miller found success in his sophomore season by reducing his fastball use. It’s unclear whether his secondary arsenal is genuinely strong or just varied enough to keep hitters guessing. The Mariners clearly have a type — strike-throwers with fly-ball tendencies –, and while Miller is a bargain relative to Gilbert and Kirby, he’s not as proven and may be in for some ERA regression. 33 While you may argue that Gallen deserves a pass, given his long history as something close to a Fantasy ace, I’m kind of giving him one by ranking him even this high. His month lost to a hamstring injury exposed how much his ace standing is tied to volume, and his strike-throwing and bat-missing both suffered in his 16 starts after returning, during which he put together a 4.27 ERA and 1.41 WHIP. 34 Flaherty’s rebound season was five years in the making and evidenced not just by his ERA and win-loss record but also by him ranking in the top five for xFIP, strikeout rate, and strikeout-minus-walk rate. Unfortunately, he regressed in many of these areas after joining the Dodgers for the final two months, which raises questions as to how real any of it was just as he’s hitting the free agent market again. 35 Rodriguez showed improvement across the board in his second big-league season, most notably by registering strikeouts at a rate more befitting of the swing-and-miss he generates, but it all came to a screeching halt in August when he strained his lat for the second time in three years. The upside is enticing, but he’s still more hittable than he should be and has some fundamental durability concerns now, too. 36 Though his season ended a couple months early due to a shoulder strain, Ryan made real progress in terms of contact quality, which probably had something to do with him picking up 1-2 mph on all of his pitches. He offers a profile similar to teammate Bailey Ober — elite WHIP, suspect ERA — and the fact they’re so far apart tells you how much hair-splitting is happening here. 37 Between a shoulder strain and a calf strain, Senga hardly pitched this year, and the few starts he did make between the regular and postseason were a mixed bag. He showed significant upside in 2023, particularly with regard to strikeouts, but there were enough control and efficiency concerns to make me wonder if the reward is worth the risk in this range. 38 Peralta was one of just 11 pitchers to reach 200 strikeouts while improving his ERA from 2023 and setting career highs for both starts and innings pitched. So why does it feel like his 2024 was a letdown? In a word, efficiency. His ERA, while improved, wasn’t actually good, his WHIP was kind of bad, and his short outings made him an also-ran in points leagues. He can be better, but not much better. 39 Rodon fits in with Peralta here as a good strikeout pitcher whose flaws are too glaring for him to pass as an ace. Early hooks are an issue, as with Peralta, but the bigger one for Rodon is that he’s too susceptible to the long ball, which is why his xERA, FIP, and xFIP were all higher than his 3.96 ERA. 40 Ranking Lopez is tricky both because he missed time in the second half with forearm and shoulder injuries and because his 1.99 ERA was obviously too good to be true. But he looked even more dominant after those short stays on the IL, and … well, he had a 1.99 ERA. Because his late dominance brought him close to 10 K/9 on the year, I’m mostly buying in, though more to the tune of, say, a 2.99 ERA.