2021 Undervalued Draft Targets - Starting Pitchers

March 19, 2021

Jon Anderson identifies starting pitchers he loves at their current ADP as undervalued draft targets for 2021.

In late November, before I officially joined the RotoBaller team, I began a long post series where I went rotation-by-rotation, slowly populating my SP ranks for 2021. The way I did this was I would do the analysis and take a long look at each player, and then insert them into the list based on where I think they stacked up with the pitchers I had already looked at.

This was a really eye-opening exercise, and I learned a ton about the 2021 SP player pool. Lots of the rankings you see out there do not start from scratch. They are either copied from someone else's rankings or ADP data and then edited. This causes an "anchoring" effect where even if the ranker wants to move a guy up or down, they don't move them very far from their original spot. The way I went about my rankings avoided this kind of bias completely. You can find the whole series here.

After all the hours of writing that went into the series, I have a very strong feel for the player pool here and want to share some of my results. What I did was compare my rankings with the current NFBC ADP data. In this post, I will talk briefly about the guys that I rank much more highly than what we're seeing in NFBC right now. I am starting up top and will work my way down.

Luis Castillo, Cincinnati Reds

Castillo is the first guy with a disparity between my rankings and the current ADP data. I have Castillo as my number five starter, and he's currently the ninth off the board in drafts. The main reason for this is the consistent improvement he has shown in his young career.

His strikeout rate and ground-ball rate have improved each of the last three seasons, which are two of the most three important metrics to me (walk rate being the other, which he is about league average in). The changeup is one of the league's best pitches, generating a massive 23% swinging-strike rate last year. He adds a strong four-seamer and sinker to the pitch mix, giving him a diverse arsenal with multiple ways to attack.

It is very rare for a guy with an elite strikeout rate and an elite ground-ball rate to not have tons of success, and at the ripe age of 28, I think Castillo has even more room for growth.

Brandon Woodruff, Milwaukee Brewers

The Brewers young ace is currently the 13th pitcher off the board, but I have him at number eight on my ranks. This is for much of the same reasons as Castillo. Woodruff has consistently increased his strikeout rate and ground-ball rate while posting a really strong walk rate (6.1% the last two seasons).

A knock on Woodruff is his reliance on the fastball, which is fair because he has thrown a fastball over 60% of the time in his career, but he does split it between two variations (four-seam and sinker). These two pitches are both thrown very hard and move differently, which keeps hitters guessing. He gets whiffs with the four-seamers and ground-balls with the sinker, a great combination that lets him really limit walks.

Despite being heavy on fastballs, he does have a strong changeup and slider combination. Neither pitch falls into the "elite" category yet, but they are both strong enough to make him a really tough customer. There's definite room for growth here, and I could see Woodruff flirting with a top-five season if he improves on his secondary stuff.

Frankie Montas, Oakland Athletics

Many fantasy managers may be hesitant to draft Montas after looking at his 2020 line of a 5.60 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP, but you have to keep in mind that the guy just was not healthy last year. Pair that up with him missing half the season in 2019 due to suspension and you have a guy that is going to fall very far in drafts once again.

Looking at the "stuff" Montas has, he appears much better than a guy that is the 49th pitcher off the board right now in NFBC drafts. His splitter is one of the best pitches in the game, racking up a 39% CSW rate last year (he threw 118 of them). He backs that pitch up with a strong sinker that can touch 98 miles per hour and generates lots of ground-balls. The icing on the cake is that he has two other pitches that he can work into most counts. Montas has a great arsenal, huge upside, and is being drafted much too late due to injury issues that are likely behind him.

Dustin May, Los Angeles Dodgers

It can be frustrating to see a guy throwing the ball so hard with so much movement but not getting strikeouts. Dustin May is the poster boy for that in the fantasy world. He's had all the hype in the world but just does not generate strikeouts, posting a 22.7% strikeout rate in 2019 and then a 19.6% rate last season.

While you can't count on him for strikeouts, you can for sure count on him to get tons of groundballs and limit the damage. Half of his pitches are sinkers that can get up to 100 miles per hour at times. This is really fun to watch, but it is also the reason that he does not get strikeouts. Sinkers are naturally easier to make contact with, but the trouble for hitters is that they are really hard to hit in the air. The average launch angle on a Dustin May sinker was three degrees; which is directly into the ground.

He throws a cutter and a curveball for most of the rest of his arsenal, and neither of these are huge swing-and-miss pitches either. I do not ever expect a 25%+ strikeout rate from May, but I am willing to take on the lower strikeout rate because of how confident I am in him continually posting strong ERA's and win totals with that Dodgers offense behind him. Right now he is going outside of the top 50 starters in NFBC leagues, and I have him flirting with my top 30.

Griffin Canning, Los Angeles Angels

Canning had his struggles last year after getting a late start to the year after dealing with some elbow injuries. His 23.5%-9.7% K-BB ratio is far from encouraging, but I think that was attributable to the elbow discomfort and delayed season. Right now, he is barely in the top 100 of starting pitchers off the board in NFBC drafts, and I have him in my top 50!

What this Angels righty has going for him is a deep pitch arsenal. He has a pretty strong fastball that he reached the upper-nineties with in his rookie season. The velocity took a small step backward last year, but I expect that to return in 2021 if he's healthy. Playing off the heater is one of the more impressive curveballs in the game, which earned a 45% whiff rate (this is swings-and-misses divided by total swings) in 2019, and a 47% rate in 2020. This curveball has one of the highest spin rates in the league, and he throws it in the upper-eighties.

He adds to this a slider and changeup combination that still needs some development, but there is real promise there. In all, Canning is a young guy with a really strong arm that had lots of success in the minor leagues, and he's being wildly overlooked in drafts right now.

Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers

Skubal was not even the most highly touted young pitcher on his own team last year, as he was often overlooked for Casey Mize. However, Skubal outperformed Mize and posted a really strong 27.6% strikeout rate with an 8.2% walk rate. The ERA was bloated because of a huge home run issue (2.53 HR/9). That has led him to be the 90th starting pitcher off the board in NFBC drafts right now. Call me crazy, but I don't think a guy with as much talent as Skubal will post anything close to a home run rate that high over a full season. I have him ranked as my number 52 SP right now.

The Tigers' plan was probably not to have Skubal in the Majors so early, but the canceled minor league season forced their hand. One possible consequence of that early arrival was Skubal really being overly reliant on his fastball, throwing it 59% of the time. While it is a great pitch (touches 98 on the gun), you just cannot throw that many fastballs and have success in the Majors. The good news is that Skubal has four other pitches in his arsenal. They all need some refinement, but just the presence of them really raise the ceiling here. With a full offseason of work, Skubal could be ready to really take the next step forward and crush his draft price.

Mike Minor, Kansas City Royals

Fantasy managers are currently taking Minor outside of the top-100 SP, and I have him at number 56 on my list. The reason for this is that he still maintained his solid "stuff" in 2020, he just got horrible results in a short sample. The 1.75 HR/9 is unlikely to ever happen again, especially given his move into the cavernous Kauffman Stadium. Minor maintained his high spin rate and velocity on his fastball and posted an awesome 36% CSW rate on his changeup. His slider was a different story, performing pitifully, but most of the damage on that pitch came on the long ball which he should have less trouble with now as a Royal.

I'm not saying that Minor is going to win you a league or anything like that, but I think the field has wildly overreacted to his bad 2020 numbers and has not given him enough of a boost after he signed with the Royals and got out of that brutal home ballpark.

Yusei Kikuchi, Seattle Mariners

Here is another guy that is outside of the top 100 in drafts right now but I have in my top 60 (#59). The main issue for Kikuchi in his first year in the States was the home run ball, giving up two homers per nine innings. He fixed that right up in 2020, dropping the rate to 0.57. That drastic change is made more believable by the fact that he reduced his four-seam usage and started throwing a brand new cutter.

Velocity is no issue for Kikuchi, he can touch 98 with the four-seamer and 96 with the cutter. He also keeps the cutter on the ground with an average exit angle of one degree.

The problem is that those two fastballs make up almost 80% of his arsenal. His third pitch is the slider which he threw only 16% of the time last year. He did post a solid .330 expected slugging percentage with the slider and had a respectable 38.7% whiff rate, so it's not a garbage pitch. Improving this slider and throwing it more frequently may be the thing that Kikuchi needs to reach the next level. I don't think there is SP1 upside here, but he's a steal at his current draft price.

Carlos Carrasco, Cleveland Indians

Cleveland's veteran righty is the 25th pitcher off the board right now, which seems like a steal. Sure, he'll be 34 years old this year, but Carrasco should (in theory) age a bit better than some other starters because he does not rely on heavy velocity. There were also questions about his health after that tough 2019 season he had, but he returned in 2020 and looked the same guy he's always been. Carrasco has five different pitches and racked up really strong swinging-strike rates on four of them last year.

I don't see any reason that Carrasco can't post another top-twenty fantasy season in 2021, and you can get him much cheaper than that right now.

Update: After this article was written, Carrasco was traded to the Mets, and then endured a hamstring injury (tear) that will sideline him for six-to-eight weeks, until around the May or June timeframe.

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