RADIO
John Laghezza's starting pitchers who are more valuable for fantasy baseball points leagues in 2025. His middle-to-late round SP draft targets and sleepers.
Developing a solid draft plan is one thing, but it doesn't mean a thing without accounting for its execution. I've remained loud and clear on my stance entering the 2025 fantasy baseball season — league-wide scoring's trending downward despite the inception of a universal designated hitter. Securing everyday hitters that check all my boxes has become my top priority.
In this game of ours, we often have to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, which is fine. Especially in snake drafts, you simply can't draft everyone that you want. Therefore, pushing hitters up your ranks means you better have a late pitching plan in place. Affectionately referred to as the "good SP blob" (let's call it ADP 90-120), there are plenty of viable options to start your rotation. That said, it's critical to develop a grasp on the backend of the player pool for values.
Point league formats in particular offer a unique opportunity to take advantage of different skill sets to find those profits.
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The "Money Start"
Today, I'll be using a custom pitching metric I developed a few years ago for precisely this situation. It's called the "Money Start", an expansion of the Quality Start (+6.0 IP, ≤3 ER) — which over time has proven to fall short of moving the fantasy needle.
Is anyone chasing a 4.50 ERA? The answer's no. My adapted version expands those parameters in both directions (+7.0 IP, ≤2 ER) and in my opinion at least, better encapsulates the starts we're chasing in point leagues. Extra distance means extra points, while also permitting lower-strikeout pitchers by percentage to enter the fray via volume.
Cristopher Sanchez, Philadelphia Phillies
ADP: 162
No better place to start digging into last year's Money Start leaderboard than the very top. What if I told you the pitcher with the most +7.0 IP, ≤2 ER outings in MLB last year was available outside of ADP 160? No, I wouldn't be lying — I'd be referring to Philadelphia's 28-year-old southpaw Cristopher Sanchez.
Since being traded from the Rays in the Curtis Mead deal, he's added to his workload every year, topping out inside the top-20 in innings pitched at 181 1/3 IP. As I mentioned earlier, one of the best ways to circumvent strikeout hype is through volume.
Sánchez made all 31 starts in 2024 to excellent results (11 Wins, 3.32 ERA, 1.24 WHIP) due to elite control (5.8 percent walk-rate). If anything, I'd counter the WHIP's being inflated by a .313 BABIP and should have wound up closer to his elite 1.05 mark from 2023.
The Phillies' pitching coaches didn't do much in regards to adjustments after the move — sometimes a little tweak is all we need. Always deploying a sinker-first approach, that utilization number dropped precipitously from the low 60 percent range (which is entirely too high) down to the more palatable high-40s, where he lives to this day.
In a simplistic yet intuitive stroke of genius, Philly pushed Sánchez to throw his changeup more, a devastating offering by any account. Up to ~36 percent usage, it's a legitimate featured pitch to both handed hitters with all the trimmings — impossible to get a hold of (.225 xSLG), while generating tons of whiffs (34.8 percent).
The +10 mph disparity in velocity, coupled with perfect placement in the lower third of the zone and elite movement (37.2-inch Vertical Drop, 17.9-inch Horizontal Run) made it one of my highest graded pitches in MLB last season.
Eight of his 17 Quality Starts in 2024 crossed into Money Start territory (including two complete games). Philadelphia's stacked on offense and should provide plenty of win opportunities for a guy like Sánchez, who is a strike-throwing machine.
If you're looking for consistent production from a 13th-round starter in point leagues, he's your man.
⚾️📈#MLBMA Candidate Filthiest Pitches Of 2024 📈⚾️
Cristopher Sánchez's Changeup:
85.1 mph
2018 rpm
37.2'' Vertical Drop 👀
17.9'' Horizontal Run 👀35.7% Use
0.225 xSLG
34.8% WhiffWe may not usually think of Sánchez in that light but man this pitch is a nightmare pic.twitter.com/2DvvdXtEBF
— John Laghezza MLB / NFL Moving Averages (@JohnLaghezza) March 5, 2025
Bowden Francis, Toronto Blue Jays
ADP: 192
Most mentions of Toronto's latest reliever converted to starter this offseason come pre-packaged with the term negative regression — and I get it. Whenever we deal with small samples, and in particular outliers in BABIP (.212) and left-on-base rate (78.2 percent), there's cause for further investigation.
Ignoring those critical metrics would be malpractice. That said, hand-waving what Bowden Francis did in his 103 2/3 IP last season is throwing the baby out with the fantasy bathwater. Again, our common through-line for point league pitcher values rests in command/control.
Francis walked just 5.4 percent of batters last season on a stellar 33 percent Ball rate, my favorite stat to validate the sustainability of a pitcher's command.
Having only made 13 starts last year, Francis won't be found on the Money Start leaderboard — that is unless you turn it into a rate stat. Just like Sánchez, MLB's top rated player in Money Starts as a percentage of games started is... Bowden Francis (38.5 percent). Having never even started a single game in the bigs coming into 2024, the 28-year-old righty went five innings in his August debut as part of the regular rotation.
He would go on to complete at least six innings in his next seven starts, walking multiple batters in just one of nine starts down the stretch, posting an unbelievable five Money Starts in just over a month between August 12 and September 18 against strong competition.
What stands out most to me for a repeat and potential 16th round breakout this season? Francis' delineation of handedness-specific pitch deployment. I've referred to it as possessing a "targeted approach" in the past (sorry, my creative gene must've been out to lunch that day).
What I mean is some SPs like Francis reserve entirely different attack plans, complete with fresh arsenals depending on the hitter's handedness.
Sounds crazy to ditch your highest whiff pitch altogether against lefties, but it works. He must not like how the slider tails down and away to his glove side — also known as the sweet spot for lefties to turn on and pull into the bleachers. Foregoing whiffs and therefore strikeouts, Francis focuses his secondaries, in particular the split-finger down and away to induce weak contact instead (image below). Low-risk, high-reward plays like this win leagues.
NOTE: In certain formats (I can speak only first-hand for my CBS H2H home league), Francis gets the coveted SP/RP tag which boosts his value even more — getting a two-start week from your RP slot provides an automatic positional edge.
Cody Bradford, Texas Rangers
ADP: 289
Nothing like a last-round pick that could change the course of your fantasy season. Please keep that last part in mind if this argument isn't the most compelling I've ever made.
Final picks should come with a fairly binary set of outcomes — big splash, or easy cut. Enter Cody Bradford, the Rangers' third-year lefty hurler. He broke camp with the club last season after posting an insane 17.9 percent swinging-strike rate in spring training, which carried over into April.
The 27-year-old southpaw came flying out of the box in the regular season, striking out 17 batters to only two walks (21.1 percent K-BB%) and winning his first three starts on a superb 1.40 ERA, 0.62 WHIP combo through 19 1/3 innings.
The Bradford breakout was in full effect... until a strained lower back sent him to the shelf for three-and-a-half months. Sigh.
The Rangers slow-played his next two starts, capped at 49 and 56 pitches thrown, respectively. I mention those starts because they're included in Bradford's totals, and he still finished seventh in MLB in Money Start rate (23.1 percent).
Making nine more starts down the stretch, Bradford made for one of the better late-season pitching adds, averaging just under six innings per start with strong stats across the board — 3.33 ERA (3.84 SIERA), 1.05 WHIP, 17.7 percent K-BB rate, .657 OPS, 28.8 percent hard-hit rate, and 1.05 HR/9.
Without elite velocity, Bradford's strikeout ceiling is capped but executing four above-average pitches with elevated extension metrics and elite command makes him dangerous to hitters on either side. Texas' offense projects among the strongest in MLB, providing enough run support to qualify Bradford for wins if he stays on his current IP/GS trajectory.
Keep a close eye on his spring performances (five scoreless innings so far) because if he starts the season as the Rangers SP4/5, he's a perfect last-round selection in point league drafts.
LHP Cody Bradford's off to a nice start in Spring with a pretty good shot to break camp
Every SP in the rotation's had *at least* one Tommy John before & he should be line for impactful innings in 2025
(plus that Changeup dances the Texas two-step) pic.twitter.com/rzFUYyJZaj
— John Laghezza MLB / NFL Moving Averages (@JohnLaghezza) March 6, 2025
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