Starting Pitcher Chart – August 29, 2024

Yuck, ugly board after the lock starters. And even some of the lock starters have tricky matchups (Hunter Brown, Sonny Gray, Bowden Francis, Cristopher Sánchez, and Brady Singer all face top-6 offenses against their respective handedness). The 2x guys are either wannabe 3x guys who can’t be trusted much right now (Kutter Crawford, Bobby Miller) or a complete wild card who has impressed recently but we’re still not sure how good he is as a pitcher (Keider Montero). Just take care of yourselves, folks!

Brayan Bello absolutely destroyed the Jays tonight with 8 shutout innings, allowing just 2 hits and a walk with 9 punches in his best start of the season. That doesn’t necessarily give me any more confidence in Crawford, though, as he’s struggled more than Bello coming into this start. Crawford has an 8.13 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and 11% K-BB in his last 7 starts.

Miller was strong last time (6 IP/3 ER/0 BB/7 Ks), but that was against Tampa Bay, which is very different than against Baltimore. He still allowed 2 HRs that accounted for all 3 of those runs. That’s a shaky 2x recommendation. I’m just saying, I could you see it in 12s and 15s, but it’s more of an upside game where you want to give it your all. Hayden Birdsong and Cade Povich are even deeper Hail Mary throws.

I know Francis is drawing the tough Red Sox, but he’s absolutely on point right now and I just can’t see him going past the start: 1.91 ERA, 0.61 WHIP, 26% K-BB in 33 IP since returning on July 29. During that span, his ranks in those categories are 5th, 1st, and 7th in baseball (minimum 25 IP).

Speaking of focused, Ryne Nelson has been in even better form for longer, with a 2.76 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and 21% K-BB in 62 IP since July 1. During that time, he’s ranked 12th, 8th, and 18th, but is unfortunately only 4-0, even though Arizona has played well, going 8-2 in those 10 games.

By the way, the fact that MacKenzie Gore might be back on track with his second consecutive smash (6 IP/2 ER/6 Ks, W v. NYY) on a night when Dylan Crews hits his first MLB HR and James Wood steals 3 bases while they go 4-for-8 with 3 RBI, 2 R has to give Nats fans some hope.

—

The table includes their 2024 stats (these were changed from last year’s stats on April 22), their opponent’s wOBA rank compared to the pitcher’s handedness from this year to now (this was changed on April 11) and for the last 30 days, my general start/sit recommendation for leagues with 10, 12, and 15 (or more) teams, and then a note on that. Of course, there are more league sizes than those three, so it’s essentially a shallow, mid, and deep. If a pitcher only has an “x” in 15 teams, that doesn’t mean he can’t be used in 10s and 12s, it just means it’s a riskier stream the more shallow the league gets.

These are general recommendations, and your league situation will carry more weight whether you’re protecting ratios or chasing counts. This is for standard 5×5 roto leagues. The thresholds for H2H starts are generally lower, especially in points leagues, so I thought it would make more sense to focus on roto, and that you can then expand on these recommendations a bit for points leagues in general.