Starting Pitcher Busts Due To Bounce Back for 2024 Fantasy Baseball

Connelly Doan takes a look at a few MLB starting pitchers who underperformed but may be due for positive regression in 2024 fantasy baseball.

When it comes to identifying potential fantasy value, one of the hardest things to do is to put faith in a player who burned you last season or who did not meet expectations. Even more complicated is figuring out which of those players have the chance to return to form.

Fortunately, fantasy managers have tons of data to help make that process a little easier. This is particularly true for pitchers, who have metrics for each pitch, batted-ball profiles, and the defenses behind them, among others.

This article will identify three starting pitchers who underperformed expectations in 2023 but have what it takes to bounce back in 2024. Hopefully, this will help fantasy managers start targeting potential draft value as we gear up for the 2024 fantasy baseball season!

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Starting Pitcher Bounce-Backs Candidates

Dylan Cease, Chicago White Sox

Dylan Cease came into 2023 off of an outstanding 2022 season as a higher-end fantasy option. Unfortunately, his 2023 season ended up being his worst since his rookie season. He went 7-9 with a 4.58 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, and 27.3% strikeout rate in 33 starts and 177 innings pitched. What indicates that he could return to form?

First, let's get the negatives out of the way. The 28-year-old has always had walk issues, which was the case in 2023 with a 10.1% walk rate. His career mark is 10.4%, so at least he wasn’t worse than that. Second, Cease did see about a one-MPH drop on each of his three main pitches. He still brings more velocity than most pitchers, but this is something to monitor throughout 2024.

Now, to the rebound potential. There are several signs indicating Cease got unlucky. Returning to his pitch arsenal, his pitches maintained the same spin rates and his pitch location was similar to 2022, yet he gave up career-high hard contact which was in the bottom third of baseball. His 4.10 SIERA still wasn’t high-end, but it was lower than his ERA.

Further, he suffered a career-high .330 BABIP. While this somewhat makes sense given his batted-ball results, his career BABIP is .297 and his batted-ball results, while not great, were not that much worse than his career results.

All in all, you can be wary of some of the flaws in Cease’s game, but acknowledge that he can provide more fantasy value than he did last season. His strikeout upside is still high-end, which makes his high-three/low-four ERA career mark and 1.31 career WHIP tolerable. Everything seemed to go wrong for Cease last season, which seems unlikely to repeat given his track record.

Cristian Javier, Houston Astros

After starting his career with three strong seasons, things took a surprisingly poor turn for Cristian Javier in 2023. The 26-year-old went 10-5 with a career-worst 4.56 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, and 23.1% strikeout rate in 31 starts and 162 IP. What went wrong and why can he avoid it in 2024?

Javier is essentially a fastball-slider pitcher, so he has little room for error. He has spent his career throwing his fastball up in the zone while avoiding hard contact. He still threw his fastball up in the zone but lost about one MPH from 93.8 MPH to 92.7 MPH. Consequently, he posted a career-high 54.3% flyball rate with the pitch and a HR/FB% that jumped from 9.7% to 12.7%.

Additionally, his slider had much less success due to poor pitch location. He left the pitch in the middle of the plate, rather than painting the outside corner to right-handed hitters. This heavily affected his strikeout numbers, as his swinging-strike rate plummeted from 16.9% to a career-low 10.2%.

Slider Location 2022 vs. 2023

The issues with Javier’s 2023 stats were all things he was able to avoid from 2020 through 2022 while still applying the same pitching approach. His BABIP through that time was .223 compared to .272, his strikeout rate was 30.9% compared to 23.1%, and his SIERA was 3.62 compared to 4.76.

After over 300 IP of avoiding damaging contact with his fastball and getting swings and misses with his slider, expect Javier to be able to get back to those results in 2024.  

Hunter Greene, Cincinnati Reds

Hunter Greene was considered a top fantasy prospect for some time and now has two big-league seasons under his belt. While his 30.7% career strikeout rate has lived up to the hype, his 4.62 ERA has not. His 2023 was worse than 2022, as he went 4-7 with a 4.82 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, and 30.5% strikeout rate in 22 starts and 112 IP. Can he finally reach expectations in 2024?

Hunter Greene ⛽️⛽️ pic.twitter.com/kGxNaWHQ46

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 1, 2023

Greene’s 98.3-MPH fastball paired with his slider should have all the makings of a dominant pitcher, and his strikeout rate and 13.4% overall swinging-strike rate met expectations. What didn’t meet expectations was his poor batted-ball results.

While he didn’t give up much contact at 72.5%, the contact he did allow was very hard. Greene’s average exit velocity and hard-hit rate were both in the bottom 20 percent of baseball to go with a 17.4-degree launch angle. 

Consequently, Greene gave up a poor .339 BABIP and 14.3% HR/FB rate. His pitch location and high velocity may have led to such hard-hit metrics, as he tended to leave the ball in the middle of the plate at times.

Greene has yet to show his true potential, but there are enough signs there to make me think he could put it all together in 2024. His two-pitch mix has the strikeout skills, but pitch location has held him back. This is something that can be learned, and Greene is just 24 years old.

Even more encouraging, his 3.74 SIERA was much lower than his ERA, despite his batted-ball profile. Greene’s stuff is so good that he should be able to improve overall even if he doesn’t fully fix his location issues.

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