2024 Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitcher Preview: Ranking the top-12, sleepers, breakouts, busts, ADP data, more

You should think about starting pitchers in Fantasy Baseball in much the same way you think about running backs in Fantasy Football. They are often the most valuable players in the game, but they are also some of the most difficult to predict. They suffer injuries at much higher rates than the general population of the sport, their success is highly team dependent, and there are always seemingly fewer of them than you need at any given time. 

The concept of the “RB Dead Zone” has become widely accepted in Fantasy Football, and we should apply similar principles here. Because, as with running backs, there are a handful of starters who have proven they can not only pitch like an ace but also provide ace workloads consistently, and those are the guys who are worth early-round picks every year. They tend to provide the best return on investment, and tend to make the biggest difference in terms of winning Fantasy leagues.

After that? Well, that’s where the idea of the dead zone comes in. Pitchers who look like they could be aces if a few things break right – they take a step forward, or they stay healthy, or they fix whatever flaw it is that’s holding them back – tend to get pushed up draft boards as Fantasy players convince themselves they have to pay a premium to avoid getting stuck with the dregs of the position. But that doesn’t tend to work out as well as you would think or hope. 

Last season, there were three starting pitchers drafted in the first two rounds of NFBC leagues, on average, and all three of them provided at least $11 in value, per FanGraphs’ Auction Calculator. Then, there were three drafted in the third round on average, and two of them provided negative value. 

Here’s the average return provided by pitchers in each round of ADP in 2023: 

• First two rounds: $19.01 (Three players)
• Third round: $0.29 (Three players)
• Fourth round: $7.61 (Four players)
• Fifth round: $-6.41 (Four players)
• Sixth round: $-7.03 (Six players)
• Seventh round: $2.42 (Three players)
• Eighth round: $5.32 (One player)
• Ninth round: $2.32 (Two players)
• 10th round: $5.76 (Four players)
• 11th round: $-5.22 (Five players)
• 12th round: $-19.17 (Two players)
• 13th round: $-7.89 (Five players)
• 14th round: $0.53 (Five players)

Now, in fairness, it was kind of a disastrous season for higher end pitchers, as the offensive landscape around baseball shifted in ways that seemed to make every pitcher even more unpredictable than usual. Plus, we’re dealing with small sample sizes across the board, which is why your takeaway here shouldn’t be something like, “Well, obviously, I’ll just skip the fifth and sixth-round pitchers and focus on the eighth-rounders.” 

The specifics of last year’s results are less important than the general trend, which is one we’ve seen for a long time in Fantasy baseball, which is that, once you get beyond the true, proven aces, investing more in a starting pitcher doesn’t really guarantee much of anything. There will always be examples that run counter to this, because we’re dealing with samples of a few dozen players being drafted in this range in any given year, but the larger trends have held surprisingly consistent when I’ve done this type of analysis in the past. 

The way I’ve put this data into action in the past is pretty straightforward: I try to invest a few early picks in guys who have a proven track record of throwing 180-plus innings with good peripherals – either your aces like Gerrit Cole and Spencer Strider, or else the Framber Valdez and Aaron Nola types – and then I try to avoid that middle class at the position. There will always be exceptions, but generally speaking, I’m going to invest two of my first four of five picks in starting pitchers who fit that profile, and then I’m steering clear of the position for the next 8-10 rounds. 

I want those two innings eaters at the top to provide me a solid, dependable base of strikeouts and ratios, and then I’m looking for upside arms in the double-digit rounds to complement them. Like I said, there will be exceptions – I like drafting Eury Perez if he falls outside of the first 75 picks, for instance – but the general shape has held true for years, and it has led to some pretty great pitching staffs over the past few years. 

Of course, it’s not the only strategy that can work, and it’s certainly not guaranteed to work, either. But it’s the one I thing the data suggests will serve you the best when you’re picking your pitchers. Now, you just have to pick the right guys. How hard can that be? 

• Position Strategies: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
• Position Previews: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
• Position Tiers: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP

Head here to read Scott White’s full top-100 prospects list.