2024 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Tiers 2.0: Tiered rankings for a position overtaken by 'The Glob'

The glob has taken hold at a position that's as volatile as ever

By Scott White

Feb 22, 2024 at 9:45 am ET • 2 min read

Tiers are an alternate form of rankings that concerns itself less with parsing individual players and more with denoting the biggest drop-offs. Players whose value is essentially the same are bundled together to help you prioritize which position to draft next. If the goal in a draft is to maximize the return of each pick, then a simple way to do so is to target a position that's nearing a drop-off and wait on a position that isn't. By crossing off names as you go, your path to victory should become clear.

Position Strategies: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
Position Previews: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
Position Tiers: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP

Below are the starting pitcher tiers for 2024, some of which have been renamed to depict our new reality better. Not only are there fewer true standouts at the position, but it turns out some of the rule changes introduced last year only served to increase the volatility at an ever-volatile position. It's made for a mass of pitchers (familiarly known as "the glob") with such a wide range of possible outcomes that to define them by tiers is almost a fool's errand. Yet I've attempted to do so anyway, for better or worse.

The First-Rounders: Spencer Strider, Gerrit Cole
The Also-Elite: Corbin Burnes, Kevin Gausman, Zack Wheeler, Luis Castillo, Zac Gallen, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Pablo Lopez, Logan Webb†
The Near-Elite: Tarik Skubal, Tyler Glasnow, Freddy Peralta^, Aaron Nola†, Framber Valdez†, Blake Snell, Cole Ragans*
The Next-Best Things: Max Fried, George Kirby, Justin Steele, Zach Eflin, Jesus Luzardo, Logan Gilbert
The Fallback Options: Eury Perez, Bobby Miller, Grayson Rodriguez, Tanner Bibee, Joe Musgrove, Merrill Kelly, Mitch Keller, Dylan Cease
The Start of Glob: Gavin Williams, Chris Sale, Carlos Rodon, Sonny Gray, Michael King*, Joe Ryan, Shane Bieber, Kodai Senga, Justin Verlander, Cristian Javier, Hunter Greene, Chris Bassitt, Jose Berrios, Jordan Montgomery, Yu Darvish, Walker Buehler, Nathan Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta*, Ryan Pepiot*, Bailey Ober
The End of Glob: Hunter Brown, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott, Kyle Harrison, Lucas Giolito, Eduardo Rodriguez, Cristopher Sanchez, Shota Imanaga, Bryan Woo, Triston McKenzie, Charlie Morton, Erick Fedde, Nestor Cortes, Reese Olson, Bryce Miller, Reid Detmers, Shane Baz, Kyle Bradish, Jon Gray, Brandon Pfaadt, Luis Severino, Emmet Sheehan, Kenta Maeda, James Paxton, Alek Manoah, Max Scherzer, Yusei Kikuchi, Aaron Civale, Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, Mason Miller, Taj Bradley, Edward Cabrera, John Means, Chris Paddack*, Brayan Bello, Marcus Stroman, Lance Lynn, Braxton Garrett
The Leftovers: Frankie Montas*, Bryce Elder, Dane Dunning, Kutter Crawford, Chase Silseth, Logan Taylor Allen, Tyler Wells, Trevor Rogers, MacKenzie Gore, Griffin Canning, Jose Quintana, Taijuan Walker, Jameson Taillon, Nick Martinez*, Clayton Kershaw, Ricky Tiedemann, Lance McCullers, Dean Kremer, Sawyer Gipson-Long, Joe Boyle, A.J. Smith-Shawver, J.P. France, Kyle Hendricks, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Patrick Sandoval, Ranger Suarez, Josiah Gray, Graham Ashcraft, Jordan Wicks, Steven Matz, Sean Manaea*, Zack Littell*, DL Hall*, Jack Flaherty, Kyle Gibson, Wade Miley, Miles Mikolas, Aaron Ashby, Brandon Williamson