Pablo Lopez (SP, MIN) - 2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Values

BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 155

CURRENT ADP: ~170 overall

ANALYSIS: Pablo Lopez enjoyed a breakout season in 2020 and followed it up with another quality campaign in 2021. He struggled a bit, at least comparatively, last season, but there’s plenty to like about this move based on the starter’s metrics from last season. Most prominent among the reasons to like the move? The potential for an increase in pitcher wins.

Since the right-hander’s breakout campaign in 2020, the Marlins have scored the second-fewest runs in the league. In that same span, Lopez has just 21 pitcher wins from 63 starts spanning 340 IP. During that same span, 45(!) different starters have more pitcher wins than Lopez. Of those 45 pitchers, 26 had a higher FIP than the 26-year-old's 3.48 FIP during the same span. Of the starter’s 21 wins in the last three years, 10 of them surprisingly came in 2022 despite Miami scoring the third-fewest runs in the league. Those 10 wins in 2022 also came despite Lopez’s ERA and FIP jumping to 3.75 and 3.71 last season, though those numbers certainly weren’t helped by starts against the New York Mets.

While not as significant as getting to pitch with better run support, Lopez also won’t have to face the Mets quite as often. Of course, schedules are changing in 2023 to include fewer division games, so he might not have had to face them as much even if he stayed with the Marlins, but the 26-year-old struggled considerably against the Mets this past season. Last year, Lopez made 32 starts. He only allowed more than four runs in an outing in five of those 32 starts. Of those five starts where he allowed more than four runs? Three were against the Mets. All told, 21 of the 75 earned runs Lopez surrendered in 2022 came in matchups against New York’s National League franchise

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