You know how it goes by now. Open Chrome. See AMP articles. Scroll past the ideology telling you that Lisa Frank’s unicorns have turned Cleveland into socialist rocketeers. Arrive at the fantasy baseball hype articles. Titles like, “Best 2024 Starter” and “Hot Starters for 2024” fill your feed. Your breath hastens. Your parasympathetic system engages. You think of Suzie or Stacy or Bill or Jamie from high school prom, and how great they looked under the disco ball. You’re set adrift on memory bliss of top pitchers of the past: Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw…and R.A. Dickey. Who could it be this year? you think to yourself. Panicked, now you open every fantasy baseball tab in your feed, from PitcherList to CBS to Chuck’s Off-Brand Fantasy Spurtz (how did they get onto Google AMP anyway?). And they all say the same thing: Gerrit Cole. You sigh. The dopamine rush depletes and you’re left with the energy of the 12-pack of Mountain Dew you guzzled to get through the second shift. But now it’s the graveyard shift: your early fantasy baseball draft with you and 14 other degenerates who gasp, fart, and ungulate fantasy baseball. You land the 12th spot in the draft order. Your turn comes up, and like the programmed cyborg you are, you draft Gerrit Cole. Another day, another dollar. Another year, another letdown when Cole goes 1-5 with a 6 ERA in June.
You got AMPED, my friend.
Brazen predictions are meaningful because they allow the aggressive drafter to find late round value. Instead of spending your early draft capital grabbing Gerrit Cole, you’re taking Trea Turner or Yordan Alvarez or Jose Ramirez or, or, or.
Here are some quick tips to remember as we go into draft season:
- Rookie starters rarely return value on draft capital
- Spring training means basically nothing in terms of analytics
- High K/9 starters need only 130ish innings to be fantasy meaningful pitchers
- Low K/9 starters need 180+ innings to be fantasy relevant
- Streaming is a perfectly fine fantasy strategy
Lucas Giolito Returns to Top 25 SP Value
Gio finished 2022 as SP94 and 2023 as SP72 on the Razzball Player Rater, which was completely useless for 12-team fantasy players. After years of being a fantasy stalwart SP1/SP2, Giolito couldn’t even stick on the White Sox and got passed around to three teams last year. Remember the Angels’ ill-fated attempt to make the playoffs, thus rationalizing their refusal to trade Shohei Ohtani? Giolito gave the Angels five starts of 7+ ERA baseball with 4 losses to his record. The Angels got nothing in return for Ohtani, bee-tee-dubya, other than a surgical bill for an arm tendon that was probably north of a million bucks when you factor in the amount of organic ramen broth that needed to be flown directly from Nagoya into Ohtani’s veins. Oh, wait, this paragraph is about Lucas Giolito, right? Gio finished the season on the Guardians, where he put up another 5 games of 7+ ERA. Yeesh.
In 2024, Giolito will suit up for the Boston Red Sox and has a bargain basement ADP of SP64, meaning he’s basically a last round pick for 12-team leagues. Mr. Irrelevant, if you will. So, zero harm in drafting Gio — if he sucks, you dump him for Chuck Cheester, standout middle reliever from Constance University who works as a Venmo con artist during the summer. He loves it when fans take selfies with him!
So what’s the upside on Gio? Well, he still throws strikes. Even in the disastrous 2023 season that saw him passed around like a plate of pink Jell-O at Thanksgiving, Gio managed 10 K/9, which is fantasy gold for a guy who racks up IP. When looking at true skill stats, Gio had a better SIERA than Chris Bassitt (2023 SP13) and Justin Verlander (2023 SP23).
Gio’s got the core components of a good starter: reasonable K/9, manageable SIERA, and IP volume. Gio’s struggles have been centered around his fastball, which lost a notch of velocity compared to his peak, but we’re talking like 1 MPH. There are “warning signs,” but how many warnings do you need for your last round draft pick? There are also a lot of good signs — like, he’s got only 1 career year with a 4+ SIERA. That awful 2022 year? SIERA of 3.79. That’s totally fine.
It’s not like the Red Sox are a great team to get your groove back. The AL East is filled with nightmare power-hitting lineups and bandbox stadiums. But when you’ve got your last pick in the draft, take a look Giolito’s way — with some reasonable Win luck, you’re looking at a 12-8, 4.20 ERA pitcher with 10+ K/9 upside. Nice!
Corbin Burnes Finishes Outside the Top 15 SP
Now that you just read an essay on Lucas Giolito, let’s compare! Can you guess who has the same swinging strike rate, and has minor improvements in CSW% and SIERA over our buddy Gio? I hope you like reading subtitles, because it’s Corbin Burnes!
Burnes stormed on the scene a few years ago after fixing his fastball by throwing it in the biohazard dumpster and shipping it in a plastic bag to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. 2-3 business days later, his sinker/cutter combo arrived in the manufacturer’s original packaging to save on environmental costs. How thoughtful! Burnes rode his pitches to stardom, and now we’re drafting him as the 4th overall starter at the end of round 2/start of round 3. But that’s Pete Alonso time! you shout. Indeed it is.
Here’s why you should take a hitter instead of Burnes. First: Burnes’ walk rate has been climbing at a logarithmic rate over the past few seasons. Maybe I’m too dramatic there — his walk rate is simply back to its pre-stardom norm. But early career Burnes was…not good. Part of his success was that pinpoint control. Now we’re talking about a guy who lost nearly 30% of his K/9 and has nearly doubled his BB/9 since his prime. What’s more? Burnes was lucky last year, with hitters thwomping his balls to a meager .244 BABIP rate. His line drive rate was the highest it’s ever been, while ground balls diminished.
What’s this all mean? It means one of the top starters has a ton of risks that you generally wouldn’t take on a top starter. If Burnes loses a bit of Win luck, that looks more like a 11-11 record with a near 4ish ERA. Meanwhile, Pete Alonso is just waiting to join your team! Burnes is a fine pitcher, but is he still a Top 5 starter? Probably not.
Quick Takes
- Dane Dunning will be your go-to Wins streamer.
- Christopher Sanchez is 50% rostered by May and finishes the 2024 fantasy season in the Top 60 SP
- Shane Bieber returns to form on the Guardians. He’s finally almost a free agent. Nobody wants to trade for 2023 Shane Bieber because they’d have to sign that shizz. Teams want 2024 Shane Bieber to prove he’s healthy and ready for statlines that look different from Dane Dunning.
- Cole Ragans‘s ADP is filled with Hopeium and he’s drafted in the top 100 as a SP3 for many teams. He gets demoted in May and finishes outside the top 60.
- Yusei Kikuchi is the most valuable Japanese pitcher in MLB.
- Grey finally writes that apology letter to Matthew Berry (but signs it “Love, Rudy”).
What are your brazen predictions? Will a Rockies pitcher finish SP1? Can I even name a Rockies pitcher right now? Probably not. Let me know down in the comments which pitchers you’re going to ride or die with in 2024!
