If you have been reading or listening to my content, you have likely heard me reference fScores (named fScores for “fantasy scores”) or use them to compare players. This is a custom fantasy stat I created that aggregates other stats into core skills, weighted against the average player where 100 is average, similar to wRC+ or OPS+.

Drafting based on core skills, rather than attempting a “one size fits all” ranking allows for more customization in team building and team design to target the weak points of your team and allows for more balance.

Please read the article “What is fScore?” for a better understanding before going through the below rankings. The starting pitchers players listed at the top of each tier are where the tier starts and ends.

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2025 Starting Pitchers Players fScores (Fantasy Baseball)

You will find a complete set of starting pitcher rankings at the end of this article.

Additional Positions and fScores

• C fScores
• 1B fScores
• 2B fScores
• SS fScores
• 3B fScores
• OF fScores
• SP fScores
• RP fScores

Tier 1 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Paul Skenes (SP – PIT)
• Tier Ender: Logan Gilbert (SP – SEA)/Tarik Skubal (SP – DET)

It’s insane that Paul Skenes is already the top starter in (fantasy) baseball after only one year, but he was ridiculously good with an ERA under two as a rookie.

Logan Gilbert gets the edge as the number two-ranked starting pitcher over Tarik Skubal simply because he’s one of the most durable pitchers in baseball, while Skubal’s only season over 150 innings was 2023.

Skubal has been the best pitcher per plate appearance over the last couple of years, but Gilbert is more likely to get 200 innings and Skenes might have the highest upside of the entire group.

Tier 2 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Blake Snell (SP – LAD)
• Tier Ender: Garrett Crochet (SP, RP – BOS)

Blake Snell has the best stuff in the majors, per fStuff, besides Jacob deGrom and Spencer Strider, who are both coming off injuries. He also signed with the best team in baseball.

George Kirby‘s upper-tier control makes him about as consistent as you can get. You can’t go wrong with picking a likely lock as a top-10 starter (pending injury).

Dylan Cease had a big step forward in San Diego with a great defense and pitcher’s park behind him, but will he be able to repeat in the event he’s traded?

Chris Sale is coming off a killer year that is almost not repeatable, but if he can do even 90% of what he did last season, he will have another top-10 year.

Zack Wheeler has been amazing for several years, but he is getting older and I expect a slight decline in 2025.

Michael King had his second consecutive great season as a starter and has emerged as an ace for the Padres. He still has some additional upside as a newer starter, per fScores, pushing him ahead of some of the other pitchers in this tier.

Corbin Burnes with the Diamondbacks is a pretty nice development for his fantasy value, though San Francisco would have been better.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto was as good as expected when he played (outside of his first start) as a Dodger. Hopefully, he will have better health in 2025. Yamamoto was as good as advertised and the poor health in 2024 might make him a good buy for 2025.

Cole Ragans has some control issues, but besides that, he pitched like the ace he seemed to be.

Bryce Miller has proven to be the lighter version of Spencer Strider I thought he could be. He even added a splitter that has allowed for more innings pitched.

Garrett Crochet is at the top of the stuff side of starting pitchers and could end 2025 at the top tier of starters with another strong season with a significant workload. The durability is my main concern for his 2025 cap as he only has 219 innings in his career with 146 of them coming last season in his first year as a starter in the majors.

Tier 3 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Logan Webb (SP – SF)
• Tier Ender: Spencer Strider (SP – ATL)

Logan Webb is the only starter in the top 40 with under a 100 fStuff. His carrying cards are his control and ability to limit damage with a strong workload.

Framber Valdez is very similar to Webb, however he has better stuff. Why is Webb above Valdez? Webb has a little better control and pitches in a much better stadium that limits damage, giving him a slight edge.

This is the second of the last three seasons where Jacob deGrom has the most ridiculous fScores imaginable, but will he stay healthy coming off surgery? He is projected to throw around 150 innings, but if he gets to 120-130 innings, he will be worth his draft price in this range.

Hunter Greene took some significant steps forward and appears to have a chance to break out further in 2025.

Shane McClanahan is back. Like deGrom, he is also projected to hit around 150 innings, but there is some risk with the injured pitchers as there is no guarantee they return 100% to form. 

Spencer Schwellenbach kind of popped out of nowhere last year when the Braves promoted him from AA to the Majors with only 13 innings pitched at the AA level and zero at AAA. However, he balled out and has top-20 upside with an over 20% K:BB ratio in his rookie campaign.

Under the hood, Zac Gallen had a bit of a rough season as his control was not as good as usual, which led to only 148 innings pitched in 28 games knocking him from the consistent quality starts monster he previously was.

Bryan Woo has top-notch command and a very good fastball. He’s a big breaking pitch away from jumping up a tier.

Tanner Bibee is a tad inconsistent, which leads to some people not liking him, but he had a very strong second half and has plus secondaries, even if his fastball is only average.

Shane Baz started a little shaky at the beginning of his comeback season but finished incredibly strong. Those who tuned out for football likely missed how dominant he was at the end of the season with a 0.94 WHIP in his last 10 starts to go along with 19 strikeouts and only three walks in his final three starts of the season.

Gerrit Cole had his most up-and-down season since he was a Pittsburgh Pirate. While it’s entirely possible with a restful offseason he’ll be back to his former self in 2025, I think there’s a decent chance he is beginning the decline phase of his career. With the elbow injury lingering, it impacts my ranking of him for 2025.

Grayson Rodriguez has been very good when healthy and appears to be entering 2025 as the ace of the rotation after the Orioles only brought in Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano. His stuff and control did improve in 2024 from 2023.

Spencer Strider is projected to return in June and will likely be a top-tier starter upon his return, but you will be losing a couple of months of production. It’s also hard to draft auto-injured list (IL) players to start the year in leagues that don’t have an IL spot like the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC). That will also determine where you rank him via league type and settings.

Tier 4 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Brandon Pfaadt (SP – ARI)
• Tier Ender: Pablo Lopez (SP – MIN)

Brandon Pfaadt had a pretty under-the-radar strong season (mostly because of the 4.71 ERA), but the 3.65 SIERA and 18.8% K:BB ratio show us there is a strong season coming from Pfaadt, who made nice gains in the control area of his game in 2024.

Hunter Brown had a terrible first half and a phenomenal second half. I’m big on Brown for 2025 and think he figured out the pitch mix that will lead to his success.

Joe Ryan‘s season will all depend on health, which is why his fScore range varies so greatly. He is likely a Tier 3 starter when healthy, but will he pitch enough innings to optimize his value?

Tyler Glasnow is one of the best pitchers in baseball on a per-inning basis, but still only pitched 130-ish innings last season and had a rough second half concerning homers allowed.

We don’t know where Roki Sasaki will end up yet or how many innings he will pitch in 2025, which may diminish his value a little bit. It’s possible in the right situation he out-produces some of the Tier 3 guys in 2025 and has even more upside in dynasty leagues.

Jared Jones started the season on fire for the Pirates but had a lat strain mid-season that impacted him upon his return. It will be interesting to see how Jones rebounds with an offseason of rest. Can he return to his first-half form or will the second-half struggles continue?

Ryan Pepiot had a large uptick in stuff in 2024, making that Tyler Glasnow trade look pretty good for the Rays. My biggest concern with Pepiot is going to be moving to the smaller minor league ballpark considering he already had a slight homer problem in Tropicana Field.

Speaking of home run problems, Shota Imanaga was on fire most of the season for the Cubs and was a stellar financial bargain. However, he also had some home run issues, especially in the second half.

Pablo Lopez is way better than the back of the baseball card stats show. He finished with a 3.46 SIERA and 20.3% K:BB ratio, portending to a much better 2025. Buy low if you can.

Tier 5 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Sonny Gray (SP – STL)
• Tier Ender: Seth Lugo (SP – KC)

This is the number three starter tier in most leagues.

Sonny Gray was excellent in his first season in St. Louis and should be again with the support of a likely better defense in 2025 and a great pitcher’s park. He is 35 now and there’s a likely decline around the corner for Gray on the aging curve, though.

Shohei Ohtani is fresh to pitch again in 2025 after being a top-tier starter before injury, he will likely be capped around 120-130 innings in 2025 as he returns from Tommy John surgery and the Dodgers look to protect their big investment, especially considering you need that bat in the lineup.

Nathan Eovaldi is back with the Rangers as one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball. He’s extremely consistent.

Max Fried is going to be pitching in Yankee Stadium next year. We have seen many pitchers fold when moving to New York (Sonny Gray, Frankie Montas and a declining Carlos Rodon, to name a few examples). I’m a bit weary of him this year until we see if he can control the likely increase in home run rate.

Kutter Crawford is another pitcher with a tale of two halves after an excellent first half in 2024 and blah second half. The underlying metrics support a better pitcher than the final line, though, so we should see an uptick in overall 2025 performance.

Gavin Williams is better than he’s shown so far in his major league career. A Hunter Brown-like renaissance could be on the way in 2025.

Taj Bradley is very similar production-wise to Tanner Bibee on a per-inning basis (except Bibee pitches deeper into games), even though their arsenals are the opposite of each other. After a near 2.0 HR/9 rate in 2023, I’m not confident Bradley will be able to keep the ball in the yard in the minor league stadium, but he should still put up some nice K:BB rates. Expect a Brandon Pfaadt-like season from Bradley with a big-time buying opportunity in 2026 as the Rays eventually transition back to Tropicana.

Carlos Rodon had a nice bounce-back season with the Yankees in 2024 with the biggest downside being the home run rate — Yankee Stadium is a tough place to avoid homers.

I have never been a Yusei Kikuchi guy, but he has been very good for two years in a row now including a stellar run with now division rival Houston.

Bailey Ober is an oddity because the results of his stuff greatly outperform the actual pitch metrics per Stuff+ models, so this tells me most of his success is due to his pitching acumen and ability to mix his pitches well.

Cristopher Sanchez is a ground ball machine who is great at limited damage, similar to Logan Webb.

Luis Castillo is getting a tad older and might be exiting his career peak based on his age. My ranking of him may change from now until March depending on if he stays in Seattle or if he is moved to a significantly worse pitching environment.

Yu Darvish saw a large drop off in stuff last year, but this may have also been a result of injuries. Despite this, he was still very effective when he was healthy.

Kodai Senga has some control issues, but killer stuff when healthy, which is his biggest question heading into 2025.

Justin Steele is a two-pitch guy (they are decent pitches, to be fair), but he makes it work and has for three consecutive seasons.

Freddy Peralta‘s finish in 2024 was a bit concerning as he was giving up a lot of flyballs that led to some big-time damage against him. His command also tapered off, which makes Peralta a bit risky and less of a high-end option.

Luis Gil is coming off a phenomenal season and part of me wants to rank him much higher, but his command is lackluster and he outperformed his underlying metrics.

Aaron Nola might get an edge in points leagues because he always pitches so many innings, but his fastball has gotten worse the last couple of seasons and I am concerned he is leaving his peak behind.

Tanner Houck is hard to barrel up, which is his best trait. If he can repeat the workload, he’s a valuable mid-tier pitcher.

Seth Lugo was a stud in 2024, he has upper-tier control and is good at limiting damage, but he’s likely to see a decent amount of regression in 2025 at 35.

Tier 6 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Kumar Rocker (SP – TEX)
• Tier Ender: Spencer Arrighetti (SP – HOU)

There are so many starters that this is the tier I’ll be more selective on blurbs instead of discussing each starter.

Kumar Rocker dominated the minors and has a good shot at making the rotation out of camp in the event the Rangers decide to go to a six-man with deGrom and Tyler Mahle both coming off injury.

Brandon Woodruff is a top-15 starter if healthy… but his injury is so odd. Will he be healthy in 2025? We have no clear answer yet.

Nick Pivetta is an interesting name who could jump a tier depending on where he signs.

Drew Rasmussen should be a starter by the second half and Griffin Jax is rumored to potentially start in the event the Twins trade a starter away.

Jack Flaherty was fantastic for the Tigers and then blah for the Dodgers. Flaherty needs to sign somewhere with an advanced pitching development system for me to be comfortable acquiring him in 2025.

Quinn Mathews showed elite stuff in the minors in 2024 and is built for a large workload early in the 2025 season.

Tier 7 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Brayan Bello (SP – BOS)
• Tier Ender: Jackson Jobe (RP, SP – DET)

Jesus Luzardo needs to show health to get back to his top-40 starter potential. Philadelphia has done a great job keeping players healthy, so there is room to buy here despite the tougher home ballpark.

Kevin Gausman was very mediocre in 2024 and he appears to be past his peak based on the decrease in his stuff metrics.

Kris Bubic is projected for the rotation in 2025. He is a nice, cheap bounceback candidate to watch.

It’s tough to pick Reds pitchers, but Rhett Lowder has shown a good ability to limit damage.

Zebby Matthews‘ elite control could lead to a nice 2025 season. Draft him as people will be looking at the over 6.00 ERA rather than the 18.1% K-BB ratio and 3.78 SIERA in the Majors.

Luis Garcia is coming back from injury and is a nice bounce-back candidate.

Jackson Jobe did not perform as well as expected in 2024 in the Minors. I have some pitch mix concerns with him as the pitch stuff ratings are ridiculously good, but the results don’t match.

Tier 8 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Bubba Chandler (SP – PIT)
• Tier Ender: Michael Wacha (SP – KC)

Hayden Birdsong reminds me of Taj Bradley a bit, but he has to get the fastball under control or he will end up as a bullpen arm.

This tier has some fun second-half names. Andrew Painter, Eury Perez and Shane Bieber all have elite upside.

There are some nice innings eaters or back-end starters in this tier who won’t hurt you including Jameson Taillon, Mitch Keller, Sean Manaea, Jose Berrios and Michael Wacha.

Tier 9 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Chase Dollander (SP – COL)
• Tier Ender: Chayce McDermott (SP – BAL)

This tier has a lot of upside and also a lot of risk.

When will Chase Dollander debut? Could we see him get a Paul Skenes-like workload this season?

Caden Dana had a rough Major League debut and is only 21, but he could use some more seasoning in the Minors before returning to the Majors.

Andre Pallante was elite at limiting damage, but what’s keeping him from becoming a Justin Steele-type is the lack of elite command.

Sean Burke is interesting if he can make some gains in the control department.

Will Landen Roupp get a chance to start in spring? I’ve always compared him to Corbin Burnes and his career track right now is somewhat similar.

Will Sawyer Gipson-Long return to the rotation or the bullpen?

Michael McGreevy has some lackluster stuff. Unlike Pallante, he has very good command, so he could end up developing into a Justin Steele-type.

Lucas Giolito is supposedly going to start the season healthy, so let’s keep an eye on him this spring.

Joey Cantillo and Chayce McDermott are interesting sixth-starter names to watch this season. They both have good stuff and bad command.

Tier 10 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Chase Burns (SP – CIN)
• Tier Ender: DL Hall (RP, SP – MIL)

Will Chase Burns make it to the Majors this year? If so, when? He probably has the stuff and this may depend on his team’s performance. I doubt the Reds drafted him second overall to play around in the Minors all year.

Ryan Weathers was pretty good in 2024, as I had expected after the spring, but he needs to build up the innings.

There are a number of guys in this tier who will probably be decent streamers: Frankie Montas, Luis Severino, Kyle Gibson and Charlie Morton, for example.

Can the Guardians develop Slade Cecconi and Luis L. Ortiz?

Will Reid Detmers continue to get tanked or will he bounce back?

Will Cade Cavalli break camp and get his stuff back or will he end up in the bullpen?

Can Aaron Ashby and Joe Boyle find success in bullpen roles?

How much playing time will Brandon Sproat and Tink Hence get in 2025?

Tier 11 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Ty Madden (RP, SP – DET)
• Tier Ender: Kyle Wright (SP – KC)

This tier is unlikely to play a regular role in 10-12 team leagues, but in deeper leagues, some of these pitchers could make an impact in 2025.

Biggest upside guys: Max Meyer, Carson Whisenhunt, Emmet Sheehan and Thomas Harrington, for example.

Tier 12 & Notes

• Tier Starter: Javier Assad (SP, RP – CHC)
• Tier Ender: Taijuan Walker (SP – PHI)

I don’t expect many of these pitchers to make a big impact in 2025, but some of these younger pitchers could get the call sooner than I expect if enough injuries occur. Most of these younger guys are also worth watching for keeper or dynasty leagues if not owned.

Some of my favorites: Hagen Smith, K.C. Hunt, Alejandro Rosario, Emiliano Teodo (bullpen or starter) and Parker Messick

2025 fScores Starting Pitchers Rankings

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