Saturday's Fantasy Baseball Pitching Streamer Rankings: Slade Cecconi, Yu Darvish, and More

Clayton Kershaw announced on Thursday that he will retire at the end of the season. Before Friday's start, the 37-year-old had a 222-96 record with over 3,000 strikeouts, an ERA of 2.54, three Cy Young Awards, and the 2014 National League MVP. He's a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Kershaw might be the best left-handed pitcher since Randy Johnson. We'll see his final week-plus and whatever he does in the playoffs, and that will be it for one of the best pitchers of a generation. Enjoy the final ride.

Let's look at six starting pitchers in action on Saturday who are widely available in fantasy leagues and have good matchups. Most stats are from MLB.com, as are the probable starters. The full streamer rankings are listed at the bottom.

Check out FantasySP's daily and weekly projections to help make all your lineup decisions.

Logan Allen, Cleveland Guardians @ Minnesota Twins

Slade Cecconi, Cleveland Guardians @ Minnesota Twins

These teams play a double-header today to make up for a missed game on May 20. Ironically, even though the Guardians are the ones chasing the playoffs, they are also the team I would rather target here. Cleveland is a clear bottom-10 offensive team who has played that way most of the season and is getting a little lucky to be in the playoff hunt.

Minnesota's pitchers (Bailey Ober and Joe Ryan) are both owned in most fantasy leagues, so instead we will go after the Twins' offense instead, which also teeters on the bottom 10. They rank in that lowly group (or very close to it) in runs, hits, doubles, walks, batting average, and on-base percentage. Minnesota has a clearly below-average offense.

Allen is a little worse than average with both walks and strikeouts, both in his career and in 2025. He gets hit around a little bit, allowing more than a hit per inning and a home run once every 6.5 innings, a slightly below-average number. Allen is just slightly worse than average across the board, a good innings-eater who is limited in fantasy.

Cecconi is also below average with strikeouts, but he is very good with walks, helping offset that a bit. He is otherwise very similar to Allen, giving up a few too many hits and home runs. He's even worse than Allen with the homers, allowing one every 5.2 innings. Cecconi is another pitcher with a defined fantasy ceiling.

Both Allen and Cecconi are low-to-mid-level streamers. They have a decent matchup, but each pitcher is below average with strikeouts and gets knocked around a little bit.

Kyle Hendricks, Los Angeles Angels @ Colorado Rockies

German Marquez, Colorado Rockies vs. Los Angeles Angels

Two bottom-level teams here get the benefit of playing at Coors Field, taking away some of the fantasy value from our pitchers. They are high-level matchups because the Angels and Rockies are first and second in batter strikeouts, respectively. LA is averaging more than 10 Ks per game. That adds instant fantasy value for opposing pitchers.

Hendricks is good with walks but well below average with strikeouts. His career K rate is a few percentage points below average, but his current rate is just 15.6% versus the league average around 22.5%. Hendricks is far past his prime and now gets hit hard, holding an ERA over 5.00 for the second straight season.

Marquez has generally been around average with both walks and strikeouts in his career, but he is way down with Ks this season. He missed almost all of 2023 and 2024 because of Tommy John surgery, and he doesn't look anything like his old self. He has also been hit hard, giving up 158 hits in 115 innings and a homer every 6.1 innings.

Hendricks and Marquez are both low-level streamers. The matchups are right, but playing in Coors Field brings both guys back down, and their own work hasn't been good enough to warrant fantasy consideration.

Yu Darvish, San Diego Padres @ Chicago White Sox

Darvish has made just 13 starts and thrown 62 1/3 innings this season after beginning the year on the IL. He has been a little better than average with both walks and strikeouts in that time and allowed just 54 hits. Darvish has come across some bad luck and home run woes (giving up one every 5.2 innings), so he has a 5.63 ERA that looks worse than his actual pitching may have been. Darvish has some fantasy intrigue as a former top-line pitcher.

The White Sox had lost six in a row before yesterday's 4-3 win over the Padres. During those losses, they averaged just two runs per game, and it took a seven-run game to even get to that level; outside of that one, they scored just five runs in five games. They had a hot streak in the second half in which they looked more competent, but Chicago is a low-level offensive squad.

Darvish is a low-to-mid-level streamer. There's intrigue due to his good underlying work, but Darvish might still be finding his best form after a late start, and his floor falls because of that.

Luis Morales, Athletics @ Pittsburgh Pirates

Morales is just 38 innings into his big-league career, so far average with strikeouts while walking just a few too many guys. Morales did good strikeout work in the minors, so there's hope he can keep at least an average level there. He has been able to find a level of success, but it's way too early into Morales' career to know what he will end up being.

The Pirates are the right team to test. Six teams have hit fewer than one home run per game, and Pittsburgh sits at the bottom of that list with just 108 homers in 154 games. They are on pace for 113.6 long balls; last year's team with the fewest home runs was the White Sox with 133. The last team with less than 113 in a season was the Tigers in 2022 (110).

Morales is yet another low-to-mid-level streamer. His work has been good but over too short of a span to truly trust, though the matchup is right.

Saturday's Streamer Rankings

1. Yu Darvish, SD
2. Slade Cecconi, CLE
3. Luis Morales, ATH
4. Logan Allen, CLE
5. Kyle Hendricks, LAA
6. German Marquez, COL