Welcome to the ultimate guide to drafting Starting Pitchers for 2026 Fantasy Baseball. I’ve ranked the Top 400 starting pitchers for the year ahead in an attempt to rank every SP who could help your fantasy teams this season.
However, before you jump between the rankings in the nav menu above, it’s incredibly important that you read this introduction. It highlights how I rank pitchers and why this is not a projection of the end of season Player Rater. It’s my strategy of how I draft pitchers, embracing the burn and churn nature of the game.
How To Use These Rankings
These rankings mean nothing if we’re not on the same page about how to draft for the season ahead. Remember, you are not drafting a Best Ball team – on those teams you are stuck with the arms you draft for the entire year. Because it’s a game of burn and churn, my rankings reflect a different upside/floor weight than an attempt to replicate the 2026 end of season Player Rater rankings. In other words, these are Draft Rankings, not ROS Rankings.
With that in mind, I wanted to focus on two tenets that are reflected in these rankings:
- 1. Draft FOUR starting pitchers I trust to never drop during the season
There’s a classic phrase I hear during draft season. I need to get that one SP I can rely on in the early rounds. I don’t adhere to this thought most seasons and I especially don’t for 2026. Pitcher injuries are awfully random (save for the rare few with heightened risks: Glasnow, Snell, etc.), and despite all the rhetoric you and I emit, SP volume will remain the most difficult part of pre-season analysis. The good news? This year’s SP landscape is massive in the top half, allowing you to create that foundation among many instead of few.
Consider your seasons of old and think about the pitchers who have stuck around on your teams throughout the year and compare them to those you’ve enlisted and returned to the waiver wire. Your goal in your draft is to snag four of the first group, opening up the rest of your SP inventory to plan for the wire, take chances, and make mistakes. No, it is unlikely for all four to stay healthy, and that amplifies the necessity to grab four of these pitchers.
The range for me at this point in February ends around SP #60 at Zac Gallen, which is a little deeper than normal seasons.
- 2. Draft Pitchers You Can Determine QUICKLY In Season To Hold or Drop
It is so important to draft players at the end of your rotation who you can move on from quickly during the year in favor of other pitchers who are displaying new skills and could break out across the season. The last thing you want is to be stuck with an arm from your draft who drags you down all season and prevents you from snagging a legit SP #4 or better in April. This can be translated as “Don’t Draft Tobys” (which actually isn’t quite right this year as there’s more quality volume available in the deeper rounds than usual) and it can also be translated as “THIS IS NOT A BEST BALL LEAGUE”, but in the end, it’s ensuring that you are drafting with the mindset of the burn-and-churn that comes with playing fantasy baseball. Just because you like that strikeout-upside arm doesn’t mean you won’t be anxious and frustrated throughout April as they get only a few starts and fail to go further than five innings. Grab guys who will give you value early and their floor outlines that you can move on quickly. Nothing worse than a poor start that has you still thinking they’re fine… for the entirety of April.
And yes, you will always be able to find value on the waiver wire. Don’t believe me? Here are Starting Pitchers who had a 2024 ADP of #290 or later and could be snagged in your leagues:
2025 SP Drafted Past ADP #290
And that’s not even including this rag-tag crew containing many pitchers you were able to grab at specific points of the season for legit value:
Helpful Waiver Wire Pick Ups Past ADP #290
The whole goal is to win your league, not leave the draft getting appropriate value for the round you picked them. Grab SPs who are easily identifiable as early drops who also have a ceiling that is far above their draft value.
Now you understand. That’s where I’m coming from with these rankings and it’s important to not treat them as a “Best Ball” ranking – you’re not drafting a team you hold for the full year, instead you’re drafting a team with anticipation that you’re burning and churning at the back-end of your roster. It’s the way you win your leagues.
Sorry to be so repetitive, I have to hammer this point as it combats the standard projection or player rater approach
Early 2026 Team Schedules
One element that I often don’t discuss this early when doing rankings is the expected opening weekend schedule. It doesn’t have much of an impact on these rankings, but as we get closer to the start of the year and rotations become clearer after trades, signings, and injuries, it may reveal some late-round targets to sneak in a start or two in your head-to-head leagues that may turn into season-long holds (like Kris Bubic and Andrew Abbott this past season).
First, here are the individual offense ranks:
Team Offense Ranks Way-To-Early via PLV Projections
Note: The Athletics are still ATH.
I’m sure it’ll change before the start of 2026 + there are differences to be made about teams vs. LHP or RHP, but it works as a general table that y’all should keep in mind.
In essence, we should only be considering being conservative against the Top tier offenses (and maybe some Solid tiers as well), while take a chance here or there against the Poor offenses (I’m sure some will surprise us!). Everything else in the middle is up for grabs.
And here is how the start of 2026 shapes up:
Also note: These offensive tiers are the final tiers from the end of the 2025 season and I’m willing to wager a significant number of teams shift tiers before the start of 2025.
Thanks to Kyle Bland for putting together this table!
Team Offense Ranks Way-To-Early via PLV Projections
I could do a whole thing about which rotations are affected most (Ryne Nelson potentially getting three tough starts or the #5 SP options on the Nats, Cards, Giants, Angels, Athletics, Atlanta, Tigers could have it rough early, etc.), and yet, it’s all so in flux that I’m not going to do that now. Remember, the opening weekend rotation order is so often out of whack and there are too many factors right now to outline it.
HOWEVER, you can take into consideration the general early schedules and if there are teams to target for confidence early, like the Yankees, Red Sox, Reds, and Astros, who have generally fantastic schedules for the first few weeks. Or the Marlins and Brewers, Cubs, and Mets who face some terrible offenses for the first week. There will be some sneaky streams there.
Alright, let’s get to it now. Go ahead and select one of the ranking ranges at the bottom and enjoy.
Photos by Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns on Twitter)
