Starting Pitchers To Avoid? Fantasy Baseball Bust Candidates - AL Edition

Like anything in life, everything has a price. When something becomes higher priced, we tend to be careful when investing based on our preferences. However, the interest rises when we find a similar product for a cheaper price. That's the case with fantasy sports, especially when drafting teams. Sometimes, we need to make mistakes to learn from them in the future, and that's the case with pitchers to avoid in the American League. 

Injury risk aside, it's tricky to identify starting pitcher busts and avoids because we can usually find a path for optimism. A quick example would be Chris Sale, who averaged nearly 130 days on the injured list from 2021-2023 but saw the highest innings total and earned value since 2018. Sometimes, a player surprises us and stays healthy for most of the season, leading to an unexpected outcome. 

As the draft goes on, the risk level tends to decrease, especially in the middle to later rounds. Identifying three starting pitcher busts/avoids involves looking at players within or around the top 100 picks that showed flaws in their profile. We'll also examine the skills and other factors to consider fading these starting pitchers at their price.

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Hunter Brown, SP, Houston Astros

NFBC ADP: 97 (Since Feb. 1)

After a brutal 2023 season, with a 5.09 ERA and 3.52 xERA, Brown made fantasy managers want to drop him in April 2024. To begin the 2024 season, Brown logged an 11.84 ERA in April, which took many strong innings to bring it down to 3.49 on the season.

Brown's 3.54 xERA was similar to his actual ERA, suggesting the skills adequately support the results. However, is an xERA in the mid-3.00s worth a top 100 pick? Brown's skills have fluctuated between mediocre to above-average, with a 16 percent strikeout minus walk rate and a 10.7 percent swinging strike rate.

The four-seamer leads the arsenal, with an 11.9 percent swinging strike rate via the above-average inches of induced vertical break (17.5 inches).

Brown's four-seamer results against lefties (.308 wOBA) have been better than his outcomes versus righties (.336 wOBA). Unfortunately, Brown's other non-fastballs in the slider (10.8 percent), changeup (10.5 percent), and curveball (11.7 percent) don't hint at more whiffs.

Brown's curveball generates tons of downward movement, but right-handed hitters crush it, with a .469 wOBA compared to a .225 wOBA versus lefties. That could make him susceptible to platoon splits, especially though the curveball performed better in 2023 versus right-handed hitters (.226 wOBA).

The wild card for Brown might be the changeup versus lefties. He increased the usage from 8.2 percent (2023) to 20.2 percent (2024), and it remained an effective pitch. Brown's changeup allowed a .244 wOBA (2024) compared to a .201 wOBA (2023) against left-handed hitters.

Interestingly, Brown's changeup doesn't generate above-average downward movement, but he appears to command it down and away from opposite-handed hitters.

Brown's skills don't suggest a high-end starting pitcher, though it wouldn't surprise us if he took a step forward in 2025. Be cautious when selecting Brown around pick 100.

Bryan Woo, SP, Seattle Mariners

NFBC ADP: 130 (Since Feb. 1)

Many of us wondered how long Woo's elbow and forearm would hang on, but he finished the season strong. Woo began the season on the injured list with elbow inflammation, causing him to miss over one month. The Mariners activated Woo, and he started in a game, but then the team pulled him, then reports stated he had forearm tightness.

However, after the forearm tightness news, Woo avoided the injured list and performed well against the Yankees on May 21, with six scoreless innings, zero walks, and seven strikeouts.

Woo was scratched from one start in June, only to be cleared from an MRI to pitch without heading to the injured list. Then, he battled a hamstring injury in late June into July, causing him to miss two weeks.

We saw the surge in fantasy value in the second half once mostly healthy.

That's quite a roller coaster ride of injuries for Woo, giving us pause in drafting him in 2025. Besides that, Woo had a successful season in 2024, with a 3.33 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, 24.2 percent strikeout rate, and 2.7 percent walk rate across 67.2 innings in August and September.

He showed elite control, evidenced by his 29 percent ball rate. Woo led the league in ball rate in 2024, as seen below among pitchers with 100 innings.

That should keep Woo's floor high, with enough whiffs via the 11.9 percent swinging strike rate to make him a juicy target when we push injuries aside. Woo outperformed his ERA by nearly 90 points, given the 3.77 xERA, typically hinting at regression based on his skills. However, Woo might fall into the category where he outperforms expectations.

Woo's swinging strike rate is slightly above the league average, with a career rate of 12.3 percent across 210 innings. The four-seamer (14.4 percent) and slider (13.8 percent) headline the arsenal from a swinging strike rate.

Woo uses the four-seamer (43.9 percent), sinker (29.5 percent), and sweeper (16.3 percent) against right-handed hitters. His sinker (.214 wOBA) and sweeper (.073 wOBA) have been dominant against same-handed hitters, with the four-seam allowing a .287 wOBA.

Last year, the left-handed splits worried us, with all his pitches allowing a .340 wOBA or higher. Woo's two best pitches against left-handed hitters in 2023 were the four-seamer (.345 wOBA) and slider (.344 wOBA). However, the results improved against all his offerings versus lefties in 2024.

That's a positive sign heading into 2025, especially considering the pitch mix change against left-handed hitters. Woo increased the sinker (17.6 percent) and changeup (15.9 percent). He threw the sinker about five percentage points higher, with a nine-point jump in changeups against left-handed hitters.

Woo's sinker generates a ridiculous amount of groundballs (68.2 percent), with the changeup adding over three inches of arm side fade, typically leading to more weak contact. That formula should continue helping Woo find success against left-handed hitters.

There's no denying Woo's elite control and above-average skills warrant him being able to outperform his peripheral metrics. However, we'll want to avoid Woo or be cautious in assuming he fully healed from the elbow and forearm issues.

Gerrit Cole, SP, New York Yankees

NFBC ADP: 60.8 (Since Feb. 1)

After two straight seasons with 200 or more innings (2022-2023), Cole dealt with an injury that kept him on the injured list for the most days of his career in 2024. Cole dealt with an elbow injury in early March that led to landing on the 60-day injured list in late March after being diagnosed with right elbow inflammation.

He missed three months, returned in the middle of June, and had arm fatigue in late July into August. One should wonder whether Cole's elbow issue will linger into 2025, especially since it's one of the most common injuries that causes players to miss nearly a month longer than expected, on average.

We saw a slight but likely insignificant fluctuation in his control, with a 35 percent ball rate in 2024 compared to a career average of 34.1 percent. Cole had the two lowest swinging strike rates of his career over the past two seasons, the lowest since 2017. He had a 12.4 percent (2023) swinging strike rate, which dipped to 11.2 percent (2024).

For context, Cole's swinging strike rates ranged from 14-15 percent in the previous five seasons. Cole's slider used to be a dominant offering, with a career swinging strike rate of 19 percent. However, Cole's slider swinging strike rate fell to 16 percent in 2023, down to 13.8 percent in 2024.

Unsurprisingly, Cole's four-seamer velocity fell by about one mph each of the past few seasons from 97.8 mph (2022) to 96.7 mph (2023) down to 95.9 mph (2024). We've seen Cole's four-seamer lose arm-side horizontal movement while maintaining the induced vertical break with a gradual velocity decline.

Part of the four-seamer movement profile change came from the higher vertical release point, theoretically leading to fewer inches of arm-side run. Cole's vertical release point with the four-seamer shifted about two inches higher in 2023 and 2024 compared to 2022.

Another issue with the slider losing whiffs could be him throwing it more often in the zone. That's evident in Cole's slider being thrown in the zone at a career-high percentage of 51.8 percent compared to a career average of 44 percent.

It could be fluky with a smaller sample in 2024, but Cole appeared to struggle to command and locate the slider like in past seasons. Unsurprisingly, we've seen Cole's swinging strike rates via the slider in the zone fall to 11 percent (2024) from 11.9 percent (2023) and 16 percent (2022).

Though we have a discounted price on Cole in 2025, we'll want to be cautious investing in him as an SP1, especially in 12-15 team leagues. If fantasy managers invest in Cole, they should understand the risk and build around the concerns in the profile.

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