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Even as the Major League Baseball lockout drags on, fantasy baseball managers have begun diving into draft season. In these early months before Spring Training begins, the most common draft formats are draft and hold leagues in which managers will draft large teams (usually 50 players) and then make no waiver claims during the year. Personally, I did my first draft-and-hold a year ago on NFBC and loved the strategic aspect of trying to put together a team that mixes upside with safety so you're not left with half of your team in the minors or injured come summertime. Plus, not having to add another FAAB league to your Sunday research list is tremendous for your sanity.
In this article, I'm going to go over some of my favorite late-round starting pitchers in draft-and-hold formats. And by late, I mean currently going after pick 450. While these pitchers can be useful to managers playing in deep leagues that do run weekly FAAB, they are really more designed for the draft-and-hold format where you need a certain level of role security with your pitching staff.
After my past year of research, I've become convinced that using late-round picks on starting pitchers who seem locked into innings is more valuable than just taking shots on young pitchers with intriguing upside who may or may not pitch meaningful innings in the majors. If you roster 15+ starting pitchers in these formats, you're surely likely to have a couple of those young guns (and I have a few listed below), but these late-round fliers should really be your safety blanket in case the starters you actually hope to contribute get hurt or face plant. The names you see below are my early favorite targets for my final few pitching spots going after pick 400 based on NFBC ADP set to Draft Champions drafts between January 1st to January 28th. You'll notice that they're all "boring old vets," but that doesn't mean they can't be useful to you (and then I dropped my favorite upside young guns after just to give you that excited, tingly feeling).
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Dylan Bundy, Minnesota Twins
NFBC ADP: 403
I started writing a paragraph on Bundy and it somehow led to a whole article, and I'm more convinced than I was before that I will be targeting Bundy late in drafts.
Merrill Kelly, Arizona Diamondbacks
NFBC ADP: 422
Kelly is an interesting case study and one where we really need to create a split in his overall season metrics. Coming into the 2021 season, Kelly was recovering from thoracic outlet surgery and needed time to fully ramp up. In our Catcher's Corner episode with then-Diamondbacks catcher Stephen Vogt, Vogt mentioned that "it's taken Merill a few months to get the feel back for all five of his pitches." Vogt continued, "for me, it's only in the last two starts out that he's had all five." Since we recorded that episode on May 28th, Vogt is referencing a time from Kelly's May 20th start.
Vogt's analysis makes sense since, in addition to getting word directly from the person who is catching all of Kelly's pitches, we can see from the box scores that Kelly had a 6.33 ERA in March and April, which was his worst stretch of the season. He gave up 18 earned runs in his first four starts and then really started to settle down. Unfortunately, he was also placed on the COVID list on August 15th and missed a month. When he came back, he gave up 10 earned runs in two starts against the Dodgers and Braves before ending the season with five shutout innings against the Giants.
As a result of everything mentioned above, we really need to look at his numbers from May 20th until his COVID diagnosis in August to get a sense of what a fully healthy Merrill Kelly looked like in 2021. The result is actually pretty good. Over that span, which amounts to 15 starts, Kelly had an 11.2% SwStr%, 29.3% CSW, and 18 K-BB%, all of which are solid numbers considering league average rates for starting pitchers were an 11.8% SwStr% and 28.5% CSW. Additionally, Kelly also allowed a .277 wOBA, 3.6% barrel rate, and compiled a 3.13 deserved ERA (dERA) which can be found on Alex Chamberlain's Pitch Leaderboard. Those numbers are all well above the league average for starting pitchers of a .319 wOBA, 7.8% barrel rates, and 4.27 dERA.
So if we're buying into the fact that a healthy Merrill Kelly performed above league average rates, we need to explore why that might have been the case. Kelly's arsenal starts with a four-seam fastball that had a 32.8% CSW thanks to a 24.2% called strike rate. It only averages 91.7 mph, so it's certainly not overwhelming, but it only allowed an exit velocity of 86.4 mph on fly balls and line drives and had a 30.1% pop-up rate, which is a high total and suggests that Kelly was using the location of the pitch and the sequencing of his full arsenal to make the fastball more impactful than the velocity would indicate. When you see he also had a 45.4% shadow rate on the pitch, you understand that nearly 50% of the fastballs he threw were on the edges of the strike zone, which is a good thing to see and would explain the poor contact against.
Kelly paired that with two solid offspeed pitches. Over the time frame in question, Kelly's curve registered a 15.5% SwStr% and 32.6% CSW, but he also got an 18.9% SwStr on his changeup. His sinker got hit the hardest of all of his pitches with a 92 mph exit velocity but also a 92.3 mph exit velocity on fly balls and line drives (FB/LD). However, he dropped the usage of the sinker from 19.3% early in the season to 10.2% from mid-July on and upped the changeup usage from 16.8% to 23%. We'd love to see that stick going forward as the changeup only allowed a 2.8% barrel rate and 2.10 dERA over the stretch we're focusing on.
Now that Kelly will be a full year removed from thoracic outlet surgery, is locked into a consistent role in the Diamondbacks rotation, and pitching in a strong pitcher's park, I think he makes for an ideal late-round gamble. Even if you believe he will regress from the numbers he put up during his healthy portion of 2021, I think you need to ignore the fact that projection systems are giving him a 5.23 ERA (THE BAT) or 4.72 ERA (ATC). Projections aren't designed to parse through health issues the way that we just did, so you can get the edge on your league mates who are simply using those and grab Kelly as a safe but not spectacular late-round starting pitcher.
Ryan Yarbrough, Tampa Bay Rays
NFBC ADP: 473
I was all-in on Ryan Yarbrough last year. I mean, dangerously all in. I talked about him on every podcast. I wrote about him countless times on RotoBaller, and I drafted him almost everywhere as my SP4-5. It did not work out. The left-hander pitched to a 5.11 ERA and saw his strikeout rate dip even lower to a 17.9% mark and a 13.8 K-BB%.
But I'm here to tell you that it's not all bad. Especially not at that ADP. For starters, Yarbrough threw a career-high 155 innings and still recorded nine wins because he plays on a very good baseball team. Secondly, while Yarbrough wasn't great, he only had one truly horrible month, when he put up a 9.00 ERA over 21 innings in September and October. His rest of season performance was a mid 4.00 ERA, which isn't great but is not as alarming as seeing a number over 5.00.
Another positive is that the curveball and changeup remain pretty good pitches. Yarbrough had a 13.2 SwStr% on the changeup and 16.8 SwStr% on the curveball, which also registered a 34.3% CSW. His change had a .238 batting average against (BAA) and the curve had a .173 BAA. The issue is simply that he doesn't have a good third pitch to pair with it. The cutter got destroyed in 2021 with an 8.7% barrel rate, .325 BAA, and a .582 SLG allowed. The pitch had a 6.55 dERA, while the change had a 3.03 mark and the curve had a 1.52 mark. I think that Yarbrough's move away from the sinker was problematic since that pitch, and while not great, allowed less hard contact than the cutter.
But here is where I am mildly optimistic. The Rays are a good organization and Yarbrough has been a good pitcher in the past. He had never had an ERA over 4.13 in his three major league seasons before 2021, so we have to treat last year as the outlier. In fact, the underlying metrics tell a slightly more appealing story as he registered a 4.45 SIERA, 4.59 xFIP, and 4.30 dERA. He has two above-average pitches and needs to find a version of a fastball that will set those up well enough. I believe that he and the Rays will clearly look to tweak something after this year in order to improve that effectiveness.
As it stands, Yarbrough is a starting pitcher with a strong track record who pitches for one of the best teams in baseball and is going at almost pick 500. If pitches even slightly worse than his SIERA and finishes 2022 with a 4.60 ERA, he could still be more than worth a pick this late given his possibility for innings, wins, and solid WHIP.
Cole Irvin, Oakland Athletics
NFBC ADP: 472
We can agree that Cole Irvin was a little bit of a fluke last year. We can also agree that a pitcher coming off of a 178-inning season in which he pitched to a 4.24 ERA and won 10 games is tremendous value going after pick 450. The problem is that Irvin is not a sexy option. He doesn't get lots of strikeouts and doesn't have many pitches that make your jaw drop, so nobody really wants to draft him. That allows us to capitalize.
Irvin's success last year was built on command and pitch sequencing. He throws four pitches 15% of the time or greater and will also mix in a curve at times as well. As you can see from the Statcast Spin Direction Illustrator below, his four-seam, sinker, and changeup all approach the batter at the same angle (left image) but the sinker and changeup have enough arm-side run to differentiate them from the four-seam by the time they reach the plate (right image).
While this doesn't lead to tons of swings and misses, it does help lead to weak contact. Irvin allowed a 7.3% barrel rate, which was below league average, as well as an exit velocity on balls in the air of under 88 mph on all of his four primary offerings. What that tells us is that, even when hitters get the ball in the air off of Irvin, it's usually not hit incredibly hard, which is likely the result of him using his pitch mix to mess with hitters' timing and keep them off balance.
This is great news for him considering he pitches his home games in Oakland Coliseum, one of the best pitchers' parks in the league, and is a big reason he had a 3.90 ERA and .309 wOBA allowed in 87.2 innings at home and a 4.57 ERA and .335 wOBA allowed on the road. He's likely going to continue to be a pitcher you won't feel as comfortable starting in hitters' parks, but that level of managing is not a deal-breaker for a pitcher you're taking this late in drafts.
However, rostering Irvin may never feel fully comfortable. He isn't a strikeout pitcher and likely never will be. He had a strikeout rate over 20% once during his entire minor league career and has never had a K-BB% over 15%. His slider was his best swing-and-miss pitch last season and induced a 12.5% SwStr%; however, not a single one of his pitches had a CSW over 28.2%. His sinker is not a great pitch, so I'd love to see him limit the use of that while increasing the slider and changeup, but that's not all of a sudden going to make him a high-upside arm. He will likely get you an ERA in the low 4.00 range if you bench him for games in hitter-friendly parks, and he could push double-digit wins while pitching for a solid organization. There are many worse ways to spend a late pick.
Jose Quintana, Pittsburgh Pirates
NFBC ADP: 529
Yes, Jose Quintana still pitches in the majors. In fact, did you know he's only 33 years old? That's two years younger than Yu Darvish. Now, nobody is going to confuse modern Jose Quintana with the Chicago White Sox version, but I still think the lefty can be a useful arm in draft-and-hold formats, especially at this price. Last year was a struggle for him with a 6.43 ERA across 63 innings; however, he was also dealing with shoulder inflammation and was also pitching in part out of the bullpen for the first time in his career.
I will also suggest that Jose Quintana got unlucky, which is not surprising when you see that his 6.43 ERA came with a 3.94 SIERA and 3.75 xFIP. For starters, he had a .378 BABIP, which is egregious and partially inflated by the Angels' poor infield defense. He also had a career-high 21.4% HR/FB ratio despite allowing an FB% below his career averages and actually inducing the second-highest GB% of his career. The other career-high he set was in BB%, which was a 5.00, almost double his 2.64 career mark. That's obviously a sign that something wasn't right, either because of the shoulder inflammation or his transition to the bullpen. He had a 13.1 K/9 last year when he was starting and still features a curveball that had a 16 SwStr%.
I'd love to see him go back to using that sinker more and the changeup a little less, but he makes this list because he is a workhorse arm that has thrown 200+ innings four times and has thrown 170+ in every full MLB season except for the last one. There is a very good chance that he gives you 160+ innings in the Pirates' rotation and compiles a mid-4.00 ERA. Considering getting innings is an incredibly important thing in draft-and-hold formats, I find myself taking a lot of Quintana to fill one of my final SP spots.
Mitch Keller, Pittsburgh Pirates
NFBC ADP: 538
I'm adding Mitch in here at the last second because I want to make a point that we shouldn't overreact to videos of players working out or throwing bullpens in the offseason. Especially during a lockout where we are all starved for content and information. The below video was posted on January 28th and people went bananas.
Yes, it's nice to see Keller throwing 100. Yes, the slider has some nice sharp break to it. No, it doesn't mean anything. Yet. I've known many pitchers who were lights out in bullpens and then lost command during games and live at-bats, which led to all their stuff being hittable.
Sure, you can draft Keller in draft-and-holds on the chance that video is the sign of a breakthrough, but I wouldn't be counting on him for solid production until I see a change in approach against live hitters.
David Price, Los Angeles Dodgers
NFBC ADP: 574
We're going to end with a name we've all but forgotten. After sitting out the entire 2020 season due to COVID concerns, Price returned in 2021 but battled hamstring injuries in April and only threw 9.1 innings in the first two months of the season. Price settled into a fairly regular role in the bullpen but then battled arm issues at the end of August and, while he never went on the IL, he did go over a week in September without appearing in a game. As a result, Price only threw 73.2 innings in 2021 and made just 11 starts, but heading into that final stretch of games in September with his arm issue, he had an ERA under 4.00 and had shown his best fastball velocity since 2017.
The case from Price is relatively simple and not exciting. He was essentially a league-average pitcher in 2021. Price registered a 4.24 dERA, .319 wOBA, 3.5% barrel rate, and 28.7% CSW, while league average metrics were a 4.21 dERA, .317 wOBA, 7.6% barrel rate, and 28.7% CSW. So even if we took last year's performance as the new standard for Price, you're getting a league-average pitcher on one of the best teams in baseball at almost pick 600. If that was where the argument ended, I would already say that Price was worth, well, the price.
However, I believe there is cause for slightly more optimism. For starters, most projection systems have him down for under 100 innings pitched. I'm not sure I agree there. Price has thrown 200 innings six times in his last eight full seasons, and while I don't think he's that pitcher anymore, I think it's relevant to bring up the fact that he has managed large workloads for much of his career. Even when the Red Sox managed his innings in 2018, he was able to throw 176 innings, so I would assume Price could easily throw 150+ innings if he was locked into the rotation.
The low number then, in my opinion, is because people don't think Price will be a starter. I'm not ready to say he's definitely out of the rotation. In fact, Roster Resource has him in the rotation right now. With Trevor Bauer embroiled in legal issues, Dustin May recovering from Tommy John surgery, and Josiah Gray now in Washington, the only current player who might push Price from the rotation is Mitch White, who had a fine debut but isn't such a dynamic prospect that he is forcing his way into the rotation.
So even if the Dodgers don't want to keep a strict five-man rotation, I could see Price pushing for 130 innings and being solid in those frames. We already mentioned that he gave up so few barrels last year, which helped contribute to a 50.4% groundball rate, which was his highest mark since 2012 in Tampa. He now uses his sinker more as a primary pitch, hence the high groundball rate, which allows the four-seam to play up as a strikeout pitch, posting a 14.9% SwStr% and 35.3% CSW. Price also posted a 31.3% CSW on his cutter and a 29.6% CSW on his sinker (thanks to a 22.4% called strike rate), which gave him three pitches last year with above-average CSWs.
I understand that two-thirds of his outings came out of the bullpen and can impact these numbers, but I bring this up simply to suggest that Price has multiple pitches that still have success at the major league level, and that's with his changeup, formerly his best pitch, not performing up to snuff in 2021. Without the 96 mph velocity, Price will likely never be a huge strikeout arm anymore but remember that you were usually never getting a strikeout rate over 25% with him, so if he drops down to 20%, it's not really a massive hit to his value since he still limited hard contact.
Given the team that he plays for, and his potential for slotting into the rotation (even just for stretches during the season), I think Price is a great value where he's going. If he is able to find his changeup again, we might see even a slightly better version of Price than we saw in 2021. Given his track record of success in this league, I'm not sure why we're comfortable taking his new teammate Andrew Heaney (who has thrown over 130 innings just once in his career) at pick 293 but letting Price drop all the way down to around pick 600.
Others to Consider
I just wanted to also mention some late-round starting pitchers who I'm also intrigued by but am less confident in their innings. Most of these guys are rookies or in their second year and are currently not locked into starting roles, so they may not get 100 innings. However, if you have a spot for that kind of upside, take a look at Jose Suarez, Reid Detmers, Kris Bubic, Roansy Contreras, Nick Lodolo, Kyle Muller, Glenn Otto, Matt Brash, and Brent Honeywell Jr.
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