As you will have noticed if you have followed my tiers series, I didn’t do an article for pitchers. The reason for this is that I have never really tracked pitchers and their performances in the past like I have hitters so I did not feel comfortable doing tiers for a group I wasn’t confident with. However, my aim for this year is to have a better understanding of pitchers come the end of the year and by previewing the pitching options each week that is how I intend to do this.

Each week I will highlight the two start pitchers and then further highlight the ones I feel are worth your time and the ones that aren’t. In addition, I will also take a look at the one start pitchers and highlight guys you may want to pick up when they have a decent match up.

This week will actually cover 8 days as because of opening night on Sunday (If you league week started with the Australia games then sorry but rotations were impossible to fully predict at that point). Here are this week’s match ups:

Here are all the starting pitchers for each team this week:

Two Start Pitchers

We have 41 pitchers who are starting twice this week with many of them being some of the best pitchers around so are likely to be 100% owned. Of those many will be started regardless of the match up so they are basically irrelevant to this article so the intrigue lies with the guys beyond the top tier.

Within the tiers below players are not listed in any particular order.

Must Start (All 100% owned):

Image courtesy of cbs sports

• Verlander: A relatively good match up vs KC and a tougher one against Baltimore but at least it is at home
• Sale: Minnesota and KC aren’t match ups that will worry you overly
• F. Hernandez: @LAA and @ Oakland means he is playing in two good parks this week
• Strasburg: Neither matchup is overly damaging
• J. Fernandez: Playing twice in his home stadium.
• A. Wainwright: Match up @Cincy has potential for danger but then he goes to Pittsburgh
• Ryu: Two match ups in decent pitching stadiums
• Grienke: Same as above
• Bumgarner: Tough stadium @Arizona and then a potentially tricky match up with the Dodgers but you aren’t sitting him this week.
• Cain: Same as above.
• Weaver: Playing at a great pitchers park in Seattle and playing a poor Houston team = A good week

Safe Starts (Ownership 100% unless stated):

• Price: Two games in his home, pitcher friendly, stadium but against strong line ups.
• Moore: As Above
• Shields: Tough game at Detroit but a better match up against Chicago
• Masterson: Playing in two pitchers parks and one of those is a weak Minnesota line up
• Gray: Two games at home in a pitcher friendly park.
• Teheran: Should be solid against two middle of the road line ups
• Lee: Game @ Texas is a tough match up but I love the one @ Cubs
• Burnett: As above.
• Samardzija: Two nice match ups in decent parks.
• Cueto: Could struggle a little against St. Louis but should be ace @ Mets
• Liriano: Two games at home in a pitchers park.
• Cashner: Always love it when he pitches at home and then add in a start @ Miami and it becomes a really nice week.
• Kazmir (6%): Two starts in Oakland is always nice

Tough Choices (Ownership %):

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• Lester (100): Really Tough match up @ Baltimore followed by a tough return home.
• Sabathia (100): Love his match up in Houston but less keen about the one in Toronto. Both hitter friendly parks.
• Dickey (100): Pitchers park in Tampa Bay but his return home concerns me
• Tillman (98): A game at home in a tough park followed by a fearsome Detroit match up
• Wood (88): Playing two weaker line ups but I’m not crazy enough about the parks to think he could be as good as Teheran
• Gee (50): Should provide some strikeouts in two home games
• Kennedy (13): Pitching at home and at Miami is always a good combination. Just not sure I trust him quite enough to be a definite start.
• Scheppers (7): Philly don’t have a great line up but pitching in Texas is always tough and then he goes to pitcher friendly Tampa but they have a decent line up.
• Ramirez (1): Two games in pitchers parks but against two hard hitting line ups
• Eovaldi (1): Playing at home twice against weak line ups means I want to trust him more but I just can’t
• Cahill (1): Two tough games in hitter friendly parks with one of those being in Denver

Risky Starts (Ownership %):

• Gallardo (96): Two tough match ups
• Nolasco (7): Two tough games this week.
• De La Rosa (3): I love the match up @ Miami but in Colorado against Arizona worries me a lot
• Hutchison (2): Has been given the number 2 role in the rotation but I’m not trusting him yet.
• McCarthy (1): A tough match up with San Fran followed by a game in Denver.
• Anderson (1): Same as De La Rosa

One Start Pitchers

Intriguing match ups (Ownership %):

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• Kuroda (100) & Nova (99): Both play Houston and there isn’t much in Houston’s line up to worry about
• Kluber (12): I like guys pitching in Oakland whether it is as the home or away team
• Salazar (100) & Carrasco (<1): Both playing against the Twins in Minnesota’s pitcher friendly park. Salazar could potentially have an elite week with this match up and his ability.
• Santiago (2) & Skaggs (2): You may notice a theme developing here because these guys are listed here as they are playing Houston. Downside is that Houston is hitter friendly.
• Roberto Hernandez (0): Match ups against the Cubs have the potential to be very promising.
• Morton (1) & Wandy Rodriguez (1): Simply a case of playing the Cubs at home
• Kennedy (13) & Ross (3): Love San Diego Pitchers when they play at home even in a tough LA Dodgers match up
• Stults (0): Nice match up in Miami

So there we have it for my two start pitchers and my intriguing one start guys for week 1. By no means am I saying drop people who don’t appear on this list for those that do. For example do not drop Cingrani for Kluber but you might want to consider starting the two start guys in the top three tiers over Cingrani. When it comes to the one start guys listed above it is a more of a deep league view in many cases of people who may be worth picking up and plugging in where you are waiting on a Hamels or Minor to return.