Tampa Bay Rays Fantasy: Importance of elite SPs in 60-game season

Tampa Bay Rays: With the season set to start on July 24, fantasy strategies are quickly being revamped. We take a look at why SPs will be very important in this shortened season.

Tampa Bay Rays – Today we talk a little fantasy baseball 2020 and the importance of aces this season.

With the announcement that players would report to camp by July 1 and the season would begin 24 days later, fans have been losing their minds. Well, I can’t speak for all of you, but I have been losing my mind.

While fantasy league managers are consulting with their constituents on whether they should cancel entry-fees (are you listening MLB.TV?) for the season or simply reduce them, we take a look at the impact a good staff of starting pitchers will have on your roto team.

A typical innings limit on a full season is usually 1,400 innings for your pitching staff in roto. That means that you can use any combination of pitchers you can muster to build your statistics until your players have accumulated 1,400 innings pitched.

Considering that the 2020 season will only be 37% of a regular season, in theory, that means we are only getting a cap of 518 innings from our starters.

The importance of getting a handful of elite-starting pitchers is magnified when you run some numbers.

First, here’s a look at ESPN’s top 20 starting pitchers.

ESPN’s Fantasy Top 20 Starting Pitchers

1. Gerrit Cole
2. Jacob deGrom
3. Max Scherzer
4. Justin Verlander
5. Walker Buehler
6. Jack Flaherty
7. Stephen Strasburg
8. Shane Bieber
9. Clayton Kershaw
10. Aaron Nola
11. Luis Castillo
12. Patrick Corbin
13. Charlie Morton
14. Mike Clevinger
15. Lucas Giolito
16. Zack Greinke
17. Blake Snell
18. Yu Darvish
19. Jose Berrios
20. Chris Paddack