We’re now into the final month 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 four or five more starts in the 2024 season, we need to be managing on 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 have some hesitation about, and those I’d only stream if I’m desperate. 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.
Some of the rankings will also be influenced by future matchups. 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 (hello Bowden Francis), 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 50% 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 the ones that have struggled in those areas.
To stream starting pitching, we want to target pitchers going against the White Sox, Angels, Marlins, Pirates, Mariners, Rays, and Rockies on the road only. Think of these as HIGHWAY OFFENSES - not stopping at all.
I also am more than comfortable using pitchers against the Tigers, Giants, Cardinals, Nationals, and Reds when they’re on the road only. 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 of a good streamer are the Cubs, Athletics, Blue Jays, and Mets. Think of these are YELLOW LIGHT OFFENSES - some hesitation but still good to go.
Now for the rankings. Pitchers within the same tier can be treated almost interchangeably.
Andrew Heaney has been on here for weeks, but his schedule remains probably the best of any starting pitcher in baseball. Heaney lines up for starts against the Mariners twice and the Angels to end the season, which is something we all want to have a part of. Since August 1st, Heaney has a 3.00 ERA and 10.50 K/9 in 36 innings. He hasn’t earned many wins because he isn’t pitching deep into games, but he went six innings and earned a win in his last start against the Angels, and he could do the same here.
It looks, for now, like Landon Knack will remain in the rotation, and he gets a great matchup, but it’s really hard to trust exactly how the Dodgers will set things up.
Matthew Boyd has been electric since being activated by the Guardians, pitching to a 2.18 ERA in 33 innings with a 9.55 K/9 ratio. He should likely be over 50% rostered. His matchups are not against offenses we are generally targeting, but neither the Twins nor Cardinals are offenses we want to actively avoid, and Boyd has a chance to secure two wins here, so he could be worth a gamble in most formats with a two-start week coming up.
You can also take a chance on Shane Baz, who has been much better over his last few starts and has a 3.10 ERA in 40.2 innings since August 1st. He’s struck out more than five batters only once in the last seven games, so the strikeouts haven’t been there, but that’s one of the only knocks against him. He gets the Red Sox at home, which is great because this Red Sox offense has been much worse away from Fenway, and then he gets a Blue Jays offense that has been fairly average for much of the season. I’m not sure if Baz will be able to secure any wins in his two starts, but I feel good about him keeping the team in both games.
Reid Detmers and Albert Suarez are two other solid two-start options who have one elite start and one tougher start. I trust Detmers more as a pitcher, and the White Sox start is more enticing than the Tigers start Suarez has, so I’d lean to Detmers. The Astros also don’t scare me as an offense now. They’re still good, but they’re not among the elite offenses, so I think Detmers can put together a solid two-step here while Suarez has a slightly lower ceiling but is another good option.
The Cubs have a great schedule coming up, which has been ideal for their hitters but is good for pitching as well. Jordan Wicks looked fine in two starts against the Nationals and Mets but struggled against the Dodgers. I’m not as worried about him against the A’s and Nationals this week, and there’s a good chance for him to snag two wins if he can go at least five innings. I’m more confident in Jameson Taillon and Javier Assad, so if you don’t need to take the risk on a two-start week, I’d rather grab one of them in their plus matchups than roll the dice with Jordan Wicks.
Cade Povich got roughed up by the Red Sox on Monday, but he has looked better since ditching his cutter and leaning more into his changeup and curve. I still think he’s a streamer or as Nick Pollack would say, a “Toby,” but that works when you pitch for the Orioles against the Tigers.
Rhett Lowder has been great so far in his big-league career. I can’t deny that. But we’ve seen Reds prospects do this before, like Andrew Abbott last year. I’m just not fully a believer in what Lowder is doing. He throws his four-seamer for strikes at a tremendous rate but it doesn’t get many whiffs, and his slider is fine but not great. I like the matchup against the Pirates, so I’m happy to use him but I do feel like he’s due for a blow-up start at some point.
Davis Martin and Jack Kochanowicz find themselves on here due to matchups and surprisingly solid performances of late. Since August 1st, Martin has a 4.19 ERA and 8.38 K/9 over his last 38.2 innings, while Kochanowicz has registered a 3.38 ERA and 2.41 K/9 over his last 37.1 innings. Obviously, Kochanowicz doesn’t get many strikeouts because he’s primarily a sinkerball pitcher; however, he does go deep into games, which gives him a good shot at a quality start and maybe even a win against the White Sox. Similarly, Martin has a chance to steal a win in a good matchup against the Angels.
Both Andre Pallante and Lance Lynn are possible streamers against the Pirates. Pallante has been solid since August 1st with a 4.28 ERA and a 6.30 K/9 in 40 innings. It’s not tremendous, but it’s enough to warrant being in the streaming conversation against the Pirates. Lynn has only made one start over that span because of injury, but he did return from the IL this week and looked pretty good in his first start, which makes me willing to take a gamble in most formats, especially if I needed a win.
Lastly, DJ Herz has a solid matchup against the Mets, and the left-hander has posted a 2.65 ERA and 10.59 K/9 over his last 34 innings. Those starts have come against the Orioles, Giants, Braves, Cubs, Rockies, and Pirates so a lot of offenses that are on par with the Mets. I’m not confident in Herz’s ability to register a win, so that is a bit of a knock against him.
A lot of these are pitchers we have major reservations about who are in good matchups, like Griffin Canning against the White Sox, Bobby Miller against the Marlins, Alec Marsh against the Tigers, Cooper Criswell against the Rays, and Bailey Falter against the Cardinals.
We also have two-start weeks from Aaron Civale and Joey Estes, who have both pitched fairly well of late but get two fairly difficult matchups. Civale has a better chance at getting wins, so he’d be my preference, but I’d likely avoid both of them unless I wanted to try and rack up strikeouts. Tylor Megill also has a two-start week, and I’d be interested if it was just the Nationals, but adding the Phillies into that gives me lots of pause.
Ben Lively did have a two-start week, but that was moved to just one start against the Cardinals after Alex Cobb was placed on the IL. Still, he has pitched to a 5.50 ERA in 37 2/3 innings since August 1st, so I’d have to really be chasing wins to use him.
Ian Anderson is an interesting situation because he seems likely to join the Braves rotation with Reynaldo Lopez hitting the IL. However, Anderson hasn’t been great on his rehab assignment and is throwing just 92 mph on the fastball, which is down two mph from when he was last in the big leagues. The matchup is great, but I’m not sure how much I would trust Anderson in his first start back.
Brant Hurter doesn’t get a great matchup, but he has been solid since acting as a bulk reliever for the Tigers of late, pitching to a 3.00 ERA and 7.91 K/9 in 33 innings. Because he has been used as a follower, he has also picked up four wins over that span, which gives him a little bit of added value. I don’t love the matchup against the Royals, but it’s not awful.
Maybe I should have Dean Kremer in the tier above. After all, he has a 3.92 ERA and 8.24 K/9 in 43.2 innings since August 1st, and the Giants are not an elite offense. However, I have just seen Kremer fall short a few too many times to have tons of confidence that he can keep the Giants at bay in this one and steal a win.
Same goes for MacKenzie Gore, who seemed to be getting back on track after a really poor end to the summer, but his last start filled me with all of the same dread. I’m just not sure I can trust him against a surging Cubs lineup.
There are some notable names on here, but given the matchups or return from injury (Reese Olson), I’m going to avoid everybody on this list unless I’m in a super deep league and am desperate for strikeouts or maybe wins.
