Average Draft Position Analysis: Pitching Continues to Go Early/Often

With the MLB season closing in quickly, more and more fantasy owners are gearing up for fantasy baseball drafts. It’s important to conduct some mock drafts, but before that, studying Average Draft Position lists like the one FantasySP has should also be a priority.

Today, I wanted to dig through the ADP list and specifically talk about pitching.

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Starting Pitching

A lot of the ADP data looks about spot on to me so far, but the thing that keeps catching me by surprise is the ADPs of pitchers, especially starters.

I personally like Spencer Strider as the first pitcher off draft boards at pick 10 or 11, but Gerrit Cole and Strider are both first-round picks, with average marks of 6.3 and 6.98, respectively.

I think those are the two best fantasy SP in the game and can certainly finish as top-five fantasy options in points leagues, but I also think you’d be better off spending an early pick on a hitter (they do play every day, while starting pitchers are only pitching once or twice a week after all).

By taking pitchers like Cole and Strider early, you are opening the chance of a single injury derailing your fantasy season. Sure, the same thing could happen with a top-end hitter, but there are far more pitchers that miss extended periods of time than hitters. Replacing a top-end fantasy player is nearly impossible, but it’s far more difficult to do so if it’s a pitcher.

Again, drafting a starting pitcher early in round one isn’t the end of the world, but I personally think it’s one of the most common ways to ruin a fantasy season. Pitching is weird, and even the elite talents can have down seasons - the top hitters rarely have down seasons, at least among the established group of elite options.

By taking Cole and Strider in round one, it’s also affected the ADP of every other starting pitcher out there. Fantasy owners start to panic and think they need to draft a starter before they miss out on all the top-end guys.

That’s pushed Kevin Gausman, Corbin Burnes, Zack Wheeler and Luis Castillo between picks 14-21. Again, these are all starters that are capable of scoring in that range of players for the entire season, but you risk a top pick on one of those guys being elite and healthy all season. 

I personally like all those guys about a round later. The chance of them outperforming their pick is higher, which I think is an extremely important thing when it comes to pitching (especially starters because they are only out there for 30 or so games in a 162-game season).

You can certainly win a fantasy league by taking starting pitching early and often, but I’d much rather stack my roster with elite hitting options and focus on my starting rotation after establishing a nice core of hitters. Most of the recent rule changes have aided hitters, so I think that’s where your attention should be early in fantasy drafts.

Relief Pitching

If you’ve been following along with my mock draft series, you know I rarely take a closer early in a fantasy draft. In the mock drafts where there were an ample amount of rounds/roster spots, you see I barely target holds.

While the best fantasy relievers appear in about double the amount of games as starting pitchers do, you are still only talking about 37% or so of the MLB schedule (if a reliever appears 60 times). That number is just 43% for 70 appearances, which just 20 relievers achieved in 2023.

Relievers just aren’t out there a ton, and I think you can get pretty good value pretty much anywhere in the draft.

The first relievers have ADP marks in the 60s. While that gives fantasy owners time to establish a nice hitting core and grab a couple starting pitchers, that’s still a premium pick you are using on a closer.

For reference, some hitters going around the first closer (Devin Williams) are Ketel Marte, Manny Machado, Paul Goldschmidt, Michael Harris II, Bo Bichette, Nico Hoerner, Luis Arraez and Yandy Diaz. Most casual fantasy baseball owners know all those hitters, and they will be everyday starters for your fantasy team. It’s just hard for me to justify taking a closer like Williams when you can land an everyday starting hitter.

Just like the best starting pitchers can struggle in a season, so can a reliever, especially a closer because they are only out there for an inning at a time. Just a handful of rough outings could make it so a closer never is able to reach the numbers a hitter going around them in a draft is going to score in a given season.

I’ve played around with the idea of drafting a top closer in the 60s, but I usually walk out of the draft room lacking at a hitting position and regretting taking a closer that early. I personally like grabbing the first closer about two rounds (20 picks) later. That gives me more time to establish my starting lineup of hitters and then take a few starting pitchers before focusing on a closer.

I also think you can get similar decent fantasy numbers out of guys much later (use 2023 points as an example). Those extra 50 or so fantasy points aren’t likely to change many results during the course of a season, so why not wait on a closer until a double-digit round?

As I mentioned before, there’s different ways to win a fantasy league, and you can win one by taking my advice or going completely against it. Test out some different strategies with our Mock Draft Simulator and see which rosters you are most confident with in the end. Waiting on pitching is the strategy that satisfies me the most going into the 2024 season.