SP Start/Sit Grades & Resource
Assigning a grade to all 150 projected starting pitchers to start the 2024 season
SP Schedules & Streamers Resource
One of the most used resources I have here is the Probable Pitchers - Next 10 Days Google Sheet that updates daily. It lists the probable starters for every game across the next 10 days, and gives you a projected projection (that’s right, a projected projection!) for each start. Here’s what it looks like:
This gets updated every morning when I get up and run all the Python code, it should be updated by 9am eastern every morning starting Friday.
To be fully honest with you, the projection you see there is just the average projection from my model from the pitcher’s last three starts. So it does not take that individual matchup into account, it just looks at the baseline projection for each pitcher. If the projection is dark green, that’s a guy my model would say to start in that spot. If it’s red, you avoid that. If it’s white or a light shade of green or red, then you should start taking that matchup and your own fantasy team’s context into account.
There’s also a tab there for “Upcoming streamers”, this is an automated list of recommended streamers, using this logic:
The pitcher is less than 50% owned (I use ESPN & Yahoo and average them out)
The pitcher is projected for at least 12 fantasy points
So if you’re looking for a streamer, that’s a good place to go.
It’s really hard for me to make broad start/sit declarations, because most of those decisions are largely dependent on league context. You’re starting a lot more pitchers in a 15-team league compared to a 10-man, and you’re starting more pitchers in a points league than in a categories league, and so on and so forth. So it’s tough, but this resource at least gives you a general idea of what my projection model has to say.
Paid subscribers have been given access to that resource, and the link is below the paywall and in the Resource Glossary. If you’re a paid subscriber and don’t have access, just hit the “request access” button and I’ll grant it when the next time I check my e-mail.
My Baseline Grades
I went through all 150 pitchers that are currently projected to be in their team’s starting five, and gave a grade to each pertaining to how I would use them for fantasy purposes. That’s right, I used my own brain here instead of a Python script!
Pitchers currently on the IL are not included in this.
Here’s the key:
It did not take me nearly as long as I thought it was, I got it done in about 15 minutes. I guess that’s the advantage of having spent all winter analyzing players, I have them all pretty well sorted out in my head.
Most of the guys with B grades, you’re going to start darn near every time. You didn’t draft Jose Berrios in the top dozen rounds of your draft just to bench him when he faces the Orioles or something, most leagues don’t work like that. So I’m not really telling you to bench those guys in bad spots, it’s just that there’s a clear difference between them and the A-grade pitchers.
For a little tease, here are the pitchers I gave an “A” grade to:
Zac Gallen
Spencer Strider
Max Fried
Chris Sale
Corbin Burnes
Grayson Rodriguez
Justin Steele
Tarik Skubal
Framber Valdez
Cole Ragans
Tyler Glasnow
Bobby Miller
Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Jesus Luzardo
Freddy Peralta
Pablo Lopez
Joe Ryan
Bailey Ober
Nestor Cortes
Zack Wheeler
Aaron Nola
Mitch Keller
Luis Castillo
George Kirby
Logan Gilbert
Bryce Miller
Bryan Woo
Logan Webb
Blake Snell
Zach Eflin
Kevin Gausman
There ya go, if you want the rest of this, and all of the in-season resources, you’ll have to become a paid subscriber today! Check out the about page here for more information.