Fantasy Baseball Late-Round Starting Pitchers to Target: Roki Sasaki, Jacob deGrom, Spencer Strider, Sandy Alcantara and More

The beginning of fantasy drafts are generally pretty easy. It doesn't take much expertise to choose Shohei Ohtani first overall or Juan Soto in the first round. Really, the beginning rounds are all about the luck of your guys making it through the season mostly uninjured.

Once you hit a certain point, though, the players everyone knows are gone, and you're looking more at young players who might break through and other undervalued guys available late. The best thing a fantasy owner can do is find early-round value from a late-round guy.

I'm often most enamored with those late-round players when preparing for drafts. Again, you don't need an analyst to tell you who to take in the first round. Unless there's an injury (which is impossible to predict), there's unlikely to be much difference between Jose Ramirez and Mookie Betts, so it's all about personal preference and positional value.

I recently looked at position players who are going to be good streamers to start the season and are worth taking at the end of your draft if you don't have a position figured out. Let's now shift to starting pitchers who are available in the later rounds and worth targeting.

Everyone below is outside the top 100 in at least one of ESPN's points league or rotisserie league rankings (and often both). Most stats are from MLB.com. Players are mostly listed in alphabetical order.

Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins

Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers

Shane McClanahan, Tampa Bay Rays

Spencer Strider, Atlanta Braves

These guys are all coming off major injuries but have been ace-level pitchers in the past. deGrom's name might be most auspicious given his status as the best pitcher in the game at his peak, but injuries have decimated his past four seasons. He looks great when on the mound, so drafting him is a bet that he will find that form again; it's not a bad bet.

Alcantara is the other Cy Young winner here, taking the NL award in 2022. He's a little under a strikeout per inning in his career, but he's top-tier at run prevention, only once finishing a season with an ERA over 4.00 in four full seasons and the COVID year. He was also durable before succumbing to Tommy John, having topped 180 innings four times and 200 innings twice.

McClanahan and Strider have less experience and less hardware, but they were both high-level strikeout guys before missing most (or all) of 2024. Strider struck out 281 batters in 186.2 innings (!!!) in 2023 with just 58 walks; he also won 20 games. McClanahan has a similar profile, though he doesn't quite reach the heights of Strider. Strider will start the season on the IL, so he would be a nice player to grab and stash later in the draft if your league also has an IL spot.

MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals

Gore leads the Washington rotation. That nominally makes him the ace, but he's not quite at that level. Gore was a heralded prospect and a major part of the Juan Soto trade from Washington to San Diego, so it hasn't been a major surprise to see him improve in each of his three seasons.

Gore had an above-average strikeout rate each season and sported a 3.90 ERA last year in 166.1 innings. His control was an issue early in his career, but he has lowered his walk rate each year to a number just a hair higher than average. With his stuff, that is good enough.

I'm looking at Gore as a potential season-long keeper by the end of the year rather than a streamer. His first start will be against Philadelphia, which isn't ideal, but things will line up better after that.

Jared Jones, Pittsburgh Pirates

Put Jones in the same category as Gore as a young guy who might graduate to a pitcher who you will keep on your roster by the end of the season rather than stream. He's always going to be second fiddle behind Paul Skenes, but Jones struck out more than 26% of the batters he faced last year (league average was around 22%) and had a walk rate lower than average in his first 121.2 career innings.

On top of the nice stats and upside, Jones will likely make his first start against the Marlins, one of the worst offensive teams in the league. Jones is a player to add later in your draft as an immediate streamer and maybe more.

Yusei Kikuchi, Los Angeles Angels

Keep the good matchup bus rolling, as the Angels begin the season against the White Sox, one of the only teams lowlier than Miami last year. There's not a lot to say: Chicago lost more games last season than any team ever has.

As for Kikuchi, he is a high-level strikeout pitcher. His K rate has been above average every year since 2020, peaking last season at 28%. Maybe most importantly, he has cut his walk rate nearly in half from its worst levels and now sits several percentage points better than average.

Add in durability (he made 32 starts in four of his five full seasons), and Kikuchi is a strong fantasy pitcher. He's worth a mid- to late-round pick.

Roki Sasaki, Los Angeles Dodgers

Sasaki is the most tantalizing name on this list, a rookie from Japan who was seen as the best pitcher in the world not playing in America before this season. With a 100-mph fastball and an array of off-speed pitches, Sasaki has the potential to hit the ground running and make an early Rookie of the Year case.

There is downside, as he's essentially in a different world from what he has known his whole life, and there's no guarantee of bringing instant success from Japan. We've seen other pitchers (like Ohtani) make the move from the Japanese league to MLB superstar, though, and Sasaki has that type of buzz (don't expect him to reach Ohtani levels, of course).

I love the value on Sasaki as a late-round pick. One thing you're looking for as the fantasy draft goes on is someone who can give you early-round production from a pick after the 10th round: Sasaki is potentially one of those guys if things break right.

Bryan Woo, Seattle Mariners

We'll finish up with maybe the best pitching staff in baseball in Seattle (we won't talk about their offense, another group to target with streaming pitchers). There are a ton of guys who could be on this list, and some might end up doing better this year than anyone listed here, but Woo is a good hurler to end on.

He has just 209 innings to his name and will play this whole season at 25 years old. In that time, Woo has been a little better than average striking guys out and has done great work limiting walks: last year, he walked just 13 hitters in 121.1 innings for a miniscule 2.8% BB rate.

That helped him to an ERA under 2.90 and portends good things in 2025. He will walk more guys simply because of happenstance, but Woo is set up to be a successful fantasy pitcher again.