5 Starting Pitcher Busts for 2026 Fantasy Baseball Drafts

March 8, 2026

Joey's potential starting pitcher fantasy baseball busts for 2026 drafts. He looks at five overvalued starting pitcher ADPs who you should consider avoiding.

Fantasy baseball drafts are quickly approaching. With the regular season beginning in less than one month, most of your fantasy drafts will be taking place over the next few weeks. That makes now a good time to start researching which players you might be targeting and which players you might be avoiding in drafts this year.

In this article, we will identify five of the biggest starting pitcher busts for 2026 fantasy baseball drafts. All five of these pitchers are priced too high and won't be consistent fantasy options for your team this season. These five starting pitcher busts have an ADP inside the top 135 in current Yahoo! drafts.

So, who are the biggest busts at the position this year? Let's dive in and find out.

Nick Pivetta, San Diego Padres

ADP: 82.1

San Diego Padres pitcher Nick Pivetta put together easily the best numbers of his career in 2025. He finished with a career-best 2.87 ERA and a career-high 190 strikeouts across 181 2/3 innings pitched. The right-hander quickly became one of the best value picks last year after going very late in fantasy drafts.

Nick Pivetta put up career-best marks in ERA, IP, K, WHIP and more in 2025 🔥

The @Padres hurler joins #MLBNHotStove to talk about what worked and adapting throughout his career. pic.twitter.com/xPlb3myqaL

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) February 25, 2026

However, those numbers were very unlike Pivetta. He has been more of a 4.00+ ERA pitcher throughout his career, posting a combined 4.76 ERA in his first eight major league seasons before his breakthrough campaign in 2025. That means the Padres pitcher is a major regression candidate in 2026. Fantasy managers should expect his numbers to come down significantly from last year.

For starters, Pivetta's actual ERA (2.87) was 112 points lower than his expected ERA (3.99). That 3.99 expected ERA is more of the pitcher that he has been in his career. He also ranked in the bottom half of the league in average exit velocity (90.3 mph), chase rate (28.2%), whiff rate (24.6%), barrel rate (10.9%), and hard-hit rate (45%) in 2025.

As a result, it's hard to trust Pivetta at his 82.1 ADP in Yahoo! leagues. His numbers should regress this upcoming season, and there's a strong chance he returns to being the 4.00+ ERA pitcher he was in his first eight seasons. There is just too much risk surrounding the Padres pitcher to take him in the first seven rounds.

Blake Snell, Los Angeles Dodgers

ADP: 83.4

There's no doubt that Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell is one of the best fantasy options when healthy. He has a combined 32-26 record with a 2.76 ERA and 622 strikeouts over the past four seasons and continues to have a high strikeout rate. Snell is also coming off another strong 2025 campaign in which he finished with a 2.35 ERA.

The problem is that Snell has had a hard time staying healthy in recent years. He has pitched over 130 innings just once since 2021 and has failed to throw more than 105 innings in back-to-back seasons. In 2025, the southpaw was sidelined for an extended period of time due to an injury to his throwing shoulder.

Snell dealt with shoulder inflammation for most of the year, which caused him to miss four months from April to August. He only made 11 starts and threw just 61 1/3 innings pitched. While the two-time Cy Young winner was fantastic in his 61 1/3 innings of work, sometimes the best ability is availability. He just hasn't been available for fantasy managers recently.

That makes Snell a bust at his 83.4 ADP in Yahoo! leagues. He has failed to stay healthy in recent years, continues to have a high WHIP, and there's a strong chance he won't even be ready for Opening Day because of a shoulder issue. The Dodgers have slowly ramped up the veteran's workload this spring as he works his way back from that shoulder inflammation. He's a clear avoid at his current price tag.

Luis Castillo, Seattle Mariners

ADP: 119

Seattle Mariners pitcher Luis Castillo has been a consistent force in fantasy over the past few years. He has finished with a sub-3.65 ERA in four consecutive seasons and has made at least 30 starts in three straight years. Castillo is also just three years removed from a 219 strikeout campaign in 2023.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to be concerned with Castillo heading into the 2026 season. His strikeout rate has declined in three straight seasons, and the right-hander is simply not missing bats at a high level anymore. His strikeout rate has dropped from 27.3% (2023) to 24.3% (2024) to 21.7% (2025). His whiff rate also ranked only in the 44th percentile last year.

The other reason to avoid the 33-year-old in all fantasy formats is that he could be in store for a slightly worse season on the mound. His expected ERA (4.04) and expected batting average (.245) ranked in the bottom half of the league last year, and both his hard-hit rate (46.4%) and barrel rate (10.4%) ranked in the bottom 20% among all pitchers.

With his strikeout numbers down and his poor metrics from 2025, Castillo has a bust written all over him this season. That's why the veteran is an avoid at his 119 ADP in Yahoo! leagues. There are just better pitchers to target at this point in drafts with much higher upside, like Eury Perez or Chase Burns.

Spencer Strider, Atlanta Braves 

ADP: 124.4

Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Spencer Strider was once considered one of the top pitchers in the game. Back in 2023, Strider finished with a league-leading 20 wins to go with a 3.86 ERA and 281 strikeouts. Then, the hard-throwing right-hander suffered an elbow injury in early April of the 2024 season that caused him to miss the rest of the season.

Coming back from these types of elbow injuries is never easy, and fantasy managers saw that with Strider last year. In his first season post-elbow surgery, the former All-Star had a 4.45 ERA and 131 strikeouts across 125 1/3 innings pitched. He also missed more than one month due to a hamstring injury he suffered in mid-April.

There's no doubt that Strider had a poor 2025 season. His expected ERA (4.93) was 48 points higher than his actual ERA (4.45), and his expected batting average against (.253), walk rate (9.5%), barrel rate (10.6%), and hard-hit rate (42.7%) all ranked extremely poor. On top of that, his strikeout rate was only at 24.3%.

While Strider has the potential to be much better than he was a season ago, there is just too much risk in taking him with a top 125 pick in drafts. He did not look solid on the mound throughout 2025, and his metrics are a bit worrisome heading into the new year.

Brandon Woodruff, Milwaukee Brewers

ADP: 134.2

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff is very similar to Snell in the sense that he's an above-average fantasy option when healthy. Since 2021, Woodruff has had a 2.77 ERA, a 0.971 WHIP, and 558 strikeouts. He has finished with a sub-3.25 ERA in four consecutive seasons and has finished with under a 0.950 WHIP in back-to-back years.

Like Snell, though, Woodruff hasn't been able to stay healthy. He threw just 67 innings in 2023, didn't throw a pitch in 2024, and threw only 64 2/3 innings last year. That means the right-hander has only thrown 131 2/3 innings since the start of the 2023 campaign. Those limited innings are a serious concern heading into 2026.

Additionally, Woodruff is not even a lock to be ready for Opening Day. The veteran is a bit behind schedule currently in Brewers camp after ending the 2025 season on the injured list due to a right lat strain. When speaking with reporters in late February, Woodruff said his Opening Day status is "up in the air." For a pitcher who hasn't thrown more than 70 innings in a season since 2022, that's not what fantasy managers want to hear.

Opening Day isn’t the target for Brandon Woodruff. A healthy season is. He threw about 25 pitches in a sim game this morning. pic.twitter.com/SP6MCSpT0f

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) February 23, 2026

That makes Woodruff an easy avoid at his 134.2 ADP in Yahoo! leagues. His health remains a huge question mark at this point in his career, and selecting injured players in fantasy for a "discount" never seems to work out. It's best to just skip past him in drafts because he might not even throw more than 120 innings this year.

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