2024 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Preview, Part 3
A full, detailed look at the starting pitcher position ahead of 2024 fantasy baseball drafts. I cover "the rest" here, tiers 8 and on.
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Podcast Episode
In this case, there is much more detail in the podcast than in this written piece. So listen to that for the best experience and most information.
Other Positions
We are wrapping up starting pitcher today, which basically brings the position preview to a close. Yeah, sure, we have to cover relievers too - but nobody gets excited about that (actually… plenty of people get excited about that, but not me!).
You should have the bulk of your rotation taken care of in a standard league by the time we get to any of the names below. My general rules this year:
Get a stud or two early
Load up on young upside arms in tiers 5-7
Be ready to add breakouts early in the year
Be ready to add prospect call-ups in the middle of the year
Things are different in different league types, of course, but that’s my general feel for it.
There are plenty of names I like well enough below, but mostly these are guys we don’t want to depend on. There will be breakouts from these name (there are around 40 total), but most of them will not prove worthy of fantasy consideration. Off we go!
The Injured Guys
Kyle Bradish
Shane Baz
Max Scherzer
Jacob deGrom
Jeffrey Springs
Clayton Kershaw
I think there’s a case to be made for drafting deGrom or Springs in the last round of your draft provided you have IL spots. If you’re in a league that gives you 5+ IL spots, it’s not a bad idea to stash deGrom on one of them to see if he can get back and dominate for a couple of weeks at the end of the year when your team is [hopefully] in the playoffs or knocking on the door of a roto championship. But I wouldn’t use a valuable IL spot for him. Springs should be back before deGrom, he’s just not nearly as good - so it’s harder to justify.
Scherzer, Bradish, Kershaw, and Baz are hands-off unless you’re picking them near the end of the draft and stashing them on the IL. Scherzer and Bazz will both miss at least a few months, and neither guy has a strong recent record of health, so it would seem pretty unlikely they help a fantasy team a ton this year even once they get back. As for Bradish, he could still throw 100+ innings this year and have a decent year, we just don’t have much information on him right now. But you always hate to see a guy showing up to camp with a UCL problem.
The only one I’m thinking about doing anything here with is deGrom in a 5+ IL spot league. Even though he’ll probably be the last guy back here, he is too good to not be rostered in every league once he’s anywhere close to a return.
Tier 8
Justin Verlander
Nathan Eovaldi
Cristopher Sanchez
Kenta Maeda
Emmet Sheehan
Andrew Abbott
Yu Darvish
Aaron Civale
Seth Lugo
Charlie Morton
Shota Imanaga
Yusei Kikuchi
Nestor Cortes
Reese Olson
Jon Gray
We are round SP #70 now, so the tiers are huge. We are near the end of a standard draft, but most of these guys will be drafted in your league, so let’s cover them.
Verlander/Eovaldi/Sanchez/Sheehan/Abbott
There’s a big difference between Verlander and Sheehan/Abbott, but I view these five similarly. They are at the top of this tier, and all five of them can go out and have a top-50 SP season. I might be the low man on Verlander, but forgive me for not wanting to draft a 41-year-old who isn’t healthy and who saw his K% drop to 21% last year.
Eovaldi is in better shape there, but he has not been the picture of health lately, and we’ve seen him lose and gain velocity and overall be pretty mediocre. So this is probably the year where the wheels fall off on him, but while he’s healthy and on the mound he’s a useful fantasy arm.
As for the trio of Sanchez/Sheehan/Abbott, I have doubts about all three, but I have to admit they all can have breakout seasons. Sanchez has an enticing combination of elite command and decent strikeout stuff. He posted a 20% K-BB% last year, which you know I love. The weird thing is that his command was nowhere near as good in the minors, and he does not have a good fastball at all. Since he’s a trendy breakout pick, I don’t think I’ll end up drafting him at all - I think he’s going too high.
Darvish/Civale/Lugo/Morton/Imanaga/Kikuchi/Gray
These seven pitchers are more “mediocre innings” pitchers. They can all go out there and have a dominant start every once in a while, but none of them have a ceiling in my view. The ones I’d draft right now would be Lugo (really strong fastball, good ballpark), Imanaga (uncertainty means he could surpass expectations), Kikuchi (improved quite a bit last year), and Gray (I can’t quit him with that decent fastball velo and great slider).
Cortes/Olson
Similar profiles here. Both might not be good, but both could really crush their ADP. Cortes needs to stay healthy and get that elite command back from 2022, and Olson needs to get and keep a job, and then improve his fastball.
More on all of these guys in the podcast episode, so check that out.
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