2022 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Top 50 Starting Pitchers

Here’s a curious thing—you do so many fantasy baseball drafts in the same location, and you forget that not everyone plays fantasy sports in the same place. For instance, Shohei Ohtani can be a hitter or a pitcher at the NFBC, but in some places he is only one or the other.

So if you see a wacky-looking Shohei Ohtani ranking today, that might be a little bit jarring—at least if you’re looking with your NFBC goggles. But think about it...if you ranked Ohtani SOLELY as a starting pitcher, how low would you go? Here are his innings pitched by season: 51 ²⁄₃, 0, 1 ²⁄₃, 130 ¹⁄₃. Sure, that tally comes with a career 3.53 ERA and a shiny 1.16 WHIP, as well as a 29.2% K-rate. But what’s realistic with regard to innings pitched? Steamer is the most bullish projection system, at 165 innings. But other systems hover around the 140 to 150 innings pitched mark.

A guy like Freddy Peralta has similar workload questions, though he’s had more of a gradual build-up and pitched more innings last year (144 ¹⁄₃). His career ERA of 3.87 lags behind Ohtani, but both players bested their career marks by a mile last year—Ohtani had a 3.18 ERA, while Peralta managed a 2.81 ERA. Peralta’s career K-rate is 32.2%, and his 1.15 WHIP is a hair better than Ohtani’s. I think you’re at least looking at that Peralta/Robbie Ray/Chris Sale area if you’re ranking Ohtani solely as a starting pitcher...but what say you all? How low would you go on Ohtani if he were merely SP-eligible?

We are ranking starting pitchers, so we had to ask!