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Fantasy Baseball Busts: Garrett Crochet, Blake Snell, Gerrit Cole

Most players are worth drafting at a certain point. If some of the following pitchers fall below their average draft position (ADP), they would be worth selecting. Yet, some of the forthcoming pitchers might also be undesirable at any cost for the damage they can potentially do to your squad’s pitching statistics. Here are a few fantasy baseball draft busts to avoid at the pitcher position.

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Fantasy Baseball Busts: Pitchers

Garrett Crochet (SP – BOS) | Pitcher 8/39.8 ADP

Garrett Crochet’s underlying data was impressive last season. According to FanGraphs, Crochet had a sparkling 2.85 xERA, 2.38 xFIP and 2.53 SIERA, much better than his 3.58 ERA.

However, the White Sox traded the lefty to the Red Sox in the offseason. Crochet is downgrading his home park factors. According to our park factors, Fenway Park has the fourth-highest park factor for runs (1.093), and Rate Field has the 10th-highest (1.020).

Crochet had notably better splits at home than on the road last year. In 79 innings at home, Crochet had a 3.30 ERA, 1.90 xFIP, 1.03 WHIP, 4.1% walk rate and a 37.6% strikeout rate versus a 3.90 ERA, 2.94 xFIP, 1.12 WHIP, 7.2% walk rate and a 32.2% strikeout rate in 67 innings on the road. Crochet’s road numbers were strong as well, but calling hitter-friendly Fenway Park home isn’t optimal for his fantasy outlook.

Crochet also had a massive innings leap last season. Including the minors in 2023, Crochet pitched only 25 innings. In 2024, he pitched 146 innings. Will the Red Sox be willing to significantly add innings to his plate for a second consecutive year? Will the large bump in innings from 2023 to 2024 impact his performance? I’m not concerned to the point of avoiding him entirely, but it’s reasonable to split hairs with the upper-echelon pitchers and have him ranked approximately a round beyond his fantasy baseball ADP.

Blake Snell (SP – LAD) | Pitcher 13/50.2 ADP

Blake Snell isn’t a workhorse. He’s reached at least 180 innings only twice in the Majors since reaching The Show in 2016, with a career-high 180.2 innings in 2018. The lefty has recorded fewer than 130 innings in four of the previous five seasons that weren’t shortened by the pandemic.

Not only is Snell not a workhorse, but his surface and advanced stats have bounced around throughout his career because of his inconsistent control. Since 2020, his xERA has been 4.07, 4.82, 3.19, 3.77 and 2.57. Snell’s blistering 2.57 xERA in 104 innings for the Giants last year was the outlier in the previous five seasons. There are too many warts to draft Snell as a fringe SP1.

Gerrit Cole (SP – NYY) | Pitcher 14/50.6 ADP

Gerrit Cole’s bat-missing ability is steadily declining. Since 2021, he’s recorded the following strikeout rates: 33.5%, 32.4%, 27% and 25.4% with a similar slide in plate discipline numbers. Cole’s swinging-strike percentage slide dates back to 2019, going from 16.8% to 15.3% to 14.5% to 14.3% to 11.7% to 10.7%. The big-league average swinging-strike percentage last year was 11.1%.

Cole’s fastball velocity and Stuff+ have also fallen. His numbers are declining, including his ERA estimators. Cole’s 3.64 xERA, 3.99 xFIP and 3.79 SIERA in 2024 were his worst marks since 2017, 2016 and 2016, respectively. It’s better to get out a year early on a declining pitcher than overpay for past performances of a 34-year-old pitcher who tallied only 95 innings (his lowest in a non-2020 big-league season) and has exhibited clear signs of declining. Framber Valdez, Shota Imanaga and Aaron Nola are more appealing picks with lower ADPs than Cole.

FantasyPros Fantasy Baseball Draft Wizard


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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.

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