2026 Position Previews: Starting Pitcher, Part 1
A Trip Through the MLB DW Top 100 SPs for 2026
I am putting out very solid podcast version of these. If you’re a free subscriber, the podcast feed is the place to go for all my draft prep. You’ll miss out on all of the great draft tools we have here, and you won’t get into the details nearly as much as you do when reading the Team Previews series, but there’s a ton of free information on those podcasts.
Here’s part one of the SP previews, John Allen and I did SPs 1-25:
We’ll do this written piece at the same pace. But I’m TIERING things, so we won’t quite go by chunks of 25. Let’s do it to it!
Tier One
Click any player’s name to be taken to their full write-up from the team previews.
1 | Tarik Skubal
2 | Garrett Crochet
3 | Paul Skenes
There’s no good debate at the top this year. I mean, you’ll see these three go in different orders, but they’re always going to be the first three off the board. The NFBC auction values have these three guys all between $35 and $40, and no other pitchers has averaged more than $28. It’s a huge gap.
I said it on the podcast, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to rank them. There are cases for and against each guy as the #1 overall. My advice is to pick whichever one stays the healthiest. That’s the only question here. If they stay healthy, you’ll be thrilled.
I wrote about an injury-prediction theory that would point away from Skenes in this trio. You can read that here. Basically, Skenes seemed to operate closer to his max exertion more often than the other guys, which could put more stress on his arm and elbow. I don’t think I’d actually let that change my mind, though. If it’s a real thing, the predictive usefulness of it is really small. And it also assumes that the max velo we’ve seen from Skenes is his true max velocity, and I don’t really buy that.
Supporting case wise, they’re all pretty similar teams at this point. All of those lineups probably rank in the 15-25 range or something. So there’s no way to make an intelligent guess at who gets the most wins.
Tier Two
4 | Logan Gilbert
5 | Hunter Greene
If you asked me why I’d rank these two above Yamamoto and Sanchez, I wouldn’t have a fantastic answer for you. But the reason is that I’m less concerned with volume when I’m ranking the pitchers. I tend to focus more on the weekly head-to-head leagues where you’re not as concerned with making sure your ace throws 190 innings.
Per-inning, I think these two clear Yamamoto and Sanchez. And I don’t have enough injury concerns with them, even after they missed time last year, to downgrade them for that.
They’re both so, so good. But they both have potential home run “issues” they’ll run into. You could see a 1.3 HR/9 from either of them if they’re a bit unlucky, and you probably can’t post a top 10 fantasy SP season with that going on. But they’ll easily clear a 20% K-BB% and they have some of the best combinations of swing-and-miss and command in the bigs. But I wouldn’t blame you for having them ranked a lot lower because of some of the imperfections we can find.
6 | Yoshinobu Yamamoto
I don’t think we have any particular worry about Yamamoto getting hurt. But his innings workload is capped for another reason. He pitched deep into the year last year and really let it all fly in the postseason. The Dodgers might be very easy-going with their rotation early on. And, while they’re mostly healthy, they’ll be using six starters since Ohtani is in there. That caps all of the Dodgers pitchers at 170 innings. I think that’s a legitimate max for anybody on that team. The rest of these guys could absolutely mess around with 200 innings, so I’m talking Yamamoto for that. But he’ll make up for some of it with a ton of wins, and he’s an extremely good pitcher, obviously.
A 26% K%, bro! Again, he makes up for it. The 59% GB% makes him one of the game’s elite home run suppressors. So he pairs a 20% K-BB% with a near 60% GB%, and you’ll rarely find that. It feels like a buy-high after a year he probably can’t quite repeat. But there are no real holes to poke in his game, it’s a beautiful thing to look at, and the Phillies are a strong team to pitch for.
8 | Bryan Woo
9 | Chris Sale
10 | Jacob deGrom
11 | Cole Ragans
I think these top 11 stand out in the upside they have. You shouldn’t be surprised to see any of these guys bringing home some serious hardware if they stay healthy this year. They all have SP1 overall upside. This foursome brings less stabilityand confidence, and that’s why they end up here.
Maybe I’m just playing scared about Bryan Woo. He doesn’t seem to fit in with these other guys after throwing 188 innings last year. The season ended with an injury, but it was a pectoral thing, and not an arm issue. But he does have a scary history before last year of arm stuff. And I guess I can’t get past that.
Sale, deGrom, and Ragans are clear enough. Total stud pitchers whose team will let them throw as many innings as they can, but there are very few 30+ start seasons in recent years between those names.
Tier 3
It’s a large one. 11 more really, really good MLB pitchers here.
12 | George Kirby
13 | Max Fried
14 | Hunter Brown
15 | Dylan Cease16 | Spencer Schwellenbach (60 Day IL)
17 | Joe Ryan
18 | Logan Webb
19 | Kyle Bradish
20 | Freddy Peralta
21 | Eury Perez
22 | Framber Valdez
We got word today (2/10) that Spencer Schwellenbach is hitting the 60 Day IL with right elbow inflammation. So that’s very, very bad news for him. And I’m not sure you can draft him at this point. But I’m in the middle of all of this SP content, so I’m not going to move him down yet. I’m just putting the strikethrough on his name until I finish the previews and podcasts.
I just think you’re lacking the elite ceiling with all of these names. Some of them don’t quite have the strikeout ability that it typically takes to ascend to the top (Fried, Brown, Webb, Valdez). Some of them give up a ton of fly balls and play for bad teams (Ryan and Eury), and some of them just haven’t PROVED it yet (Eury).
The guys from the list I like the most here when considering cost and ceiling are George Kirby, Dylan Cease, and Eury Perez. But I don’t think you can really go wrong. My avoids at cost would be Hunter Brown and Freddy Peralta. I just think they’re priced to repeat last year, and I don’t think they can do that. But the fair expectations for them still make them very good SPs. Just more SP2-SP3 than SP1s.
Tier 4
23 | Shohei Ohtani
24 | Chase Burns
25 | Jesus Luzardo
26 | Blake Snell
27 | Jacob Misiorowski
We still have a handful of dudes who pitch like SPs most of the time when they’re on the hill. There’s a common thread with Ohtani, Burns, and Snell. We just don’t know how many innings they can possibly throw this year. You’re probably maxing out around 160 with each of them, and that’s tough.
And then there’s Jesus Luzardo and Jacob Misiorowski, who just haven’t proved it yet in their careers. Luzardo was awesome last year, but had some brutal starts that hurt his ratios pretty badly, and he’s never been one to show us consistency. Maybe the Phillies unlocked something in him, and we’ll see consistency from here on out, but until we see it again, I don’t think I can take him confidently as an SP1.
Misiorowski has a history of high walk rates. The command he showed with his (insanely elite) four-seamer last year makes me not as worried about that. But it’s not like he pitched well in the Majors overall last year, even with that command. I just think it will be pretty tough for him not to be very good because of that insane weapon he has with the heater. And the ceiling is crazy if he improves the command on the rest of his arsenal. But he has the lowest floor that we’ve seen so far.
And we’ll call it a day there! Back soon with a lot more. I’ll be going into extra detail on the individual pitchers as we get deeper into it. We really want to be sharp in our mid and late round SP picks.