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.
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Fantasy Baseball Pitchers to Avoid
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.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (SP – LAD) | Pitcher 15/51.4 ADP
Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s first season in MLB was a success. He had a 3.00 ERA, 3.44 xERA, 2.86 xFIP, 3.14 SIERA, 1.11 WHIP, 6 walk rate, 28.5% strikeout rate and a 30.4 CSW%. Yamamoto’s pitch modeling was also rock-solid, which included 100 Stuff+, 105 Location+ and 106 Pitching+.
However, he made only 18 starts, totaling 90 innings in the regular season, two starts spanning four in the Minors and four lasting 18.2 in the playoffs. Yamamoto was out from the middle of June until the middle of September with a shoulder injury.
The righty’s velocity was fine after he returned from the injured list (IL). However, Yamamoto pitched five innings or fewer in his four regular-season starts in September and recorded more than 15 outs only once in the playoffs.
On the plus side, one of his best starts and the longest turn was in the World Series, allowing only one earned run on one hit (a homer), two walks and four strikeouts in 6.1 innings. Still, in four playoff starts totaling 18.2 innings, Yamamoto had a 3.86 ERA, 4.14 xFIP, 0.96 WHIP, 8.1% walk rate and a 20.3% strikeout rate.
The righty’s short starts after the IL stint and solid but unspectacular postseason number were slightly underwhelming for a player drafted as a high-end SP2 with a fantasy ADP in the fifth round of 12-team mixed-league drafts.
Los Angeles’ supremely talented rotation has a pair of high-upside starting pitchers I’d prefer outright to Yamamoto, and they have lower ADPs. Readers can probably accurately guess which teammates I’m talking about, but I’ll leave some mystery since I’ll likely include them in a forthcoming article about must-have pitchers.
Jacob deGrom (SP – TEX) | Pitcher 16/54 ADP
The analysis for fading Jacob deGrom at a ludicrous ADP of 54 overall is as straightforward as possible. DeGrom hasn’t cleared 100 innings since before 2019. He pitched 10.2 innings for the Rangers and 10.2 in the Minors last year after returning from Tommy John surgery in 2023.
The operation was deGrom’s second Tommy John procedure, and he’s also previously dealt with a shoulder injury. The 36-year-old hurler can’t help fantasy teams if he’s not healthy. His goal for this year is 30 starts, but deGrom has made just 35 starts total since 2021. I wouldn’t touch deGrom in drafts until around pick 100, meaning he’ll be long gone to an optimist.
Edwin Diaz (RP – NYM) | Pitcher 23/74.2 ADP
Edwin Diaz successfully returned from a patellar tendon tear suffered in the World Baseball Classic in 2023. Still, his 2024 campaign resembled his 2021 season more than his lights-out 2022 season.
Diaz’s ADP isn’t egregious. However, he’s included in this piece because the gap is too large between him and Raisel Iglesias (86.6 ADP) and Felix Bautista (101.2 ADP), saying nothing of Jhoan Duran (113.4) or Andres Munoz (119.8 ADP) being more desirable choices at their respective costs. The following table shows the 2024 stats for Diaz, Iglesias, Duran and Munoz, as well as their pitching value-base ranking (VBR).
Diaz is an unappetizing selection unless he falls a round beyond his ADP.
Zac Gallen (SP - ARI) | Pitcher 36/95.2 ADP
Zac Gallen was the 65th-ranked pitcher last year. The righty's 3.65 ERA wasn't especially lucky. It was slightly higher than his 3.62 xFIP but lower than his 3.85 SIERA and 3.97 xERA.
There are some flies in the ointment beyond his ERA, though. Gallen's 8.7% walk rate was his highest since 2021, and his 25.1% strikeout rate was the lowest of his big-league career. Gallen's 1.26 WHIP was also the worst mark of his career. He also had his highest zone-contact percentage (89.9 Zontact% versus 85.2% for the league average in 2024) in his career.
According to Statcast, Gallen's runs above average on fastballs improved yearly from 2019 through 2023, climbing from 4.9 to 8.2 to 9.6 to 19.3 to 25.4. In 2024, his fastballs were -6.4 runs above average.
Moreover, opposing hitters had a 99 wRC+ against his changeup, 139 against his slider, 141 against his four-seam fastball and 167 against his slider. Gallen's knuckle curve had a 27 wRC+ against it, making it a lethal pitch — but his only elite pitch.
Gallen's pitch modeling last year was also discouraging. He had the lowest marks of his career across the board in stuff+ (101), location+ (101) and pitching+ (101). Gallen is a fringe top-110 player getting selected inside the top-100 picks.
Robert Suarez (RP - SD) | Pitcher 45/116.6 ADP
Robert Suarez bounced back from an unlucky 2023 campaign, but his underlying data was more good than great. In 65 appearances spanning 65 innings in 2024, Suarez's 2.77 ERA significantly outpaced his 3.05 xERA, 3.81 xFIP and 3.53 SIERA.
The hard-throwing reliever's 1.05 WHIP was also decent, but his nine wins and 36 saves did the heavy lifting for his fantasy value. Suarez's 22.9% strikeout rate was only slightly better than the MLB average of 22.6% in 2024. His plate discipline didn't inspire confidence for a surge in 2025. Among 203 relievers with at least 40 innings in 2024, Suarez's 23.9 CSW% was 194th.
Suarez's profile isn't that of a lockdown closer. In some bullpens, that would be OK. In San Diego's bullpen, Suarez has little room for error. Jason Adam and Jeremiah Estrada are lights-out alternatives who could overtake Suarez at the drop of a hat. San Diego's incumbent closer is an appealing selection at his CBS ADP (143) or Fantrax ADP (166). He is an easy fade at his Yahoo ADP (108), RTS ADP (87), NFBC ADP (80) or composite ADP between all five sites.
Kevin Gausman (SP - TOR) | Pitcher 59/158.2 ADP
Kevin Gausman's dropoff last year was starker than his 3.83 ERA suggests. The table below compares his statistics between 2023 and 2024 via FanGraphs.
Gausman's ERA estimators ranged from sub-par to putrid, and his nosedive for strikeouts and called strikes plus swinging strikes percentage were alarming, especially since they were accompanied by a slight uptick in walk rate and a cratering to his stuff+ grade.
Probably not coincidentally, Gausman's average fastball velocity was down from 94.7 miles per hour (MPH) in 2023 to 93.9 MPH in 2024. There are too many red flags in Gausman's 2024 profile for gamers to draft him as a top-60 pitcher. He's a lousy gamble unless he falls closer to the 180th-pick range.
Luis Gil (SP - NYY) | Pitcher 63/173.4 ADP
Luis Gil won the 2024 American League Rookie of the Year Award, but his season was a tale of two halves, and even his full-season totals left something to be desired. In 19 starts totaling 102.1 innings in the first half, Gil had a 3.17 ERA, 4.10 xFIP, 4.00 SIERA, 1.08 WHIP, 11.7% walk rate, 28.2% strikeout rate, 11.6 SwStr%, 27.2 CSW%, 111 stuff+, 94 location+ and 100 pitching+.
Gil's second half was markedly worse. In 10 starts spanning 49.1 innings in the second half, he had a 4.20 ERA, 4.90 xFIP, 4.70 SIERA, 1.42 WHIP, 12.8% walk rate, 24.3% strikeout rate, 11.8 SwStr%, 26.7 CSW%, 109 stuff+, 95 location+ and 100 pitching+.
Perhaps Gil hit a rookie wall. Nevertheless, including his stellar first half, Gil had just a 3.80 ERA, 4.36 xFIP, 4.22 SIERA, 1.19 WHIP, 12.1% walk rate and a 26.8% strikeout rate for the entire season. Gil's walk rate was nearly 4% higher than the league average (8.2%), and his 48.8 Zone% (51.3% league average) and 54.8 F-Strike% (62.4% league average) don't provide encouragement for him to improve his walk rate drastically. The righty's 11.7 SwStr% wasn't special compared to the league average of 11.1% last year. Gil's strikeout rate could dip. Finally, he had the following postseason numbers in two starts lasting only eight innings:
- 6.75 ERA
- 7.07 xFIP
- 6.73 SIERA
- 1.63 WHIP
- 13.9 BB%
- 11.1 K%
- 2.25 HR/9
Gil would be an acceptable selection around the 200th pick, but a top-175 pick is too rich for the 26-year-old righty.
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.