Although starting pitching has been climbing up higher in fantasy baseball drafts the last couple of seasons, the first half of the 2012 year showed us once again that you can always find pitching either out on the waiver wire or late in the draft with the proper scouting and analysis. Players such as Chris Capuano (16), Lance Lynn (17), Wade Miley (23), A.J. Burnett (35) and Tommy Milone (39) have greatly out performed their pre-season rankings.
On the flip side, top ranked pitchers such as Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum and Matt Moore each put up less than stellar numbers and pitchers such as Roy Halladay, Cory Luebke and Daniel Hudson were struck by injury.
Here is a look at the top 40 starting pitchers for the first half of the 2012 fantasy baseball season.
1. R.A. Dickey
2. Justin Verlander
3. Matt Cain
4. Chris Sale
5. Gio Gonzalez
6. James McDonald
7. Jered Weaver
8. Stephen Strasburg
9. Cole Hamels
10. Jake Peavy
11. David Price
12. Johnny Cueto
13. Clayton Kershaw
14. Madison Bumgarner
15. C.J. Wilson
16. Chris Capuano
17. Lance Lynn
18. Zack Greinke
19. Felix Hernandez
20. Kyle Lohse
21. Ryan Vogelsong
22. Yu Darvish
23. Wade Miley
24. CC Sabathia
25. Matt Harrison
26. Jason Hammel
27. Brandon Beachy
28. Johan Santana
29. Ryan Dempster
30. Tommy Hanson
31. Colby Lewis
32. Brandon Morrow
33. Jordan Zimmermann
34. Mark Buehrle
35. A.J. Burnett
36. Ivan Nova
37. Jason Vargas
38. Hiroki Kuroda
39. Tommy Milone
40. Mat Latos
