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We are entering the final stretch of the draft season with only a little over a week until the official opening day of the 2024 MLB season. Maybe you've already drafted, but for those of you who still have drafts this week or next, I have some final thoughts on pitchers that I am posting in a series of articles this week.
This is pretty much a "my guys" piece where I wanted to gush over some of the more talented young arms who I think could break through from "good" to "great" this year. I based as much of it as I could on actual statistical analysis and not just my gut feeling.
In this piece, I spotlight four starting pitchers who I think have the potential to finish as top-20 starters based on their profiles and their 2023 body of work.
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Profile of a Top-20 Pitcher and Top-100 Fantasy Player
I wanted to dig into what it takes to produce a top-20 season. So I used Yahoo's fantasy rankings and pulled the statistics of the top-20 ranked starting pitchers in a standard 5x5 roto league. All 20 players ranked inside the top 100 in overall rank on Yahoo. I decided to omit three pitchers from my composite for a lack of total innings - Tarik Skubal (love him, draft him!), Shohei Ohtani, and Clayton Kershaw. Here are the remaining 17 pitchers in order of their finish.
- Spencer Strider
- Gerrit Cole
- Blake Snell
- Zac Gallen
- Kevin Gausman
- Luis Castillo
- Zack Wheeler
- Framber Valdez
- Logan Webb
- Corbin Burnes
- Kodai Senga
- Zach Eflin
- Logan Gilbert
- Justin Steele
- George Kirby
- Sonny Gray
- Kyle Bradish
When we average out the numbers from these 17 pitchers we end up with these numbers.
13.4 wins, 189 IP, 3.21 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 26.9% K%, 6.6% BB, 20.3% K-BB%
So that's the standard that I am hoping these pitchers can live up to this season (or exceed). Not all four guys will probably do it, but the potential is there and all four of them are available in the middle rounds of drafts (or a bit earlier).
Some interesting takeaways...
Only one pitcher won 20 games (Strider).
Only three pitchers exceeded 200 innings (Cole, Gallen, Webb).
Only two pitchers in the group had double-digit walk rates (Snell and Senga).
Sonny Gray sticks out a bit as an outlier with only 8 wins and the lowest K-BB% of 17%. A full season of Skubal, Ohtani, or Glasnow would easily bump him out of the group.
Most of these pitchers will be early-round targets this season, with the exception of Senga and Bradish who suffered injuries that are tanking their ADP. Enough already, let's see who I think could help you win your league with a massive year.
Jesus Luzardo, Miami Marlins
ADP: 75
ATC Projection: 168 IP, 3.78 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 10 W, 191 K
Ceiling Scenario: 2023 Blake Snell with fewer walks...
Luzardo was pretty close to getting there last season, winning 10 games with a 3.58 ERA (3.73 xFIP) and a superb 20.7 K-BB%. Remember that ATC projections are median projections, which means Ariel sees a 4.28 ERA as likely of an outcome as a 3.28 ERA. We only need some modest improvements in walk rate and maybe some better batted-ball luck from Luzardo and we will be hitting our targets.
Last year, Luzardo ditched his sinker almost entirely and threw his four-seamer nearly twice as often. It was a good decision as the sinker didn't miss many bats and didn't serve much of a purpose other than being a few mph slower to throw off timing.
His slider was fantastic, registering a 23.2% SwStr%, 38.9 CSW%, and 110 Stuff+ rating. It's more of a slurve and he actually throws his changeup faster (88 mph) than his breaking ball. He set a career-high with a 15.2% SwStr% overall.
His BABIP last year was .312 which is one area that could regress in his favor. He's pitching in a good park to help suppress home runs but is still in a tough division where wins will be tough to come by even with an improved offense backing him. He did register a quality start in 17 of 32 starts, meaning there were probably a few more games he should have won. I think he's properly priced at his current ADP and brings a combination of a high floor and a high ceiling.
Cole Ragans, Kansas City Royals
ADP: 92
ATC Projection: 160 IP, 3.89 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 10 W, 172 K
Ceiling Scenario: 2022 Shane McClanahan...
I have a thing for Cole Ragans and I am going into this season fully aware that my infatuation with him might be a blind spot as his ADP continues to rise. But that guy won me a lot of money on strikeout props last season and looked like a true ace pitcher once he settled into a groove in Kansas City.
Cole Ragans, 5th and 6th Ks. pic.twitter.com/YZX1hcuoBP
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 18, 2024
You might think my comparison to 2022 Cy Young front-runner (before a late-season injury) Shane McClanahan is hyperbole, but take a look at the numbers for yourself.
2022 McClanahan (28 starts): 2.54 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 30% K%, 6% BB%, 17% SwStr%
2023 Ragans (12 starts): 2.64 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 31% K%, 9.4% BB%, 15.5% SwStr%
Their arsenals' similarities are quite remarkable as they both featured a 96-97 mph four-seamer, high-80s slider, mid-80s changeup, and low-80s curveball. Ragans threw a fifth pitch (a low-90s cutter 12% of the time), too, and his curve and changeup don't quite rate as highly as McClanahan's in terms of their effectiveness.
What was so impressive about McClanahan before injuries ended his last two seasons was the command of all of his pitches that he demonstrated as a young pitcher. Ragans isn't quite there yet. Not only was the walk rate higher but his ability to locate all of his pitches is still developing and he will need to be able to do that to avoid loud contact.
I think the strikeouts are going to be there, especially after watching him mow down hitters in Spring Training. But he will need to beat his ERA projection by almost a full run and win some pitchers' duels to get that win total up there with a below-average offense not likely to supply him with much run support.
Michael King, San Diego Padres
ADP: 138
ATC Projection: 140 IP, 3.59 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 9 W, 154 K
Ceiling Scenario: 2023 Pablo Lopez
If you think it's tough projecting Cole Ragans based on only 72 innings of starts, consider that Michael King made only 9 starts for the Yankees last season spanning 40 innings with the other 64 innings coming out of the bullpen.
Those starts near the end of the season were memorable, however, and offered a glimpse of what King might offer as a full-time starter. San Diego thought highly enough of him to make him their main target in the Juan Soto deal as they badly needed some depth in their rotation.
King's line as a starter in those 9 games...
2.23 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 31.3% K%, 5.5% BB%, 25.8% K-BB%
Wow, what's not to like there? I know he will be pitching in a very competitive NL West, but I think he can outperform a 1.20 WHIP and win more than 9 games. It really comes down to the innings workload and whether or not he can get over that hump of 150 innings that separates the workhorses from the rest of the pack.
He's only made two starts this Spring but has allowed only two hits and zero walks while striking out four in five innings. It feels like the sky is the limit for King who beautifully blends four pitches that move in three different directions in his arsenal (four-seamer, sinker, changeup, and sweeper).
Hunter Brown, Houston Astros
ADP: 154
ATC Projection: 152 IP, 3.93 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 11 W, 164 K
Ceiling Scenario: Poor Man's Tyler Glasnow
Brown might be the best value here of all four at his ADP. He took his lumps at times during his rookie season, but gutted out 155 innings across 29 starts for Houston, setting himself up to take on an even bigger workload this year in his age-25 season.
The biggest thing he has to clean up is the run prevention as he finished with an ERA just over 5 and a sloppy 1.36 WHIP. The good news is that there are multiple underlying statistics that suggest positive regression for Brown this year.
His BABIP was .330 (the average is around .300) and he also had an incredibly low strand rate of just 68.8%. And for a pitcher who had a solid 53.3% GB%, he had a pretty unlucky HR/FB% of 23.6%. His xFIP was just 3.51 last season, suggesting that his ERA could have been inflated by as much as a run and a half.
Hunter Brown threw five innings of two-run ball today against the Marlins and built his pitch count to 74. He struck out five, walked two and surrendered three hits. The Marlins took 40 swings against him and whiffed nine times.
— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) March 18, 2024
His arsenal is solid as he brings the heat around 95-96 mph with a cutter (or gyro slider depending on which site you're looking at) around 91 mph and a devastating curveball that averaged 54.7 inches of vertical drop. The strikeout numbers were solid and should continue, and I think the batted ball numbers should improve.
He's looked sharp through 10.2 innings this Spring, piling up 10 strikeouts against just 3 walks. Adding a splitter or changeup might be the next step towards becoming the complete package, but three quality pitches can take you pretty far. Another year of development could go a long way to vaulting Brown up into the next tier of pitchers and I am grabbing as many shares as I can at this ADP.
Later Round Pitcher Breakouts I Love, Too
- Nick Pivetta - Boston Red Sox (170)
- Bryce Miller - Seattle Mariners (181)
- Brayan Bello - Boston Red Sox (241)
- Griffin Canning - Los Angeles Angels (317)
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