2023 Starting Pitcher Preview, Part 4
Part four, and I would be lying if I said I did not regret going into so much detail on all of these starting pitchers.
I am going to have to pull back on the detail moving forward so we can through 80+ SPs here in a reasonable amount of time.
The rest of the series:
Since the last post, we saw injuries to Joe Musgrove and Tyler Glasnow, which push them both several tiers down. Neither of them will be ready for Opening Day, and both injuries are the types that you’re going to be worried about even when they make it back. Losing a month of the season is a big deal for a pitcher, but not something you can’t overcome if they are right back to their prior self when they come back.
I would be drafting Musgrove right now, but I still do have some interest in Glasnow if he would fall far enough (he still went inside the top 150 in my TGFBI draft, a price I have no interested in paying).
Those two shots are significant, and they make the pool a bit more shallow. Now, let’s move onward.
Tier 6
Chris Bassitt
Chris Sale
Luis Garcia
Charlie Morton
Pablo Lopez
Jordan Montgomery
Jeffrey Springs
Tony Gonsolin
Drew Rasmussen
After this tier, we will be 52 pitchers deep (50 if you’re scratching off Musgrove and Glasnow). If you’re keeping pace with the league, that means you should have at least four SPs by this time.
My general rule is that I would rather draft hitters after pick 150 than pitchers. The pitchers you find after this tier are not without talent and upside, but they are really hard to rely on.
As we talked about at the beginning, I also want to leave a roster spot open on my team to quickly add the pitchers that look like breakouts early on in the season.
Therefore, if I’m looking to roster eight starting pitchers, for example, I probably want to get six pitchers in these top six tiers. Then I can skip several rounds and load up on some hitters or relievers, and then take some upside arms very late in the draft - making sure those are names I’m comfortable to drop so I can add that guy in April that looks like a stud breakout.
My favorites in this tier are Garcia, Montgomery, Springs, and Rasmussen. I am sure I have not gone a single draft without getting one of those four names, they have most of the components we’re looking for - solidified jobs, good enough K-BB%, and swinging-strike upside. Love them, happy to draft two of them very quickly before sitting it out on SP for a while as I just mentioned.
I’m probably not drafting any Sale or Gonsolin, even though the prices are right.
Safe
Bassitt
Garcia
Lopez
Montgomery
Springs
Rasmussen
Upside Options
Sale
Morton
Springs
Tier 7
Brady Singer
Kodai Senga
Grayson Rodriguez
Jon Gray
Reid Detmers
Andrew Heaney
Patrick Sandoval
Lance McCullers Jr.
Sonny Gray
Edward Cabrera
Jack Flaherty
Alex Cobb
You can kinda see what I mean by wanting to be done for awhile after tier six, right? Basically every pitcher here fits into one of three categories.
Very Good But Very Injury Prone: Heaney, McCullers, Flaherty
Very Unknown, Could Really Stink: Senga, Rodriguez, Cabrera, Detmers
Really Not That Good: Singer, Sandoval, Gray, Cobb
The pitchers I will draft here are:
Rodriguez: 38.8% K%, 7.9% BB% in 40 starts since 2021
Jon Gray: Was actually really good when healthy last year, believable strikeout stuff
Cobb: Tends to fall forever, gets a ton of ground-balls and has decent strikeout stuff as well
That’s pretty much it though, and I’d rather not go here at all in a standard league situation.
Tier 8
Miles Mikolas
Jose Berrios
Nathan Eovaldi
Hunter Brown
Jameson Taillon
Merrill Kelly
Trevor Rogers
Tyler Mahle
Marcus Stroman
Eric Lauer
Jose Urquidy
Justin Steele
Tyler Anderson
Garrett Whitlock
Michael Kopech
It’s a huge tier now with all kinds of different pitchers in it. At this point, we’re in the pick 240-290 range, so a standard league draft is drawing to a close - but most of these guys will be drafted in most leagues (we’re 79 pitchers in).
You have your “no upside, but fine” grouping:
Mikolas
Taillon
Kelly
Stroman
Lauer
Urquidy
Anderson
You have your “upside, but hugely risky” grouping:
Berrios
Eovaldi
Brown (he doesn’t really go in this tier ever since the McCullers injury)
Rogers
Steele
Whitlock
Kopech
The names in this group I have drafted this year are Eovaldi, Brown, Taillon, Mahle, and Whitlock.
I really loved Eovaldi until this news about him having some side tightness. That probably just moves his ADP down even further to the point where I still like him a lot. The reason he’s so cheap is because he was clearly pitching hurt last year, and he came out of the gate with his velocity back last week - so I like taking him a lot.
I can also get behind Whitlock as a talented pitcher that is getting another shot in the rotation. I think he was pitching a bit hurt last year too and I think he can really blow the doors off this ADP this year if he stays in the rotation.
I’m not overjoyed to take Hunter Brown since I think the Astros will really ease him into things, but it looks like he can grab a rotation spot and he really is quite good. I’m not sure what kind of strikeout rate he’ll get in the bigs, but he has a ton of velocity and a reliably high groundball rate, so yeah I’m in if he actually falls anywhere near this tier - but he’s just not anymore so I don’t want to pay a premium.
I like Taillon as well as a safe option that has more strikeout upside than the rest of the safe options. It will be interesting to see what he can do with his new club, and it was really good to see him stay healthy in his two years with the Yankees.
Tier 9
Let’s finish this bad boy up. Here are the rest of the names that I would consider drafting in a standard-ish league. I’m leaving plenty of guys off here, just so you know.
Carlos Carrasco
Roansy Contreras
Ross Stripling
Sean Manaea
Noah Syndergaard
Martin Perez
Kenta Maeda
Aaron Civale
Andrew Painter
Brayan Bello
Hayden Wesneski
Eduardo Escobar
Alex Wood
Kyle Bradish
MacKenzie Gore
Ken Waldichuk
Brandon Pfaadt
Lots of names there. I’d be willing to take a shot at Andrew Painter if it looks like he’s going to make the rotation, but I don’t want to pay much for a guy that certainly has an innings cap and hasn’t even reached AAA yet.
I can get behind a speculative shot at Syndergaard since we get to see what the Dodgers can do for him.
I think Stripling and Manaea are also interesting as pitchers with better-than-average “stuff” and heading to San Francisco - a great place to pitch.
I also really like Bello, and will at the very least be watching guys like Wesneski, Bradish, Gore, Waldichuk, and Pfaadt closely early on.
All of these names are the guys I would draft to fill out the final two or three spots of my pitching staff, but I will be willing to drop them quickly if someone else pops up for the taking early on.
There will probably be a “breakout” or two in this tier, but I don’t want to hold on for too long and eat bad stats for two months while I wait for it.
Final Strategy Conclusion
Alright, so that’s all of the names I am going to list off. Here is my SP strategy summed up for a home-league type situation (less than 30 rounds, not super deep, roto or H2H categories).
For the top of my rotation, I want EITHER
Cole/Burnes + 2 pitchers from tier 3
3 or 4 pitchers from tiers 2-3 if I don’t go Cole/Burnes
For the rest:
Certainly 4 pitchers from the top 4 tiers
Certainly 6 pitchers from the top 6 tiers
One or two tier 8 or 9 guys that has big strikeout upside, but I want to be willing to cut them quickly
That’s it and that’s all for this super long SP breakdown, I hope somebody out here read it and enjoyed it and found it helpful! Good luck drafting!