We’re now into the final five weeks of the fantasy baseball season, and that means we need to shift the way we manage our starting pitchers. In truth, we really 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 have more of a 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, August 28th to Sunday, August 31st
At this point, I’m surprised that Cam Schlittler isn’t rostered more highly. He’s been tremendous in August with a 1.63 ERA in 27.2 innings while striking out 31. I love what he’s doing on the mound, and I love the matchup. I also enjoyed what I saw from Braxton Ashcraft in his last outing, and this Cardinals offense is reeling a bit, so I’m OK to roll with him here.
We got the word yesterday that Jonah Tong will be called up by the Mets to start on Friday against the Marlins, and I recorded a video with my thoughts today. We usually want to be wary of MLB debuts, especially from a player who basically just got to Triple-A. However, Tong is an elite pitching prospect and has dominated minor league hitters all season. The flip side is a player like Nestor Cortes, who isn’t a high-upside option, but is a starter that I like in a matchup that I like.
These are all pitchers that I’d roll out this week with some level of confidence. Jason Alexander has been pitching well and gets the Rockies in Houston. Nolan McLean has been electric in his first two starts, so you kind of have to pitch him, even with a tough matchup. Same with Justin Verlander in a pretty solid matchup against the Orioles. The Red Sox have made some interesting changes to Dustin May’s pitch mix, and I like the matchup against the Pirates, while Adrian Houser is also a matchup-play against the Nationals.
Ian Seymour is now in the rotation for Tampa Bay, and I think we’re forgetting that he was a solid pitching prospect in his own right before starting out in the bullpen. I like Seymour’s skillset and love the matchup against the Nationals. I also still believe in Spencer Arrighetti and think he’s going to get back on track, so I’m OK starting him against the Angels this week.
Chris Paddack and Dean Kremer are the fringiest options here, but I think they’re solid starters and in good matchups, so I moved them into this tier.
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.
I can never tell when Jose Soriano is going to have a good start, and I just don’t know what version of Christian Javier we’re going to get as he returns from Tommy John surgery. Jack Leiter and JT Ginn are both coming off tremendous starts, but are pitching in Sacramento, so I don’t love that. Same with Cade Povich, who is going up against a Red Sox offense that crushes lefties. Tomoyuki Sugano and Brad Lord have good matchups, but I don’t love them as fantasy options, so they missed out on the tier above.
I’m not sure what the Twins are doing in their rotation. Zebby Matthews and Mick Abel are tentatively scheduled to start this weekend, but maybe Taj Bradley does. Maybe Pablo Lopez returns on Sunday. There are just a lot of moving pieces here. The same goes for Kyle Harrison, who could be moved into the Red Sox rotation this weekend after Richard Fitts’ injury. I’d like Harrison if I knew he was starting, but we just haven’t gotten confirmation yet.
Lance McCullers, Johan Oviedo, and Tristan Beck are all guys who may not go five innings or may be on pitch counts, so that makes the role a bit confusing this week.
I’m rarely ever going to start a player in this tier, but if you’re in an AL or NL-only league or a really deep league where you feel desperate, then I am at least intrigued enough about these pitchers or these matchups to take a gamble on them over guys who didn’t make the list.
