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
I guess Taj Bradley realized that doing scouting reports and preparing for your start is helpful. He looked really good his last time out and gets a good matchup against the White Sox, so we can roll with that, and also Payton Tolle, who I recorded a video on this week.
I never know when Jose Soriano is going to have a good game, so I can’t promise this will be one, but he has looked good lately and gets the Athletics outside of Sacramento, which is great news for pitchers. It’s also great news for Luis Morales, who has been great to start his career and was the Athletic’s 3rd-ranked prospect before being called up, so he probably deserves a bit more respect.
Ian Seymour has been solid since joining 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 Guardians. We also believed Spencer Arrighetti was going to get back on track, and he did so in a big way against the Angels this week. I’m happy to keep it rolling against a really banged-up Rangers offense without Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, and Adolis Garcia. I’m also happy to roll out Justin Verlander in a strong matchup against a reeling Cardinals team.
These are all pitchers that I’d roll out this week with some level of confidence. Colin Rea, Luis Severino, Taijuan Walker, and Charlie Morton are all about the matchups here. Michael McGreevy is to a certain extent as well, but he’s also been a strong source of quality starts, so that makes for a decent streaming option in a good matchup.
Jonah Tong looked great in his debut, and I’m a believer in the talent. I don’t love a matchup in Cincinnati, but I’ll roll the dice with Tong’s ability. And Shane Smith is the fringiest option here because Minnesota is loaded with left-handed hitters, but I’m going to trust my gut on this one.
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.
Parker Messick was bad his last time out, but the Red Sox are a brutal matchup for lefties. Getting Tampa Bay outside of Tampa Bay is a much better setup. Same with JT Ginn getting the Angels outside of Sacramento.
All the other guys are veterans who have proven to be reliable enough when not in awful matchups, and so I can see using them in deeper formats.
Luis Garcia threw six innings in his first game back in over two years and gets to face a banged-up Rangers lineup, so he should be higher, but we’ve seen so many guys return from Tommy John and have a great first outing because of the adrenaline and then have a rockier second start. His velocity was down significantly across the board, and it’s just hard to know what to expect.
Carson Seymour and Javier Assad both have great matchups, but how deep into the game will they go? That makes them risky, and Logan Allen is tough to start in that minor league ballpark.
