First of all, since we haven’t updated the pitcher’s rankings in quite a while, let’s do a couple of charts that just summarize how major league pitchers have been pitching since June 13, which was the last time I updated this.    Since June 13, the ten best major league pitchers have been R. A. Dikcey, Justin Verlander (not counting the All-Star game), Felix Hernandez, Michael Fiers, Mat Latos, Jered Weaver, James McDonald, Max Scherzer, Jake Peavy, Jose Quintana, and Yu Darvish.   Was that eleven?   Sorry; I can’t Yu out of my heart.

                The numbers in the chart represent how the starter pitched in each five-day start window; "June 13" means June 13 to June 17, etc.  The "Score" is based on the sum of the Game Scores, minus what the sum of the Game Scores would have been if the pitcher had posted a "50" in every game.

                Luke Hochevar, really?    I didn’t know.  "R. A.", by the way, stands for "Rag Arm"; I don’t know if you knew that.   The White Sox have three pitchers pitching extremely well—really four, as Floyd is now pitching well also—and the Giants have three, and the Reds have three.   Now let’s look at the 25 guys who most notably aren’t pitching well.     No relation to Rocky Raccoon:

My boys don’t have anybody in the top 25 or in the bottom 25, whereas all of the Giants’ rotation is on one list or the other one.   The Royals and the Indians have three starting pitchers who have been getting regularly beaten up by the Proletariat and the Cavalry, and the Dodgers have a couple of guys who have been getting hit by the Street Cars.   It will be interesting to see which of these competitors is able to stay in the starting rotation.

                Now getting to the current rankings.  . . .outside the Top Ten, there is a lot of stuff happening.   Rag Arm, who started the year ranked 47^th among starting pitchers, has climbed to 14^th, while Gio Gonzalez, who started in 30^th place, is now ranked 12^th, and David Price, who started 24^th, is 11^th.    There seems, however, to be a magic wall around the top ten; the same pitchers are still in the top ten who have been there all year, except that Lincecum has dropped out (and how), and his spot is currently taken by C. J. Wilson.    Four of the top ten (Verlander, Cain, Hernandez and Weaver) were listed moments ago among the pitchers pitching the best over the last three weeks:

Verlander is now ridiculously far ahead.  The number of pitchers over 500, which should be going up at this point of the season, is actually going down, as many of the pitchers in the 480-520 range have not been pitching well. 

James McDonald, perhaps the most under-reported story of the 2012 season, is the highest-rated pitcher who started the season not in the top 100.   Jake Peavy has moved from 133^rd to 58^th.

                One can sort of think of the 500 level as a #1 starter, and the 450 level as a #2 starter.   It is very difficult to get to the 500 level and very difficult to stay there once you get there, and one can say that at the start of the season there are a bunch of guys who might be #1 starters or not.   As the season goes on the scores move up very, very slightly, so that we should have 30 or 30+ guys over 500 by the end of the second half.   By extension, the range 400 to 450 could be described as #3 starters—with a mix of a few guys blazing their way up the list, and a few guys dropping gradually down to obscurity:

                Converted reliever Chris (President’s Day Mattress) Sale is the highest-ranked pitcher who started the campaign unranked.   Jeremy (Wha’ The) Hellickson has the honor of joining Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez as the only guys who are ranked now exactly where they were ranked at the start of the season.   These, then, would be the #4 starters:

                Only two of the #3 starters started the season un-ranked (Darvish and Sale), whereas almost half of the #4s are guys who started the season unranked.     Many of these pitchers have been in and out of the rotation.    Altogether we have 227 ranked pitchers at the moment, which means we have too many left to cover them all with one list, so we’ll make them #5 and #6 starters.   Number fives:

                And number sixes:

                Sam Deduno?   Jeremy Hefner?   Joe Wieland?   How do we even know if these are real pitchers at this point, rather than just made-up names?   

Bill James