The New Fantasy Baseball Strikeout Kings: Which Pitchers Are The Real Deal?

Strikeouts are some of my favorite parts of baseball. While some might view the home run as the most exciting outcome of an at-bat, there's nothing I enjoy more than watching a hitter go down swinging.

I do daily strikeout projections for DFS and sports betting, so I am constantly looking at all the statistics surrounding strikeouts, attempting to gauge if pitchers can hit their K props in the right daily matchups.

Since it's the All-Star break, it seems like a good time to analyze the best strikeout pitchers from the first half of the season to see if I can make some predictions about which of them will continue to dominate their opponents over the rest of the season. Adjust your expectations for their performance on your fantasy teams accordingly.

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2024 Fantasy Baseball Strikeout Kings

Let's start with a quick forward here on my data collection and methodology. We are looking at all starting pitchers who have thrown 60 or more innings this season.

Over 130 pitchers qualified. The average K% of those pitchers was 22.3% with a standard deviation of 4.54%. So all the pitchers on the chart are in the top sixteenth percentile regarding K%. A few pitchers I omitted were Dane Dunning (only 59 innings pitched, currently injured), Clarke Schmidt (60.2 innings pitched, currently injured), and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (on the 60-day IL).

Pitchers are listed in order from the highest K% to the lowest. I included ERA and WHIP for those concerned with ratios, while I also added BB% for those who are efficiency-minded.

The last four columns are Swinging Strike Rate, Stuff+, Location+, and Pitching+, all metrics that I think are useful in discussing the sustainability of these K-rates.

High K-rates should be backed by high swinging strike rates, otherwise, a pitcher might be relying too much on called strikes which is a recipe for regression as the season progresses.

Both Stuff+ and Pitching+ are highly correlated with strikeout rates. Using last year's data, Stuff+ had a 0.59 correlational coefficient with K% and Pitching+ was at 0.62. So far this season, those same correlations are 0.52 (Stuff+) and 0.58 (Pitching+).

Remember, that Stuff+ ratings are based on velocity, movement, and the differentials between the various pitches that a pitcher throws. We throw the term "stuff" around quite often when discussing a pitcher's arsenal of pitches if they throw hard and/or have nasty movement on a pitch. Location+ focuses only on how often a pitcher can hit his spots with each pitch. And Pitching+ attempts to reconcile both the physical characteristics of the pitch and the location.

If you're looking for an in-depth definition of Stuff+, Location+, and Pitching+ then read this article on Fangraphs.

The Top Ten: 30% and Over Club

We have ten pitchers with a K-rate of 30% or higher, but how many of them can sustain it for the rest of the season? Only nine pitchers finished last season above 30% with Glasnow, Skubal, and Peralta being the only pitchers who show up on both lists.

Spencer Strider lasted only a week and Shohei Ohtani isn't pitching this year, so our top trio of arms that have stood out among all the others in terms of K% are Garrett Crochet, Paul Skenes, and Tyler Glasnow.

These three are in a league of their own. We've seen Glasnow post huge numbers before, but he's been injury-prone during his career and has rarely been able to do it for a full season. As for the other two young guns, we have little to no sample size on them at all. Crochet was a reliever in Chicago the last three seasons and had major control issues. He came completely out of nowhere this year but has been dominant. Skenes we knew had the potential to be this good based on his prolific college stats, but I don't think many expected him to be this good this soon.

Paul Skenes, 99mph Fastball and 95mph Splinker, Overlay. pic.twitter.com/85CA9jtH2H

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 12, 2024

The underlying numbers for the top three all look fantastic and I think they're entirely sustainable. At some point, hitters are going to start studying the book on Skenes, but he's also young enough that we can reasonably expect him to continue to evolve as a pitcher, too.

The Chris Sale renaissance has been fun to watch and he's not doing anything we haven't seen him do before. It's just a bit surprising that he's been able to do it at age 35 after he's struggled to stay healthy for the last four years. He's got everything working right now, including his velocity on his fastball back up at 95 MPH.

Skipping over Flaherty for now, the last two guys who look like safe bets to keep it rolling are Tarik Skubal and Dylan Cease. Let's discuss Skubal first, who is the current front-runner for the AL Cy Young award.

There's nothing but good stuff to say about Skubal this season. His SwStr% is the third best of the group and his BB% is third as well, trailing only Joe Ryan and teammate Flaherty. He has the best WHIP of the group at 0.88 and is tied for second with a Pitching+ rating of 108.

Tarik Skubal, 85mph Changeup (Swinging Strike/low) and 98mph Fastball (backwards K), Individual Pitches + Overlay.

Why you'd take that fastball that was fairly middle-middle. Because it looked like the changeup/ball you just swung at. pic.twitter.com/OVVCOl5ae1

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 13, 2024

There's no easier way to say it than this -- Skubal is throwing whatever pitches he wants, whenever he wants to, and throwing them for strikes. If anything, I think he could improve upon his K% in the second half and if he can stay healthy, he should be the runaway Cy Young winner.

Now I'll be the first to admit I was a Dylan Cease skeptic before the season and even after his hot start, I expected some major regression. And while his ERA is flirting with four, his ability to strike out hitters at a high rate remains intact. His SwStr% is strong and he also has a 108 Pitching+ rating, largely due to improved control this season as he's sporting a career-low BB% of just 7.7%.

Absolute Brilliance from Dylan Cease.

100mph on pitches 103-105 and then a wicked slider. pic.twitter.com/ERvxhCQ6JO

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 14, 2024

Cease has the best Stuff+ rating of our top ten group at 124 and his slider has been particularly nasty this season with a 22.3% SwStr% and 36.9% CSW%. I was wrong about Cease and I think his bounceback year in San Diego continues.

Taj Bradley has been spectacular for Tampa Bay since missing the first month and a half due to injury. He's picking up right where he left off last season but is missing bats even more often after ditching his changeup for a splitter. He finished with a 28% K% in 2023 and I think he'll end up somewhere between there and his current 30.5%. If he can maintain this level of run prevention, he's going to have a strong finish to the season.

I don't have much to say about Freddy Peralta. He's going to max out around 30% unless he can improve his command and cut down his walks. His Location+ of 99 is slightly below average and he's consistently been an 8-10% walk rate guy his entire career. He's coming off a career-high 165 innings pitched last season and he's on pace for only a few more this year as he simply doesn't pitch deep into games often (only pitched into the seventh inning twice in 19 starts).

Alright, let's finally get to my two regression candidates - Jack Flaherty and Sonny Gray.

It's been one heck of a first half for Flaherty, who's 32% K% and 4.3% BB% so would represent career-bests if he can maintain them. Flaherty has demonstrated some elite control in terms of throwing strikes and being able to hit the corners of the zone with his fastball and slider. What worries me is his Stuff+ rating of 96, which is well below the rest of the elite guys at the top of the list. What that tells me is that he has pretty average "stuff" but has been so good at locating his pitches that it has made up for it -- and then some.

Jack Flaherty, Vicious 86mph Back Foot Slider. 😤 pic.twitter.com/CVdNgT2jqV

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 11, 2024

Flaherty is one of two guys in the top ten with an average four-seam fastball below 94 MPH (93.5 to be exact and yes, Sonny Gray is the other at 92.5). In today's league, you can live with a 93 MPH fastball as long as you can hit your spots and have plus-breaking stuff, but the margin for error gets slimmer.

Flaherty has also had some back soreness and Detroit has had him skip a few starts as a result. He's approaching 100 innings on the season and last year he threw just 144 innings which was the most he'd thrown since 2019. I worry a bit about his health and his ability to maintain his fastball velocity. Let's hope he can finish strong, but if I had to bet on where he finishes in terms of his K%, I think he will drop into the 27-28% range by the end of the year.

Sonny Gray is sitting at 30% right now but has only finished above 30% in K% once in his career (11 starts and 56 innings in 2020 for Cincinnati). He's the master of the called strike as he has our lowest SwStr% of the top group (12.2%) but an elite CSW% at 31.6%. My guess is Gray can't keep the high K totals coming all season and we've already seen him start to slow down (more than six strikeouts only once in his last five starts).

From 27% to 30% - The Rest of the Best

So we are feeling pretty good about the top half of the chart for the most part, but what about the rest of these guys?

I'll start with guys I really like (and who the numbers back, of course). We have to talk about Cole Ragans first as he could have been included in the 30+ club if I had just rounded up his 29.6%.

Ragans has an elite SwStr% of 15.2% and a Pitching+ mark of 104. He's been held back only by his location (99 rating), but at the same time, he has improved his walk rate, dropping it from 10.5% last season to 8% this year. This is a 26-year-old pitcher who has still made only 58 starts in the major leagues, he has plenty of room for improvement.

Cole Ragans Changeup leads all pitches with a 48.6 Whiff% (min. 250 Swings)

Ragans has a 3.28 ERA and 2.74 FIP in 109.2 IP, paving the way for the 1st All-Star selection of his career! pic.twitter.com/ogNQ2Zdz4Q

— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) July 8, 2024

We are talking about a guy who averages 96 MPH on his fastball and can throw all five of his pitches for strikes. Like Skubal, his underlying numbers suggest he's not going anywhere and if anything, could improve upon his strikeout stats in the second half. If there were any doubts that Cole Ragans was legit (and there were) then they've been erased with his excellent first half.

Two guys who are about as rock solid as they come are Zack Wheeler and Joe Ryan. Both righties check in with a 27% strikeout rate and nearly identical SwStr% of 12.4% (Ryan) and 12.7% (Wheeler). Both guys are maximizing their above-average stuff with elite location skills. Wheeler has had a 26.9% strikeout rate the last two seasons in a row, so let's just pencil him in for the same this year.

Ryan is one of the best control pitchers in baseball, while Wheeler usually is too, but has seen his BB% swell from his usual 5% to 7.5% this season. These are workhorse innings-eaters who don't need 30% strikeout rates to be dominant in fantasy because they pitch deep enough to earn wins and are a massive help to your ratios.

Tanner Bibee is doing his best Joe Ryan impression this season and has been the best arm in the Cleveland rotation thus far. He's jumped from a 24% K% last season to 28.4% this year and he'll probably end up settling into the 26-27% range when it's all said and done. After a relatively slow start to the year, he's been spectacular since.

Cleveland Guardians - Tanner Bibee

- First 5 starts: 12.6% K-BB%, 4.44 ERA, 1.60 WHIP
- Since then: 25.5% K-BB%, 3.57 ERA, 0.98 WHIP

- 13.9% SwStr%
- 34.1% Ball%
- Three pitches with 50%+ Strike%

Looks like an SP1 to me!

Second Half Expectation:
- 3.30 ERA
- 1.10 WHIP
- 27%… pic.twitter.com/BZC9KEufth

— Jon Anderson (@JonPgh) July 17, 2024

Nick Pivetta is the curious case of a pitcher who crushes the Stuff+ and Pitching+ metrics but has a very pedestrian 11.3 SwStr%. He rocked a 31% K% through 142 innings last season but half of those innings were in relief. He's been pretty inconsistent this year when it comes to strikeout totals. To illustrate that, he had only four or five strikeouts in four straight games in June before striking out 10 Marlins and 10 Athletics in his final two starts before the break. Pivetta is too inconsistent for me to forecast any improvement, but he's good enough to where I don't he slips much more than 1-2% either. We are likely going to see him finish the year around 27-28%.

Let's pair up some of these other guys to save time. Luis Gil reminds me a lot of Hunter Greene but with even worse control. Gil's struggles with walks early this season were well-documented, but he's reigned it in a little and has been effective enough even with a high walk rate to stick in the Yankees rotation. Let's not forget he struck out 14 White Sox earlier this season and has three starts with nine strikeouts as well.

Speaking of Hunter Greene, he throws even harder than Gil in terms of fastball velocity and has the second-best Stuff+ rating on our chart (tied with Cease and behind Pivetta). Greene is still being held back by his location skills, though his 98 location rating isn't nearly as worrisome as Gil's 95. We saw him groove a fastball to Jarren Duran in the All-Star Game, though his home run issues have been much better this season. The splitter is still a work in progress and Greene really needs a third solid pitch to take the next step.

If Hunter Greene can consistently land this Splitter...

The league is in Trouble. 😳 pic.twitter.com/NReqrKiuPS

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 20, 2024

Michael King looks a lot like Pablo Lopez but with a superior ERA. Pablo is in line for some positive regression in the second half and has a much better SwStr% (13.5%) than King and better overall control. Both guys have below-average "stuff" and are relying on locating their pitches. We've seen both be really good and bad at times in the first half, but in terms of strikeouts, I think both are not likely to change dramatically one way or the other either.

Ryan Pepiot and MacKenzie Gore have nearly identical numbers across the board with the one major difference between them being that they throw with different arms. That and Gore's WHIP is the worst on the chart. Both are really interesting and promising young pitchers, but nothing really jumps off the page here statistically. Gore's SwStr% is 13.4% and anytime I see someone above 13% I pay attention, but he's been far too inconsistent in his career so far in terms of his control.

That leaves us with one of my favorite pitchers to watch so far this season - Grayson Rodriguez. Now, this is a pitcher that I think could be the real deal and his numbers suggest that a 26.7% K% is lower than what we should expect.

#FantasyBaseball

When watching Grayson Rodriguez it feels like we are watching a pitcher just on the cusp of being an ace..

6.1 IP 2 H 0 R 4 BB 8 K
19 whiffs🔥 and 32 CSW%

So excited to see him taking those next steps!
pic.twitter.com/6SK9Ic1Sv7

— Andrew DeCeglie (@Andrew_FBB) July 3, 2024

He's already improved from a 25% K% last season, but there's more room to grow based on the SwStr% and solid ratings across the board in the rest of his metrics. His fastball velocity is down over one full MPH, but his changeup has been much more effective this season and he's doubled his curveball usage, while almost completely ditching his cutter. The end result is a young pitcher with four quality pitches who is quickly learning how to maximize them and tweak his arsenal.

I like Rodriguez to push up closer to 28-29% this season and help lead the Orioles on a deep postseason run.

Closing Thoughts

So what's the point in this exercise other than for me to spend hours watching Pitching Ninja clips of the best strikeout pitchers in baseball?

I just want to point out that not all strikeout pitchers are created equal. And while strikeout rates tend to normalize pretty quickly among hitters (after around 100 at-bats) they tend to take a lot longer for pitchers and be much more malleable due to velocity changes (arms wear down throughout the season) and pitch-mix changes (pitchers study analytics just like the rest of us and make a conscious decision to throw more or less of certain pitches or even use certain pitches more or less to right-handed or left-handed hitters).

I thought I would leave you with my own bold prediction as to who finishes in the top ten in terms of strikeout percentage (not overall strikeouts) since everyone loves some bold second-half predictions.

1. Skenes
2. Glasnow
3. Crochet
4. Cease
5. Skubal
6. Sale
7. Ragans
8. Bradley
9. Pivetta
10. Rodriguez

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Follow me @ThunderDanDFS for the rest of the season and I'll be betting on strikeout props every day! Good luck with your fantasy baseball teams and thanks for visiting RotoBaller for all your fantasy sports needs!

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