Ranking the starting pitchers for 2014 was by far the hardest list I had to make. On a few of the lists – SS in particular – I had to talk myself into including someone that I might not be exuding confidence about. Starting pitching was an entirely different animal. I had to talk myself out of a lot of options because pitching is so strong in today’s game.

For that reason, and the number of pitchers available, I decided to do a top 20 at the position instead of a top 10. The usual suspects like, Kershaw, Wainwright, and Felix, will be on the list along with a few guys that I’m, perhaps, more of a believer in than others.

The top 10 should not have any large surprises on it, except for possibly Anibal Sanchez, but I’ll get to him.

There’s nothing I can write about Clayton Kershaw that you haven’t read before. My opinion of him is similar to my “in-depth analysis” of Mike Trout in my OF piece: “He’s the best, blah, blah. Draft him with confidence.” He’s the safest pitching option there is on the planet. He’s an ace in every sense of the word. Hell, he even wore Air Maxes to his wedding. No one else really belongs in the conversation to be the number 1 pitcher off the board in 2014.

Over the past two seasons no pitcher that has managed to strike out more batters than Yu Darvish. Max Scherzer, ranked directly behind him, is close, but he’s not quite there. They’re both fantastic strikeout artists. If you want to read more about why I prefer K% instead of K/9 check this out.

As far as Darvish is concerned, I’ll let this GIF do most of the the talking for me.

The only flaws in Darvish’s game are his ability to get a little homer prone and his command. His HR/FB is the highest of anyone on this list and at times his command can get a little out of whack. Those flaws aren’t nearly enough to cause a great deal of worry about the game’s premier strikeout artist.

Despite the fact that some people voiced concern about Darvish’s inability to “get through the sixth inning” on multiple occasions last year he still managed to put up a 2.83 ERA in 209 innings with a league high 277 strikeouts. The moral of that story is, Yu Darvish is awesome and anyone who suggests otherwise shouldn’t be listened to on the subject.

My advice regarding Max Scherzer is similar to the above advice about Kershaw & Darvish. Obviously, you are not able to draft him with the same level of confidence that you are able to with Kershaw, but you should be pretty damn confident in him. Pitching is an odd thing to project because there is so much involved that pitchers do not directly control. Their defense comes into play, as does their field and its atmosphere. However, hitters cannot have too much “bad luck” if they don’t allow the ball to actually be put in play. That’s why Scherzer is here.

Scherzer always had the potential to be an ace and that potential finally culminated in 2013. He’s also going to get a little more help from his defense now that he’ll have Jose Iglesias manning short stop full time and Miguel Cabrera playing his natural position of first base.

It’s so tough to write on the guys mentioned above and Adam Wainwright. They’re beaten into our minds on a daily basis and we all know how good they are. Nonetheless, I’m supposed to be relaying information and hopefully providing some decent advice.

Wainwright’s hallmark, at least in my opinion, is his command. Nearly no one gets a free pass from him. Wainwright only doled out 35 non-intentional free passes in 241 innings in 2013. That’s outstanding. Wainwright is also very good at striking out the opposition and generating ground balls. The latter is extremely important because ground balls are not very likely to result in extra base hits or too much “damage.” Wainwright is somewhat like Kershaw, he’s good at everything. He ranked in the top 20 in the following categories among starters in 2013: GB%, BB%, WHIP, ERA, HR/FB. He even finished 22nd in K% too. He’s good, pitches a ton of innings, and pitches them well. He’s a fantasy ace.

Felix Hernandez has basically reinvented himself as a pitcher without missing a beat. He doesn’t throw quite as hard as he used too, but he’s still as good if not better than he used to be.

Felix has evolved from being essentially a fastball-curveball-change-up pitcher to having 4 legitimate pitches that he’ll throw at anytime. Felix’s change-up, which some refer to as a split-finger is one of my favorite pitches in the game. Obviously, he likes it as well because its usage has spiked as his fastball velocity has dipped. Despite the fact that he is using it more, hitters still have no idea what to do with it. According to data from Brooks Baseball, (which is a fantastic site that I use for nearly every piece) opposing batters hit .135 and slugged .207 while missing on nearly 43% of their swings on against his change-up. All hail the king.

Cliff Lee is an ageless wonder. He’s still great despite the fact that he’s entering his mid-30’s. He may actually run himself off before the game runs him off. His velocity dipped a little bit in 2013, but he’s still striking plenty of batters out, walking no one, and preventing runs at one of the best rates in the league. Similar to Felix, opposing batters have no idea what’s coming. He’s safe. Draft him.

My sweet, sweet Anibal Sanchez. I’ve written at length before Mr. Sanchez here at The Fix. I won’t regurgitate what I wrote a few months back. I’m still all in and I’m willing to bet he’ll be ranked much lower than 8th on the majority of the sites which will allow him to produce some surplus value. Unfortunately, he won’t be quite as cheap as he was in 2013. Sanchez’s rank at draft time last season on Yahoo was in the 140’s. He was on every team I had. I’ll leave with one of my favorite pitching GIFs of 2013; Mr. Sanchez striking out 17 Braves, including Uggla 4 times!

On some level, I feel like, despite the hype that surrounded Stephen Strasburg when he arrived, many people shortchange him. Sure, he’s never thrown 200+ innings and there is seemingly something always going on between him and the Nationals’ staff or front office. I haven’t spoken much about wins yet, mainly because despite the fact that they’re a major fantasy category in most leagues (thankfully, not mine), they’re extremely hard to project. Strasburg was much better in 2013 than his palty 8-9 record would indicate. Perhaps that’s why some people are down on him; who knows?

There’s no doubting how much potential Strasburg possesses. His ability to change speeds at will might be second to none in the major leagues. Strasburg’s strikeout rates declined a little in 2013 from their stellar 2012 homes, but he was still able to rank 7th in K%. Strasburg’s 2013 was basically the same as his 2012 except for one nice sized difference. He was able to increase his GB% to a phenomenal 51.5% I am going to credit some of the improvement in this area to his increased usage in his curveball. Over the past two seasons, Strasburg’s curveball has had a 60% chance of being in a groundball when it’s put into play. In 2013, Strasburg upped his curveball usage nearly 3.5%. That’s not a huge difference, but it should help explain Strasburg’s ability to get groundballs at a higher rate.

Strasburg is a phenomenal pitcher that many people my downgrade due to faults some may believe he has. That’s fine. He’s, most likely, the pitcher I would put the best odds on of pitchers rated outside of the top 5 to finish at number 1.

Chris Sale is one of the reasons I loathe the “win” stat. I don’t want to turn this piece into a debate about new school versus old school, but Sale’s 2013 should at least make you somewhat indifferent to the stat if you aren’t already.

Sale was good to great in 3 out of the 4 standard categories in 2013. It’s a shame he plays for such an awful team. Wins are somewhat impossible to project, but it’s fair to assume that Chris Sale will be on a worse team than every name in front of him on my rankings which will, in theory, give him fewer chances to “win” games.

Sale’s 2013 saw some interesting developments. He used his fastball a little less and upped the usage of his secondary offerings (slider & change-up). Sliders have been proven to have a large platoon split, so it’s nice to see Sale add in a third pitch in order to keep righties from sitting on two pitches. He still uses the slider as his go-to pitch most of the time, but the change-up just gives him one more weapon in his arsenal.

As long as wins are a stat used by fantasy leagues Sale will be downgraded a little bit. I’m not sure he should be though.

Jose Fernandez‘s curveball is my favorite pitch in the game. If someone ever tells you that “pitching is boring” or anything of the sort, just show them a Fernandez highlight. I get weak in the knees watching him buckle batters from my couch, so I can’t even imagine how it feels to be in the box against him.

I wrote a little piece about Fernandez and how he compares to Felix whenever Felix first donned a Seattle uni. All of that research still applies.

Fernandez was shut down in 2013 due to an innings limit, but that should not be an issue in 2014. Even if the Marlins’ don’t want to increase his inning by more than 30 a year he’ll still get to throw around 200 frames. I eventually went with Fernandez in this spot over guys like David Price and Zack Greinke because of his higher upside as far as strikeouts are concerned. Fernandez, like Sale, is at the mercy of his team’s anemic offense, so the wins might not be as plentiful as we would like. Other than the lack of a good team around him there’s not much to find wrong with Jose in 2014.