Top 70 starters for Week 17
The non-waiver trade deadline is just nine days away, and several starting pitchers could be changing teams during Fantasy Week 17 (July 23-29).
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Ryan Dempster, James Shields and Cole Hamels could top the list of names on the move in the coming days, but each remains a must-start in standard mixed leagues, regardless of what uniform he wears.
There may or may not be trade news impacting your roster decisions heading into the Week 17 lineup deadline, but the constant parade of injury news marches on. Johan Santana won't be an option this week, having been placed on the disabled list with an ankle injury, and a tight forearm could send Colby Lewis back to the DL. Matt Garza could also be a Week 17 casualty, as he exited Saturday's start against St. Louis early with cramping in his right triceps.
Barring more definitive news on Garza, he still makes this week's top 70 starters list, albeit all the way down at number 60. The other 69 pitchers who join Garza in the week's rankings are listed just below, along with their matchup information and some statistical nuggets.
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| Rank | Player | Start 1 | Start 2 | Stat of note |
| 1 | Clayton Kershaw | @STL (Wainwright) | @SF (Vogelsong) | Career 1.78 ERA at STL |
| Kershaw should have a great week at two very good pitcher's parks, as he also sports a career 0.79 ERA at AT&T Park. | ||||
| 2 | Roy Halladay | MIL (Wolf) | @ATL (Minor) | 25 percent called strike rate, Tues. at LAD |
| While Halladay didn't have his best game in his first start back from the DL, he did a superb job of commanding the strike zone and freezing batters. | ||||
| 3 | Felix Hernandez | NYY (Garcia) | KC (Smith) | 1.36 ERA, last seven starts |
| With 59 strikeouts and seven walks over his last 53 innings, King Felix is back to being an elite force among Fantasy starters. | ||||
| 4 | R.A. Dickey | WAS (Gonzalez) | @ARI (Saunders) | 29 Ks over last 33 1/3 innings |
| Dickey has been more hittable lately, but it's not because he has been allowing too much contact. He's allowed a few too many liners, but that's a stat that can fluctuate wildly. | ||||
| 5 | David Price | @BAL (Gonzalez) | N/A | Six straight starts of seven innings or more |
| Despite some tough matchups over the past month, Price has been as reliable as any Fantasy owner could hope for. | ||||
| 6 | Justin Verlander | @CLE (McAllister) | N/A | 3.96 P/PA |
| Verlander has been notoriously inefficient at times, but shorter plate apparances this year are a good omen for when he faces a patient Indians squad. | ||||
| 7 | Ryan Vogelsong | SD (Richard) | LAD (Kershaw) | 49 percent home ground ball rate (per FanGraphs) |
| It's not clear why Vogelsong is so much better at getting grounders at home than on the road, but he had similar splits last season, too. | ||||
| 8 | Zack Greinke | @PHI (Lee) | WAS (Gonzalez) | .378 BABIP in July |
| Greinke earned a brief respite after some early July struggles, but his high BABIP and a 17 percent line drive rate suggest that he may have endured some bad luck. | ||||
| 9 | Jered Weaver | KC (Hochevar) | N/A | .210 home SLG |
| Weaver can be prone to homers on the road, but at home this season, he has allowed a total of seven extra-base hits, only two of which were long balls. | ||||
| 10 | Cliff Lee | MIL (Greinke) | N/A | 0.95 WHIP in July |
| Lee has put his subpar June behind him, demonstrating his trademark command while cutting back on his flyball rate. | ||||
| 11 | Cole Hamels | @ATL (Sheets) | N/A | 2 HRs allowed to lefty batters |
| Righties have pummelled Hamels for 15 homers, but he has been stingy on lefties, a trend that is encouraging as he readies to face the lefty-heavy Braves. | ||||
| 12 | Madison Bumgarner | SD (Volquez) | N/A | Career 0.6 HR/9 at home |
| Bumgarner has been so good at avoiding home runs at AT&T Park, owners can treat his upcoming start against the Padres as if it were at PETCO Park. | ||||
| 13 | Matt Cain | LAD (Eovaldi) | N/A | Opponents' .286 SLG at home |
| Cain has pitched better at home over the course of his career, but this season in particular, he has really taken advantage of the pitcher-friendly dimensions of AT&T Park. | ||||
| 14 | Jordan Zimmermann | @NYM (Young) | @MIL (Wolf) | 17 quality starts (leads MLB) |
| Zimmermann isn't universally started, probably because of a low strikeout rate, but arguably no one has been better at avoiding disastrous starts. | ||||
| 15 | C.J. Wilson | KC (Chen) | TB (Hellickson) | 1.8 K/BB |
| With two starts and a 2.82 ERA, it might seem like Wilson should be a top 10 option, but it's hard to put that degree of trust in someone with a mediocre K/BB ratio. | ||||
| 16 | Chris Sale | @TEX (Darvish) | N/A | At least seven innings in nine of last 10 starts |
| Sale had a difficult time of it on Saturday in Detroit, but the damage came in the middle innings, allowing the lefty to continue a string of long starts. | ||||
| 17 | Ian Kennedy | COL (Sanchez) | NYM (Young) | .182 flyball BABIP |
| Kennedy has been the apparent recipient of bad luck on flyballs, and that will take a toll when you allow flies at an above-average rate. With better fortunes, we could see the Kennedy of 2011 at any time. | ||||
| 18 | Jake Peavy | MIN (Blackburn) | N/A | Opponents' .300 SLG vs. righties |
| Though Peavy has strong flyball tendencies, he is good enough against righties that he can neutralize the power threat posed by Josh Willingham and Trevor Plouffe. | ||||
| 19 | CC Sabathia | BOS (Lester) | N/A | 1.31 ERA over last three starts |
| Sabathia hasn't always fared well against the Red Sox, but he's in the midst of one of his better stretches of this season. | ||||
| 20 | Stephen Strasburg | @NYM (Hefner) | N/A | 5.8 innings per start |
| Strasburg leads the majors in K/9, but a relative lack of innings often prevents him from being a top 10 option, especially in one-start weeks. | ||||
| 21 | Yovani Gallardo | WAS (Jackson) | N/A | 3.14 home ERA |
| Miller Park can be a challenging place to pitch, but Gallardo has actually been better at home than on the road this season and over the course of his career. | ||||
| 22 | Josh Johnson | ATL (Minor) | SD (Richard) | 14 percent called strikes, last three starts |
| Johnson's command hasn't been up to par this month, so batters aren't getting fooled as often, but that has not been an issue for him for the bulk of this season. | ||||
| 23 | Gio Gonzalez | @NYM (Dickey) | @MIL (Greinke) | 3.47 road ERA |
| Gonzalez isn't part of his team's trend of pitching better on the road than at home, but he hasn't been discernably worse when away from Nationals Park either. | ||||
| 24 | James McDonald | CHC (Maholm) | @HOU (Harrell) | 61 percent strikes thrown |
| McDonald hasn't had much control over his last two starts, but he hadn't exactly pounded the zone during his more successful stretches this year either. His success has had as much to do with keeping the ball in the park as reducing walks. | ||||
| 25 | Ryan Dempster | @PIT (Correia) | N/A | Nine percent popup rate |
| Dempster has overperformed so far this year, but his low ERA and WHIP have been helped by a healthy popup rate. | ||||
| 26 | A.J. Burnett | @HOU (Keuchel) | N/A | 7 BBs over last 32 2/3 innings |
| Back in June, it looked as if Burnett might have gone back to his wild ways, but he has gotten back to throwing strikes and avoiding walks. | ||||
| 27 | Adam Wainwright | LAD (Kershaw) | @CHC (Samardzija) | 1.03 WHIP in July |
| As Wainwright's BABIP has regressed to a normal level recently, he has seen his WHIP start to tumble. | ||||
| 28 | Hiroki Kuroda | @SEA (Millwood) | BOS (Doubront) | 50 percent ground ball rate |
| Kuroda stumbled in his start against Boston earlier this month, as he yielded 16 flyballs, but that has been the exception for him. | ||||
| 29 | Johnny Cueto | @COL (Sanchez) | N/A | Career 3.00 ERA at COL |
| Cueto has made only two starts at Coors Field, but he has been so effective in his own hitter-friendly home park that it's plausible for him to continue his success in Denver. | ||||
| 30 | Yu Darvish | CHW (Sale) | N/A | 10 or more Ks in four of last six starts |
| Though Darvish had a surprisingly bad start against the Mariners in Week 15, he has been more consistent lately, and a steady barrage of strikeouts has been a big factor in his success. | ||||
| 31 | Ivan Nova | @SEA (Iwakuma) | N/A | 2.54 ERA over last nine starts |
| Nova has been getting grounders more consistently over the last couple of months, and that's helped him to turn his season around. | ||||
| 32 | Lance Lynn | @CHC (Garza) | N/A | 13 percent swinging strike rate, last three starts |
| Concerns over a dip in Lynn's whiff rate last month were premature, as he is back to baffling hitters again. | ||||
| 33 | Clayton Richard | @SF (Vogelsong) | @MIA (Johnson) | 10 percent line drive rate, last 10 starts |
| Since the beginning of June, Richard has racked up less than a strikeout every other inning, but he's held batters to a .247 batting average due to a lack of hard contact. | ||||
| 34 | Doug Fister | @CLE (Jimenez) | @TOR (Cecil) | 7.9 K/9 |
| If he keeps up this pace, Fister will finish the season with his first strikeout rate that is above the league average. | ||||
| 35 | Max Scherzer | @CLE (Lowe) | N/A | Eight quality starts in last 11 tries |
| Scherzer finally seems to be developing some consistency, as he has been mostly reliable since mid-May. | ||||
| 36 | James Shields | @BAL (Tillman) | N/A | 55 percent ground ball rate |
| Shields is blowing away his previous career-best ground ball rate (47 percent), so it seems fluky that he is on pace to allow 30 home runs. | ||||
| 37 | Vance Worley | MIL (Estrada) | N/A | 5.1 runs of support per nine innings |
| The Phillies may not be an offensive juggernaut, but their lineup is potent enough to give Worley better run support going forward, so he should be able to improve on his 5-6 record. | ||||
| 38 | Jeff Samardzija | @PIT (Bedard) | STL (Wainwright) | 20 percent called strike rate, last three starts |
| Not only is Samardzija back to getting whiffs again, but he is now getting called strikes at a much higher rate as well. | ||||
| 39 | Ben Sheets | PHI (Hamels) | N/A | 20 percent whiff rate on curveball |
| In his prime, Sheets' curveball was a dangerous weapon, and it's fooling batters once again. | ||||
| 40 | Jeremy Hellickson | @BAL (Chen) | @LAA (Wilson) | 81 percent strand rate |
| Hellickson's 3.55 ERA may not look like a match for his mediocre strikeout and walk rates, but over the course of his young career, he has displayed a knack for stranding baserunners. | ||||
| 41 | Dan Haren | TB (Moore) | N/A | 3.52 ERA through June 3 |
| Haren was having a decent season through the first two months, lending credence to the idea that his slide was related to his back woes. After spending some time on the DL, Haren could be ready to return to his prior form. | ||||
| 42 | Anibal Sanchez | SD (Ohlendorf) | N/A | 12 percent swinging strike rate, last three starts |
| Sanchez is still well below last season's strikeout rate, but he is starting to increase his whiff rate. | ||||
| 43 | Tim Hudson | @MIA (Buehrle) | N/A | Opponents' .247 Avg vs. lefties |
| The Marlins lack power with the absence of Giancarlo Stanton, but Hudson should be able to keep switch-hitting table-setters Jose Reyes and Emilio Bonifacio off the basepaths. | ||||
| 44 | Roy Oswalt | BOS (Doubront) | CHW (Quintana) | 1.8 BB/9 |
| Oswalt hasn't recaptured his velocity from a couple of years ago, but his control has been impeccable so far. | ||||
| 45 | Justin Masterson | BAL (Hunter) | @MIN (Deduno) | 46 Ks over last 51 2/3 innings |
| Masterson's wild side has been showing up a little too often, but he's been mostly successful over the past six weeks due to an increase in strikeouts. | ||||
| 46 | Clay Buchholz | @TEX (Lewis) | N/A | Seven straight starts with 2 BBs or fewer |
| Buchholz recovered from a wild start to the season by demonstrating the best control of his career. | ||||
| 47 | Francisco Liriano | @CHW (Floyd) | CLE (Jimenez) | Opponents' .171 Avg, last 10 starts |
| Liriano has been so good at avoiding contact since being reinserted into the rotation that his wildness isn't taking a toll on his ERA and WHIP. | ||||
| 48 | Jonathon Niese | @ARI (Collmenter) | N/A | 25 Ks, 4 BBs over last 35 1/3 innings |
| Niese's strikeout rate has sagged recently, but he has made up for it with an enhanced walk rate. | ||||
| 49 | Mike Leake | @HOU (Harrell) | N/A | Career 2.91 ERA at HOU |
| Leake has a good track record at Minute Maid Park, and it also helps that the Astros are last in the NL in scoring for July. | ||||
| 50 | Mat Latos | @HOU (Rodriguez) | @COL (Pomeranz) | Opponents' .452 SLG, both home and away |
| Latos has given up home runs far more frequently at home than on the road, but he's been allowing extra base hits at a high rate just about everywhere. It's not a good sign with an upcoming trip to Coors Field. | ||||
| 51 | Jon Lester | @NYY (Sabathia) | N/A | Career 4.87 ERA at Yankee Stadium |
| Lester's peripherals suggest that he should have better Fantasy stats than he does, but this doesn't look like a good bounceback week for him. | ||||
| 52 | Matt Harrison | CHW (Humber) | N/A | 0.86 ERA over last seven starts |
| Thanks to improved control and some possible good luck with stranding runners, Harrison has held opponents to two earned runs or fewer in each of his last seven outings. | ||||
| 53 | Tommy Hanson | @MIA (Nolasco) | N/A | 34 Ks, 11 BBs over last 34 2/3 innings |
| Home runs have made life difficult for Hanson of late, but other signs look promising. Meanwhile, Marlins Park looks to be the most pitcher-friendly environment he's worked in for quite some time. | ||||
| 54 | Kyle Lohse | LAD (Harang) | N/A | 1.5 BB/9 |
| Lohse is actually building on last season's improvements in control, and he currently owns the third-lowest walk rate in the NL. | ||||
| 55 | Mike Fiers | WAS (Detwiler) | N/A | 42 consecutive homerless innings |
| Fiers is a flyball pitcher whose home park is conducive to home runs, so his homerless streak smells like a major fluke. A high K-rate makes him worth a start, but eventually the odds will catch up with him. | ||||
| 56 | Erik Bedard | CHC (Samardzija) | @HOU (Rodriguez) | 46 percent ground ball rate |
| Bedard is in a K-rate slump, but he continues to get ground balls at a higher rate than he has in recent seasons. | ||||
| 57 | Chris Capuano | @STL (Westbrook) | N/A | 7.9 road K/9 |
| Capuano is far less trustworthy away from Dodger Stadium, but while he may not make much of a contribution to ERA or WHIP, he can still provide strikeouts away from home. | ||||
| 58 | Jose Quintana | MIN (De Vries) | @TEX (Oswalt) | 10 percent swinging strike rate |
| Quintana has never been much of a strikeout pitcher, but he's getting whiffs at a high rate. If he can get more called strikes, he has the potential to help owners with Ks. | ||||
| 59 | Wandy Rodriguez | CIN (Latos) | PIT (Bedard) | 51 percent strand rate in July (per FanGraphs) |
| Rodriguez has had a difficult month so far, even though he's getting more strikeouts and grounders. His strand rate looks far too low to sustain, so a rebound could be imminent. | ||||
| 60 | Matt Garza | STL (Lynn) | N/A | 11 consecutive scoreless innings |
| Between the triceps cramps and trade rumors, there is all sorts of uncertainty around Garza, but if he is healthy enough to pitch, he has a chance to stay on a roll. | ||||
| 61 | Scott Diamond | CLE (Tomlin) | N/A | 2.72 home ERA |
| Monday's 19-7 slugfest against the Orioles netted Diamond a win but inflated his ERA. It was the first time he had allowed more than four runs in a home start this year. | ||||
| 62 | Phil Hughes | BOS (Cook) | N/A | 15 percent popup rate over last five starts |
| Hughes is still an extreme flyball pitcher, but his home run rate has tapered off, and on the flipside, he has increased an already-impressive popup rate. | ||||
| 63 | Josh Beckett | @TEX (Holland) | N/A | 61 percent strikes thrown, last three starts |
| Beckett's command has been sharp for most of the season, but due to his recent wildness and a tough matchup ahead, he should be seen as a borderline option for standard mixed leagues this week. | ||||
| 64 | Homer Bailey | @HOU (Norris) | N/A | 3 BBs over last 30 2/3 innings |
| Last year, Bailey showed signs of improved control and efficiency, and we have seen them again over the last few weeks. | ||||
| 65 | Matt Moore | @LAA (Haren) | N/A | 10 BBs over last 9 2/3 innings |
| Moore's walks over his last two starts have been a drain on his WHIP, but both outings were against the Indians, the best team at drawing walks -- aside from the Rays. The Angels are near the other extreme. | ||||
| 66 | Felix Doubront | @TEX (Oswalt) | @NYY (Kuroda) | 2.92 ERA vs. NYY |
| These might look like brutal matchups, but bear this in mind. Doubront has had success against the Yankees, and believe it or not, the Rangers have scored the fewest runs in the majors in July. | ||||
| 67 | Wade Miley | NYM (Harvey) | N/A | 1.24 WHIP over last three starts |
| Even though Miley has been saddled with a .340 BABIP over his last three turns in the rotation, he has managed to put up a lower-than-average WHIP. | ||||
| 68 | Wei-Yin Chen | TB (Hellickson) | OAK (Blackley) | 24 Ks over last 24 1/3 innings |
| As advertised, Chen has been a good control pitcher, but at times, he has showed signs of being able to help with strikeouts, too. | ||||
| 69 | Jason Vargas | KC (Mendoza) | N/A | 1.77 ERA over last five starts |
| Vargas is usually solid at home, but he has reeled off five straight quality starts, and the last three were away from the safety of Safeco Field. | ||||
| 70 | Jeff Karstens | @HOU (Lyles) | N/A | Opponents' .232 OBP, last three starts |
| As usual, Karstens isn't issuing many walks, but he has been missing more bats lately, making it hard for opponents to put runners on base. | ||||
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