Seven phenols with methyls substituting ortho or para hydrogens are firstly reported as ligands for Samarium (III) complexes. The resultant Samarium (III) phenolates were used as single component initiators for ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of e-caprolactone (CL). The results were in good order and met well with structural changes in phenol ligands. To explain the ordered correlation between ROP results and ligand structures of these phenolates, quantum chemical (QC) method was applied to optimize the most stable conformations for substituted phenols. QC data indicated that changes in charge distribution and geometric parameters of phenol ligands also followed certain order, which could be attributed to electronic and steric effects caused by methyl substituents. It was found that: methyl in phenol, especially single ortho one, would induce more space around metal center and easier nucleophilic attack from phenol oxygen to CL monomer, which means positive electronic effect and could induce increased initiation activity of corresponding phenolate. Meanwhile, two ortho methyls will take up considerable space around the metal center and bring along un-ignorable negative steric effect, which surpasses positive electronic effect also introduced by these two ortho methyls and finally leads to decreased activity in phenolates. This study revealed that there is correlation between the initiation characteristics of phenolates and the structures of their phenol ligands; QC calculation is a convenient, cheap, and helpful method to aid study on it.