We’re now into the final three weeks of the fantasy baseball season, and that means we need to shift the way we manage our starting pitchers. In truth, we should have been doing that for a few weeks now, but with most starters only set to make five or six more starts in the 2025 season, we need to adopt a more week-to-week mindset rather than a “Rest of Season” mindset.
To help you do that, I’m going to rank and break down my favorite streaming matchups each week from here until the end of the year. Below you’ll find multiple tables that rank streaming starting pitchers based on those I have a strong preference for, those I’m fairly confident in, those I’m hesitant about, and those I like but have questions about their usage. Within the tiers, you can make some changes based on your own needs. If you need strikeouts more than ratios, you can bump up the two-start pitchers over the pitchers with one good matchup, etc.
Starting Pitcher Strategy
At this point in the season, you also need to be adjusting your strategy for rostering and using your starting pitchers. For example, if I have two starters really close for this upcoming week, but one of them gets an elite matchup the following week and the other is in a matchup I want to avoid, then I’d prefer to add the pitcher I’ll use for two straight weeks because that makes my team better in the long run. This is the time of year when we need to be ruthless. If you’re not going to start a pitcher for two weeks, move on. If a pitcher has been great for you but now has bad matchups, move on.
Your decisions will change based on your league type and settings, but I’ll do my best here to give you the information that will help in your formats. As is usual with my articles, a streaming starter pitcher is rostered in less than 40% of Yahoo formats, so just keep that in mind as we’re going through.
Offenses to Attack
Before we get into our rankings, just a quick note about the offenses we want to attack. I used FanGraphs team stats over the last month, searching for metrics like wRC+, strikeout rate, OPS, etc., and narrowed down the list of offenses to ones that have struggled in those areas.
To stream starting pitching, we want to target pitchers going against the Guardians, Rays, Nationals, Cardinals, and Rockies/Reds on the road only. Think of these as HIGHWAY OFFENSES - not stopping at all.
I also am more than comfortable using pitchers against the Orioles, Tigers, Angels, Marlins, Giants, Rangers, White Sox, Pirates, Athletics on the road, and Mariners in Seattle. Think of these as GREEN LIGHT OFFENSES - you can’t open it up like you can on a highway, but you’re good to go.
Lastly, some offenses that have been solid over the last month but won’t scare me off from a good streamer are the Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Royals, Twins, and Braves. Think of these as YELLOW LIGHT OFFENSES - some hesitation, but still good to go.
IMPORTANT RANKINGS NOTE: Pitchers within the same tier can be treated almost interchangeably. If a pitcher is under 40% rostered on YAHOO and does not appear below, then I have no interest in starting him this week.
Streaming Starting Pitcher Rankings: Thursday, September 11th to Sunday, September 14th
There’s not a whole lot to say about this tier right now. Ian Seymour has been really good and gets a great matchup. Charlie Morton hasn’t been great, but his curveball has been, and the Marlins are a great start. Cade Cavalli limited the damage against the Marlins, but didn’t miss bats. I’m treating that as a one-off in terms of strikeouts. Yu Darvish was looking at two runs allowed in six innings with no walks and seven strikeouts before giving up a solo home run and getting removed from the game with two outs in the frame. I’m more than happy to roll with him against the Rockies in San Diego, and I don’t care that Bubba Chandler got lit up in his first MLB start. He had looked electric in bulk relief, I believe in the talent, and I love the opponent.
Fairly Confident | ||
These are all pitchers that I’d roll out this week with some level of confidence. Slade Cecconi, Cade Povich, Martin Perez, and JT Ginn are all about the matchups here. Michael McGreevy is to a certain extent as well since he’s pitching in Seattle, which is a great pitcher’s park, but he’s also been a strong source of quality starts, so that makes for a decent streaming option in a good matchup.
Brandon Sproat looked good in his MLB debut, and while I’m not as high on him as I am on Jonah Tong or Nolan McLean, I’ll start Sproat against a Rangers lineup that won’t have Corey Seager, Adolis Garcia, and Marcus Semien.
John Oviedo has also been sneaky good. He has a good fastball, and while I wish he had better command, I’m not terrified of this Orioles offense. Although, he’s probably on the fringe of fairly confident and hesitation.
Shane Smith just allowed six runs combined in 18.1 innings against the Yankees, Tigers, and Royals, and really only had one bad start in there against the Tigers, so I can trust him against Tampa Bay outside of George Steinbrenner Field, and then I just have a weakness for Parker Messick and his changeup, so I have no problem using him against Smith’s White Sox.
Some Hesitation | ||
These are all guys who give me a bit of pause, but I would consider them in deeper formats or if I really needed a starter.
Brad Lord, Taijuan Walker, Mitchell Parker, Randy Vasquez, Luis Severino, Stephen Kolek, and Davis Martin are all here strictly due to their matchup. Ryan Bergert has the worst matchup in this tier, but the Phillies are now without Trea Turner and Alec Bohm, and Bergert had been really good until his last start, so I can see giving him one more shot.
Jacob Latz is yet another low-velocity left-hander with a good changeup and solid command that has had plenty of success this season. He just handled the Brewers, so I can see rolling with him against the Mets, but it makes me nervous. Yoendrys Gomez is somebody I’ve been intrigued by over the past months. He probably should be in the desperate tier, but I can’t shake the feeling that he can handle this Guardians offense if he can have a decent command game.
Desperate/ Uncertain Health or Role | ||
I really like Ryan Weathers, but it’s his first start off the IL in three months, and I have just no idea how deep he’s going to go in this game. I also like Mike Burrows here, but he’s probably limited to four innings.
The others are likely guys I wouldn’t consider unless I really needed to hunt for wins or strikeouts.
