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5 Starting Pitcher Busts for 2025 Fantasy Baseball Drafts

Jacob deGrom - Fantasy Baseball Rankings, MLB Injury News, DFS Picks

Fantasy baseball sleepers and breakouts are all the rage during draft season, but knowing who to avoid can make your life much easier when staring at that never-ending list of names.

Fantasy baseball busts are those players who fall short of expectations or are bad values relative to their draft season ADP. I will be going through the names and pulling out a few that could end up biting you in the butt. For this list, I've used recent fantasy baseball ADPs from CBS as the baseline.

Without further ado, let's get into some starting pitcher fantasy baseball bust candidates for the 2025 season -- pitchers who may be overvalued, and disappoint fantasy baseball managers.

Be sure to check all of our fantasy baseball draft tools and resources:

 

Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers

ADP: 44

As much as it pains me to put him on here, I would be doing you a disservice if I did not at least mention Jacob deGrom. The two-time Cy Young Award winner has been one of the most divisive players in fantasy baseball for the past few seasons. DeGrom is the ultimate boom-or-bust case among starting pitchers, but you will have to decide if you want to pay the price.

The 36-year-old's ceiling is the best pitcher in baseball, but he has started just 20 games over the last three seasons. You would have to go back to 2019 to find the last season deGrom eclipsed 100 innings pitched. The superstar pitcher has been electric on the mound when healthy.

It took some tweaking, but here are the SIERA leaders for pitchers who have pitched at least 100 innings in the past three seasons.

DeGrom benefits from a smaller sample size than anyone else on the list, but his stats are still impressive. Despite the emergence of generational strikeout pitchers like Paul Skenes and Spencer Strider, deGrom still topped the list with the highest K% and K/9. DeGrom also had the lowest SIERA, FIP, xFIP, and BB/9 among that group of pitchers. So, his health is the only real reason to be wary of deGrom.

With shoulder, wrist, and elbow issues plaguing him for the past few years, the veteran pitcher's health is a major red flag for fantasy drafters to keep in mind. With a CBS ADP of 44, selecting deGrom in the first five rounds will not be for the weak. Add that he's coming off another major arm surgery, and I probably will not have him on many of my fantasy teams this year.

 

Ronel Blanco, Houston Astros

ADP: 202

Ronel Blanco had a stellar 2024 season, finishing with a 2.83 ERA across 167.1 innings. The 31-year-old's first season as a full-time starter could not have gone much better, but several stats suggest he will not approach those numbers in 2025.

Blanco managed to have the fourth-best ERA among qualified starters while having the third-worst BB/9. Blanco's 10.1 BB% ranked in the 22nd percentile among qualified pitchers. The Astros hurler got away with a .189 BAA and .219 BABIP, both tops among starting pitchers. Although skill is involved in pitching to low averages, there is also luck to account for. Blanco's FIP, xFIP, and SIERA were all over an entire run higher than his ERA, suggesting some luck and excellent defense behind him.

With the departure of gold glove third baseman Alex Bregman, Blanco's league-leading strand rate will also likely creep up. The Astros pitcher should be viewed as a potential bust compared to his 2024 season, but his current ADP is in the 200s. Even with his likely regression, Blanco could be a draft-day value.

 

Bryce Miller, Seattle Mariners

ADP: 97

This pick will probably rub some people the wrong way, but Bryce Miller's bust potential is worth discussing. The 26-year-old had a remarkable 2024 season, finishing with a 2.94 ERA in 180.1 innings of work. Miller's sophomore season in the Majors went smoother than his first, but his advanced stats suggest he was overperforming.

The Mariners righty finished the 2024 season with a 3.72 xERA, 3.58 FIP, and 3.85 xFIP. These stats suggest that Miller was lucky in the ERA department last year. Like Ronel Blanco, Miller also finished in the top five in both BAA and BABIP among qualified pitchers. The young pitcher relied on his defense to make plays outside the routine.

The pitchers with sustainable low BAA and BABIP numbers are typically the extreme groundball hurlers, but Miller had a GB% under 40% in 2024. Miller is an important name to mention in this bust conversation because his ADP is sitting around the 80s on most sites, placing him in the top 100 picks. Given what we know now, Miller is a pitcher I would like to avoid at his current ADP, but that is not to say he is a lost cause.

The Mariners pitcher is still very young and tinkering with his pitching arsenal. If he can tweak some pitches and creep towards the 10 K/9 range, he can take the next step towards being a star in the league. That said, Miller should be considered a risky pick in the top 100.

Tanner Bibee, Cleveland Guardians

ADP: 92

I am a fan of Tanner Bibee, but he's not particularly great at any one thing. I don't see the growth potential, and you really want guys who can take the next step on your team.
After a strong debut in 2023, Bibee's numbers were middle-of-the-pack for the 2024 season. The 25-year-old finished the year with a 3.47 ERA, slightly outperforming his 3.78 xERA, and this production level is likely what we can expect from him moving forward. The Guardians pitcher posted a 2.98 ERA over 142 innings in his rookie season, but his xERA, FIP, and xFIP were all half a run or an entire run higher.
Bibee's 2024 numbers were most in line with what the expected stats predicted for him in 2023. While he has decent command, he won't blow you away with any particular pitch. Pair that with his 10th percentile GB%, and you have an okay back-end starter for your fantasy rotation. His ADP being within the top 100 is what holds me back here. I prefer to shoot for upside instead of settling on the floor pick.

Robbie Ray, San Francisco Giants

ADP: 157

Robbie Ray is another former Cy Young award winner on this list, mainly due to health concerns. Ray won the AL Cy Young Award in 2021 with the Toronto Blue Jays. Since then, Ray pitched one entire season with the Seattle Mariners in 2022. His 2023 and 2024 seasons were marred with injury, causing him only to pitch 34 innings across two years.
Now Ray is looking to pitch his first full season with the San Francisco Giants and his first full season in over two years. Ray's ADP is much higher than deGrom's because health is not the only concern here. Ray posted a 2.83 ERA across 193.1 innings during his Cy Young season. The following year, Ray posted a 3.71 ERA across 189 innings. This demonstrates just how wide the range of outcomes is for the 33-year-old. The stats below are from 2022, Ray's last season as a qualified starting pitcher.
The Giants pitcher went from arguably the best pitcher in the league to having an ERA approaching 4.00 in one calendar year. Ray is a very streaky pitcher and may disappoint if the conditions are not right for him. The Giants have been known to get some use out of veteran pitchers, but with an ADP around 150, I would be looking for upside elsewhere.



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