Starting Pitchers

Tier 1:             Clayton Kershaw

Tier 2:             Yu Darvish, Adam Wainwright, Cliff Lee, Felix Hernandez, Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer

Tier 3:             David Price, Chris Sale, Madison Bumgarner, Jose Fernandez, Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke

Tier 4:             Anibal Sanchez, Gerrit Cole, Mat Latos, Mike Minor, Jordan Zimmerman, Matt Cain, Alex Cobb, James Shields, Gio Gonzalez, Homer Bailey

Tier 5:             Jered Weaver, Masahiro Tanaka, Shelby Miller, Julio Teheran, Kris Medlin, Danny Salazar, Hisashi Iwakuma, Doug Fister, Matt Moore, Sonny Gray

Tier 6:             Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jeff Samardzija, Michael Wacha, Jon Lester, Andrew Cashner, Cole Hamels, Hiroki Kuroda, Johnny Cueto, Zack Wheeler, RA Dickey, CC Sabathia, CJ Wilson, Patrick Corbin, Chris Archer, Clay Buchholz, Tony Cingrani

Tier 7:             Matt Garza, Dan Haren, Jake Peavy, Justin Masterson, Francisco Liriano, AJ Burnett, Marco Estrada, Jarrod Parker, Ivan Nova, Yovani Gallardo, Tim Lincecum, Corey Kluber, Chris Tillman, Taijuan Walker, John Lackey, Dan Strailey, Ervin Santana, Rick Porcello, Alex Wood, Ubaldo Jimenez

Tier 8:             Bartolo Colon, Dillon Gee, Josh Johnson, Brandon Beachy, Jonathan Niese, Ian Kennedy, AJ Griffin, Wade Miley, Travis Wood

* Note: Players in bold are those whom I expect to outperform their ADPs.

Starting pitching continues to remain incredibly deep. The top tier pitchers are clearly defined, but once you start dipping into tiers 4 and below, the tier lines get quite blurry and subject to personal preference. With such incredible depth, I suggest getting one stud anchor for your staff, and once you’ve solidified your offense, draft a large volume of pitchers from the tier 5 range and down.

Now if the opportunity arises to draft a second stud pitcher at great value in the earlier rounds, that’s fine to pull the trigger. Just note lots of pitching remains in the later rounds.

The youthful trio of Teheran, Salazar and Gray boasted terrific peripheral stats last season, and they passed the eyeball test as well. As such, expect each of them to take another sizeable leap forward season.

While not quite as talented as the aforementioned trio, Ivan Nova also took a leap forward last year with an increased K rate and decreased walk rate, and he is a sneaky good selection in the mid to later rounds.

Finally, two pitchers who only a few years ago were ranked near the top of the pitching pyramid – Dan Haren and Josh Johnson – are worth a flyer for those looking for value in the later rounds. While spring training always brings the most optimistic news, Haren and Johnson are rumored to be as healthy as they’ve been in a few years. Based on their ADPs, why not take a chance?

Neema Hodjat is the fantasy sports writer for RealGM.  He can be reached via email at nhodjat@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at @NeemaHodjat.