Where to Draft Injured Pitchers in Fantasy Baseball

Eric Samulski breaks down the top injured pitchers heading into the 2022 MLB season and where they should be valued for fantasy baseball.

In this article, I'm going to discuss pitchers who ended last season injured and discuss how comfortable I believe we should be in drafting them. We'll look at the nature of their injury, their projected recovery timeline, and whether a start in early April should make you less inclined to draft them or not.

There are so many pitchers coming into this season injured. I'm not sure whether that number is elevated because we had a normal season after a COVID-shortened one or it just feels like a lot because I can't remember what a "normal" baseball season feels like. Regardless, there are a lot of guys coming into the year dinged up or flashing major injury risk, and certainly, some that aren't mentioned below.

As I mentioned in my earlier article about injured hitters, pitchers tend to be riskier to begin with so I'm more apt to lean into the risk with pitching. I certainly don't want to draft too many injury-related pitchers, but I don't necessarily think there is such a thing as a "safe" pitcher given the stress pitching puts on your shoulder/elbow, so controlled risks with building your pitching staff can be a good way to find value in your drafts. However, I also think some of the players on this list are more worth the gamble than others.

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Luis Severino, Justin Verlander, Mike Clevinger, Noah Syndergaard

We'll start with the four big-name pitchers who (essentially) missed all of 2021. It's fairly obvious to state that a delayed start to the season is beneficial to all of these pitchers. While they all would have been ready for Opening Day regardless, having an extra month to continue to build up strength in your arm and use bullpens to increase pitch count is never a bad thing. The one downside is that we can't be 100% sure how their arm-care routines have been going, and they are not working with organizational pitching coaches to stay on track. Still, these are four veteran pitchers who (I assume) know how to take care of their arms and prepare for a season. I would still expect them to start the year slow as the team finally gets a chance to see their progress, but a shortened spring training will likely mean that every pitcher starts slow, so this is just another way that these four become more similar to the other arms you're drafting.

If you're curious, I'm highest on Verlander and actually have him as my SP24 given his past dominance and my confidence in his ability to manage his arm-care away from the team. I have Severino next at SP50 because he returned briefly last year, so I have some confidence around his health, but he also hasn't really pitched in the majors since 2018 when he was 24-years-old, so it's hard to know for sure what pitcher we're getting. Clevinger is next at SP60 because he's battled multiple injuries and San Diego is known to pull starters early and skip spots in the rotation to manage innings, and then Syndergaard is at SP81 because he's had the least consistent results of this group, and I'm least confident in his continued health, which I understand is my potentially my personal bias and unfair.

Jacob deGrom, New York Mets

We've talked about deGrom a lot this offseason. When healthy, we know he's the best pitcher in baseball, but he's going to turn 34 in June and only pitched 92 innings last year while battling through an elbow injury that he ultimately decided not to get surgery on. You can read about some RotoBaller views on deGrom with John Flanigan's sleeper piece and Ariel Cohen's ATC Risk article.

To put it simply, the extra time is obviously good for a pitcher that is coming off of an elbow injury and needs time to rest and heal. However, without having had surgery, it's harder as a casual fan (read: not a doctor) to feel confident that deGrom isn't at risk of re-injuring his elbow during the season. Especially since the Mets don't have a great track record with managing pitcher injuries. However, Jeff Zimmerman has been doing a lot of work on calculating potential IL stints based on research of past injuries and risk factors, and he has deGrom down for 31.2 days of projected IL time, which is well below guys on this list like Clevinger (37.8), Severino (41.4) Pablo Lopez (44.9), Syndergaard (50.3), Huascar Ynoa (50.8), Clayton Kershaw (56.2), and Shane Bieber (52).

So maybe deGrom is not as risky overall as some of those arms. After all, he's had a long time to rest and recover since he didn't pitch at all in the second half of the season (albeit he was still doing mound work as he tried to get back). However, deGrom will also still cost you a top-20 pick, which is a little high for me to be taking somebody with this kind of risk profile. As a result, I have him as my SP6 but down at 21 overall, which has meant that I don’t seem to be getting him in any drafts. 

However, just as a brief aside, I am bullish on deGrom’s injured teammate, Carlos Carrasco, who has apparently already been hitting 92 in early spring workouts. I have Carrasco as my SP68 and up to 246 overall; although, I’ve been able to him after that in most drafts where I ended up with him. 

Shane Bieber, Cleveland Guardians

Bieber is an interesting case because people seem truly worried about his health, but he is also one of the only starting pitchers on this list who is not currently injured or who actually made it back to pitch last season. In fact, even though Shane Bieber has more projected IL days on Jeff Zimmerman's algorithm, there are many people who feel more confident in Bieber's health since his injury was not elbow-related and he was able to return last season. It’s a bit of a quagmire and one without a true “right answer” because all questions of a player’s health are speculative. 

I like the fact that Bieber was able to come back last year. I like the fact that the injury has been discussed as not being a precursor to bigger injuries the way an elbow injury would be. I like the fact that Bieber was effective last year even without his best stuff. Granted, it was an incredibly small sample size, but when he came back at the end of the season, his slider still had an 18.2% swinging-strike rate and the curve also looked and performed well. Which means it will all come down to fastball velocity. I think Bieber can be effective if he's around 93 mph as opposed to 94 mph, but it would limit his ceiling and might also signal that he's not 100%. 

I'm cautiously optimistic about Bieber, but I did drop him down to 155 innings pitched this year, which is about 20 innings below his projections. Yet, since he is also projected for a 3.33 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP with 192 strikeouts in those innings, he comes in as SP9 and 39th overall, right after Julio Urias and Aaron Nola. 

Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox

I was actually excited to draft Chris Sale this year where he was going. In 2021, Chris Sale finished with a 3.16 ERA across 42.2 innings, which was backed up by a 3.44 SIERA and 3.35 xFIP. He maintained a solid 2.5 walks per nine innings, which led to a  21.9 K-BB% and didn’t allow a lot of hard contact with just a .232 xBA and 3.5% barrels allowed. 

Sale was able to go at least five innings in all but one regular-season start and that one start was a game where he simply got hit around by Tampa Bay. His fastball velocity was 93.6 mph which was about two mph below his 2018 self, and while that is mildly concerning, studies have shown that pitchers over 35 are the ones that experience the most consistent drop in fastball velocity, and Sale is just 32. Since fastball velocity often takes time to ramp back up after Tommy John, I wasn’t too worried about this, especially since his fastball still had a 13.5% swinging-strike rate (SwStr) and 31.5% CSW even with the lower velocity and the .216 expected batting average isn’t much different from where he was at his peak. 

Sale’s slider was still a strong pitch for him last year with a .158 batting average against, 14.2 SwStr%, and 34.5% CSW, but his changeup was bad. It had a solid 12.8% SwStr%, but it got very few called strikes and got hit hard with a .444 batting average against and .667 slugging percentage against. It's always been his third-best pitch and he's proven he can be elite with the changeup just being OK, but I think a big part of the changeup issues was location. 

In 2018 (left), he kept it off the plate away from righties more often, which allowed for weaker contact, but in 2021 (right) the changeup simply caught too much of the plate, rarely ever being thrown off the plate away.

We know that command is one of the last things to come back after Tommy John surgery, so Sale struggling with pinpoint command of his changeup in his first year back is actually something we should have expected, so I'm not sure why projections seem to think his WHIP will be worse. I just don't agree with that. 

Yet, my optimism for Sale was tested when it was revealed he has a stress fracture in his rib. While this is not at all connected to his arm and isn’t a serious injury in itself, it does mean Sale will need to take a few weeks to allow the bone to heal before he can throw again. That will set him back at least a month, so I updated my projections to have him missing about seven starts or exactly 38 innings from his ATC projections. That gave him a final line of 120 IP of a 3.53 ERA and 1.13 WHIP with eight wins and 147 strikeouts. Based on dollar value, that put him as my 48th ranked pitcher overall, right after Sean Manaea, which is pick 129 for me. That tier of Manaea, Nathan Eovaldi, and Eduardo Rodriguez feels right for a pitcher with Sale’s upside but legitimate health questions. 

Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers

I wish I had a scoop on Kershaw that you didn't know, but I think everything is shrouded in a bit of mystery right now. We know that Kershade decided against offseason surgery for a flexor tendon injury. We know that he was getting PRP injections instead. We know that PRP injections have a mixed history in terms of helping a pitcher avoid surgery. We also know that Kershaw was a free agent over the lockdown, so even if he was illegally talking to his organization's doctors, there wouldn't have been an organization to talk to, which means his rehab was being done entirely on his own.

We also know that Kershaw remains a tremendous pitcher when healthy. He's been dealing with back injuries as well over the years, and Kershaw looked good in his 120 innings last year and was closer to the elite Kershaw of old than the 3.55 ERA would suggest. He had his highest K-BB% and SwStr% since 2017. He bumped his slider usage way up, and the pitch continues to be his best with a 27.7% SwStr and 2.53 dERA. His fastball remained a good but not elite pitch and the curve was a solid third pitch that doesn't allow much hard contact, even if it's just average from a SwStr% perspective.

All told, I'd still be in on Kershaw if I had any confidence in his health. I just don't. That may burn me in the long run, but there are just too many questions that we have absolutely no answers to right now. However, if we put Kershaw down for the same amount of innings as last year, he comes out as pitcher 55 overall, right around the Luis Garcia, Tyler Mahle, and Michael Kopech range, which feels right since all three of those pitchers have big question marks as well. I would personally go with Garcia or Mahle (especially if he got traded) but I can understand wanting to roll the dice on Kershaw if you are in a FAAB league and have "stable" starting pitchers drafted ahead of him.

Carlos Rodon, San Francisco Giants

Rodon signed with the Giants and immediately started a Twitter argument about whether his rise in ADP was connected to people believing in the magical healing powers of the Giants. I was always in on Rodon this year and the fact that a smart organization with a long track record of getting the most out of veteran pitchers signed him so quickly makes me feel more confident in how his medicals must have looked. 

I also feel confident that the Giants will manage his innings in a way that sets him up for the most long-term success, which may mean he gets skipped once in a while or be pulled from a game after five innings, but I really don’t think that’s any different from what’s going to happen to most pitchers this season. Rodon remains on a good team that will win a fair amount of games and showed legitimate skills growth last year tied to his velocity increase thanks to building up strength in his lower body.

That added velocity wasn't just impactful on his fastball performance but also on his slider, which he was throwing two mph faster. While actually losing a bit of vertical movement overall, the pitch had more movement than average due to that velocity bump. On the season, it had an 18.5% SwStr and a 32% CSW while allowing just a .107 batting average against. He remains really a two-pitch pitcher with his other offerings only being average, but remember that Kevin Gausman just threw two versions of a fastball and the Giants were able to optimize his success to career-best levels, so only having two plus pitches isn't a reason to write off Rodon. 

Yes, he will always be a bit of an injury risk but look how long this damn article is! So many pitchers are injury risks right now and that’s already being built into his draft cost. If Rodon had no injury past and put up the season he just did, he’d be going ahead of Twitter darling Sandy Alcantara. I have Rodon down for 145 innings pitched this year, which puts him around Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, and Yu Darvish in terms of dollar value. As a result, I have Rodon as my 25th starting pitcher and 94th player overall. I’m all about drafting him there, but I’m not jumping as high as 73, which is his new min pick, and I'm also making sure I have “safe” innings eaters around him in my rotation. 

Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies

On an early episode of Catcher’s Corner this season, Sami and I talked about what made Wheeler so valuable was the consistent innings he had pitched. Over the last three seasons, he was top six in major league baseball in innings. Well, a side effect of throwing so many innings is that you leave yourself open to injury. Wheeler has a shoulder injury and is a few weeks behind his teammates in preparing for Opening Day; however, he is already throwing in camp, which is a good sign. 

While a couple of missed starts wouldn’t normally be a big deal. Wheeler also has a history of arm trouble, so all of that mileage in recent years is a bit concerning. Still, he’s the ace for a strong team and made some clear gains in his swing-and-miss stuff last year, so we can’t just write him off. 

It’s important to cover that those gains were real too. A big change for Wheeler was increasing the usage of his slider from 16% to 25%. He also changed the shape and velocity off the pitch, taking off almost five inches of vertical drop and throwing the pitch almost two mph faster, more like a cutter. On the season, the pitch had a .196 batting average against, 2.22 dERA, and 16% SwStr. He also used it more at the expense of his sinker which is a fine pitch but not overly exciting. Those changes paired with his good command and a solid curveball to use as a legit fourth pitch allowed Wheeler to see a massive jump in strikeout rate and register a K-BB% of 23.7%. I'd expect some regression this year in general since the gains were so immense, but a strikeout rate just under ten per nine still seems feasible to me.  

However, as a result of the shoulder concerns, I’ve bumped Wheeler’s projected innings down from 197 to 166. That might be overly conservative, but it also builds in the possibility for the Phillies to be cautious with him during the season without be getting caught holding the bag. As a result, Wheeler’s projections came to a 3.41 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 11 wins, and 171 strikeouts. That put his dollar value around Max Fried, Charlie Morton, and Lance Lynn. I have Wheeler as my starting pitcher 18 and pick 67 overall.  

Jameson Taillon, New York Yankees 

Unlike some of the other names we've covered, the delayed start unequivocally helped Taillon. The right-hander started to come on of late during his first season with the New York Yankees, pitching to a 3.50 ERA and 1.12 WHIP over 61.2 second-half innings. Taillon started throwing his sinker more at the expense of his four-seam and improved the location of his breaking pitches, which allowed for SwStr% gains with both the curve and slider.

However, Taillon also suffered an ankle injury in September and continued to pitch the remainder of the season before getting surgery at the end of October. Taillon is back throwing and has reportedly looked good in bullpens, at least according to Luke Voit. Since the injury was to his ankle, he was more than likely able to keep his arm in shape, and the added time due to the delayed start has allowed him to build up more stability in his lower half. As a result, I expect Taillon to be as close to 100% as any normal offseason would have him be, and I think he's a value at his current ADP of 290 since I have him ranked as my 76th ranked starting pitcher and 282nd ranked player overall. 

Nate Pearson, Toronto Blue Jays

Poor Nate Pearson just can't seem to stay healthy. After battling through a core muscle injury for most of last season, Pearson underwent a sports hernia surgery in November. As we mentioned above with LeMahieu, that usually means three months of rehab, which could mean that Pearson should have been relatively healthy come February. However, the problem for Pearson is that we're not sure how much throwing he was able to do as he recovered. Since he spent most of last year as a reliever, this offseason was huge for him in terms of building back up his arm strength to be stretched out as a starter.

If he wasn't really even able to throw much until February, it would be hard for me to feel confident that he's fully stretched out by May, especially since the Blue Jays had no communication with him over that time. I imagine the team will want to be cautious with him and ensure that he's fully stretched out as a starter, so while the delayed start does help him, I think the lockout also hurts him, which levels everything our. I would imagine we see him begin the year in Triple-A for a few starts until the Blue Jays feel confident that he can go five-plus innings. Additionally, after the signing of Yusei Kikuchi, I'm just not sure there's a spot for Pearson unless somebody else gets injured. 

Lance McCullers Jr., Houston Astros

We're going to end on a sour note because Lance McCullers is one player I'm not convinced benefited much from a late start. I mean, let's be clear, it's better for him than if the season started on time, but he's not all of the sudden going to be magically healthy. After suffering a forearm strain in the playoffs, McCullers just began throwing in January and then suffered a setback during the lockout, feeling pain in his flexor tendon. 

That setback makes a bit of sense since he's another player who mentioned that his rehab "has been a little choppy" as a result of the lockout. “I was hoping to be a little bit further along than I am right now, but we have the unfortunate circumstance of being locked out, so I’m still trying and I’m still pushing and rehabbing away. I have been throwing. So far, things have been going OK. We’ll see as I start moving onto the mound and things of that nature, how I start feeling."

He went on to say, “… I’m behind in my rehab. If I had to guess, I don’t know if I’ll be ready for Opening Day right now."

None of that is really appealing for fantasy managers. We know he started throwing and then had to stop. We also know he already felt his rehab was behind schedule and he's not comfortable with where he's at. We also know that he's a player with a long history of arm issues. Given all of that, it would not be surprising for the Astros to be extremely cautious with how they bring him back.

Since McCullers himself also said, "I’m ready to get back and try to help the team any way I can," it's not out of the question to have the team build him back up in multi-inning stints while sliding Cristian Javier back into the rotation until Lance is back to 100%. Remember, this is a team that wants a World Series title, so their priority is McCullers being healthy in October.

I had the right-hander on a bunch of teams last year and love his new pitch mix, but this might just be too risky for me right now unless I can take him after pick 300 in a league where I can stash him on the IL. I moved McCullers' projected innings down to 100 just to be safe, which makes him the 120th ranked overall pitcher for me, around Noah Syndergaard and Patrick Corbin. I think McCullers will be productive when he's healthy, but I just have no confidence right now in trying to guess when he'll be healthy. 

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