This article comes out every Thursday. In previous years it was updated rankings each Thursday, but weekly is too frequent for updates to rankings. Monthly seems more like the stick. And so ‘The Rubber’ will be an updated top 75 on the first Thursday of each month.

These are designed to be rankings going forward, predictive rather than descriptive. I would trade pitchers on this list for anyone listed above them if such a trade were offered to me tomorrow. For example, I’m only trading Verlander for Kershaw.

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1.            Clayton Kershaw | Los Angeles Dodgers | 100% owned

2.            Justin Verlander | Detroit Tigers | 100% owned

3.            Adam Wainwright | St. Louis Cardinals | 100% owned

4.            Felix Hernandez | Seattle Mariners | 100% owned

5.            Stephen Strasburg | Washington Nationals | 100% owned

6.            Yu Darvish | Texas Rangers | 100% owned

On Tuesday night I started doing some research for these rankings, and the data I had was current through Monday games. With that data set, I determined where each starter with 17+IP ranked in a few statistics that I find particularly important: K%-BB%, GB%, SIERA, ISO allowed, and swinging strike rate.

I then totaled up each guy’s ranking in each stat just to get a general idea of what kind of skill everyone has displayed so far this year. Topping the list was Darvish. As of Monday, he ranked 1st in SIERA, ISO allowed, and SwStr%, 2nd in GB%, and 7th in K%-BB%. All told his ‘total’ was 12. The next closest guy was Adam Wainwright with a total of 101! Darvish was the only guy who was even in single digits and he totaled a mere 12.

Darvish got roughed up a bit on Tuesday night, so the numbers would probably shake out a little differently now. But the point is that he’s reached the potential that so many thought he had. I still have him just outside my top five because even though his control is better than it was last year, his walk rate still a little higher than league average at 8.6%.

7.            Cliff Lee | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned

8.            David Price | Tampa Bay Rays | 100% owned

9.            Cole Hamels | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned

10.          Chris Sale | Chicago White Sox | 100% owned

11.          CC Sabathia | New York Yankees | 100% owned

12.          Madison Bumgarner | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned

13.          James Shields | Kansas City Royals | 100% owned

14.          Max Scherzer | Detroit Tigers | 100% owned

15.          Anibal Sanchez | Detroit Tigers | 100% owned

16.          Jeff Samardzija | Chicago Cubs | 100% owned

17.          Matt Harvey | New York Mets | 100% owned

I’m not sure if people think 17 is too low or too high for Harvey. It could be both. On one hand, Harvey is 7th in WAR and 12th in xFIP. But on the other hand, he still hasn’t pitched 100 major league innings, and he has a career BABIP of .242 and strand rate of 82.8%.

In all honesty, I expect Harvey to better than 17th at the end of the year by most any measure such as ESPN’s player rater or even just by xFIP or WAR. But my nature is to be cautious, to see it before I believe it. As a result, I miss out on some guys. But I believe this disposition also helps me avoid overpaying for a commodity.

18.          Jordan Zimmermann | Washington Nationals | 100% owned

19.          R.A. Dickey | Toronto Blue Jays | 100% owned

20.          Doug Fister | Detroit Tigers | 100% owned

21.          Gio Gonzalez | Washington Nationals | 100% owned

22.          Johnny Cueto | Cincinnati Reds | 100% owned

23.          Mat Latos | Cincinnati Reds | 100% owned

24.          Matt Moore | Tampa Bay Rays | 100% owned

25.          Matt Cain | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned

In our preseason draft kit, I had this to say about Matt Cain:

His low BABIP and ability to limit home runs are the reasons he has been able to consistently outperform his peripherals. But if those skills ever go away or if Cain just has some bad luck, he’ll blow up in a big way.

So far this season, one of those skills has not been present and Cain’s ERA has blown up. The BABIP is still low, but Cain has been tagged for nine home runs, which is as many as he allowed in all of 2011. Admittedly, there has to be some level of bad luck in his 19.1% HR/FB (career 7.1%) in that no one expects that rate to continue. However, some of it appears to be Cain’s fault. His Zone% is up, his first pitch strike percentage is way up, he’s inducing fewer swings at pitches outside of the zone, hitters are making more contact on his pitches in the zone, and his groundball rate is down. All of those factors intuitively seem like they would lead to an increase in homers.

And there are other numbers that don’t look quite right. His velocity is down a bit as is his swinging strike rate. Maybe it’s just a bad start for Cain. But I was somewhat concerned about him coming into the season, and he’s done nothing to alleviate my concerns.

26.          Jake Peavy | Chicago White Sox | 100% owned

27.          A.J. Burnett | Pittsburgh Pirates | 100% owned

28.          Hiroki Kuroda | New York Yankees | 100% owned

29.          Jon Lester | Boston Red Sox | 100% owned

30.          Zack Greinke | Los Angeles Dodgers | 96.8% owned

31.          Kris Medlen | Atlanta Braves | 99.6% owned

32.          Mike Minor | Atlanta Braves | 100% owned

33.          Roy Halladay | Philadelphia Phillies | 100% owned

34.          Jaime Garcia | St. Louis Cardinals | 97.1% owned

35.          Homer Bailey | Cincinnati Reds | 100% owned

36.          Jon Niese | New York Mets | 79% owned

37.          Alex Cobb | Tampa Bay Rays | 100% owned

38.          Hyun-Jin Ryu | Los Angeles Dodgers | 92.3% owned

It’s hard to properly evaluate someone based on less than 40 major league innings and zero familiarity with the pitcher from the minors to rely on. But Ryu has been really impressive in his first six starts. You have to start with the strikeout ability. He has struck out 30.3% of the batter he has faced, which is good for 8th best in the league. And he has backed it up with a healthy 10.2% SwStr%. He’s doing it primarily with an average fastball (90-92 mph), a plus slider, and a decent change.

Aside from the limited sample, the only possible concern that shows up in the numbers is that he hasn’t induced a ton of ground balls. But he has a decent home park in which to leave some balls in the air. With that being the main concern, I wanted to put him a several slots higher. But the 40 inning sample still leaves me with some reservation.

39.          Jered Weaver | Los Angeles Angels | 100% owned

40.          Wade Miley | Arizona Diamondbacks | 100% owned

41.          Josh Johnson | Toronto Blue Jays | 60.5% owned

42.          Hisashi Iwakuma | Seattle Mariners | 100% owned

43.          Ryan Dempster | Boston Red Sox | 99.5% owned

44.          Alexi Ogando | Texas Rangers | 94.2% owned

45.          Marco Estrada | Milwaukee Brewers | 69.8% owned

46.          Lance Lynn | St. Louis Cardinals | 100% owned

47.          Tim Lincecum | San Francisco Giants | 100% owned

48.          Shelby Miller | St. Louis Cardinals | 100% owned

49.          Paul Maholm | Atlanta Braves | 100% owned

50.          Justin Masterson | Cleveland Indians | 91.6% owned

51.          Jeremy Hellickson | Tampa Bay Rays | 92.8% owned

52.          Edwin Jackson | Chicago Cubs | 32.7% owned

53.          Carlos Villanueva | Chicago Cubs | 47.5% owned

54.          Clay Buchholz | Boston Red Sox | 100% owned

Buchholz was great again on Wednesday night bringing his ERA on the season to 1.01. But as you can tell from this ranking, I’m not buying it.

Let’s start with the fact that all the success Buchholz has had in the past was almost purely luck driven. Here are a few numbers from his last three seasons:

		Luck			Skill
	ERA	BABIP	LOB%	HR/FB	K%	BB%
2010	2.33	.261	79%	5.6%	16.9%	9.4%
2011	3.48	.264	79%	10.1%	17%	8.8%
2012	4.39	.283	69.7%	13%	16.1%	8%

 

It’s obvious that Buchholz’s ERA hasn’t been changing because of Buchholz’s (shitty) skill set. It changes according to the amount of luck he gets. How luck has been this year? Here you go:

	BABIP	LOB%	HR/FB
2013	.264	90.2%	3.7%

 

Now, some of you may point out that while Buchholz’s walk rate remains below average, his strikeout rate has actually been well above average so far this year. True, his 27.8% K% is substantially better. But the problem is that his swinging strike rate is actually a lower so far this season than it has been in any other year. His velocity is lower than it has ever been. He’s inducing fewer swings at pitches outside of the zone. All the things that might back up an increase in strikeout rate actually indicate that Buchholz should be striking out fewer batters, not more.

The sky is going to fall. Don’t willingly stand under it. Buchholz is as good as sell-high candidates get.

55.          Yovani Gallardo | Milwaukee Brewers | 100% owned

56.          Derek Holland | Texas Rangers | 98.4% owned

57.          Ryan Vogelsong | San Francisco Giants | 42.9% owned

58.          Ian Kennedy | Arizona Diamondbacks | 95.6% owned

59.          Brandon Morrow | Toronto Blue Jays | 67% owned

60.          Ervin Santana | Los Angeles angels | 93% owned

61.          Dan Haren | Washington Nationals | 44.9% owned

62.          Josh Beckett | Los Angeles Dodgers | 38.2% owned

63.          Tim Hudson | Atlanta Braves | 94.3% owned

64.          Trevor Cahill | Arizona Diamondbacks | 67.3% owned

65.          Jason Hammel | Baltimore Orioles | 19.3% owned

66.          Felix Doubront | Boston Red Sox | 15.7% owned

67.          Tommy Milone | Oakland Athletics | 82.8% owned

68.          Dillon Gee | New York Mets | 1.5% owned

If you’ve read anything I’ve written this season, you’ve probably seen me declare my love for Dillon Gee. While discouraged by the early season results, I’m not giving up just yet. If you want to know why I like him, you can find links to my love letters to him here.

69.          Brandon McCarthy | Arizona Diamondbacks | 18.5% owned

70.          C.J. Wilson | Los Angeles Angels | 96.3% owned

71.          Wandy Rodriguez | Pittsburgh Pirates | 50% owned

72.          Ross Detwiler | Washington Nationals | 63.7% owned

73.          Tony Cingrani | Cincinnati Reds | 98.5% owned

74.          Patrick Corbin | Arizona Diamondbacks | 81% owned

75.          Bartolo Colon | Oakland Athletics | 17% owned