Fantasy Baseball Today - Four Big Starting Pitcher Questions Entering 2025! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Episode Date: November 16, 2024

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Audacy App and wherever else podcasts are found. How early is too early to draft Paul Skenes? Which Mariners starting pitcher gets traded? Can Corbin Burnes still be a legit ace? Should we bet on a Gerrit Cole bounce back? Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What are some of the biggest questions at starting pitcher? Find out next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5 on Saturday, November 16th. I am, for example, joined by Chris Towers. And today we're looking at some starting pitcher questions. Chris released a great newsletter, FBT newsletter, so make sure to subscribe if you want to read more. But we will start with Paul Skeens.

Chris, how early is too early to draft Paul Skeens? Well, I suppose. that depends on who you ask. I think there is going to be someone in every single draft who thinks he's worth a first round pick. It won't be me. But I have seen in some of these early drafts, I'm doing one, he went seventh.

I think you said you were in one where he went fourth. Yeah. He's gone top five a few other times. There aren't many drafts happening right now, but we are seeing first round Paul Skeens. And personally, I can't justify that. Like, if you think Paul Skeens is the best pitcher in baseball, I think that's a reasonable statement to make.

Being that much more certain about him being the best pitcher in baseball than anyone else that you take him 8, 10, 12 spots ahead of any other starting pitcher, I just can't justify that, right? Like, you look at all the underlying stats. Uniformly suggest Paul Skeens was one of the three to five best pitchers in baseball. But like, that was over 130 in it. at the major league level. If you think he was maybe a little better than Terek Scoobel last season,

which ERA definitely was. Underlying numbers was all a little closer, basically a tie. But even if you think he was better, scoble threw 190 innings last season. Skeens threw 130. So just by that alone, you should be more confident

in what Scoobel did projecting moving forward than what Skeens did. That's not even getting into the fact that Skeens' career high, innings 160.1. We just haven't seen him get to that 180, 190 inning mark. Now, he might be so good that even if he throws 150 innings, he's a top five starting pitcher. He was top 10 and 130 innings last season, but I just, I am not so convinced that he's better than Terrick Scoobal or Garrett Crochet or Zach Wheeler that I can overlook the likely innings gap and just the uncertainty that's inherent.

I think he's awesome. I think he can be the number one starting pitcher in fantasy. I think you should draft him in the second round if you really like him. If he's not there, just take Terrick Scoobble. The Mariners had a good season, Chris. It could have been a great season if they had more offense. So we're projecting, hoping that maybe they move some of their pitchers or one of their pitchers to get some more bats in their lineup.

Which Mariners starter do you think is most? likely to get traded. If it were, if they had their choice, I think it would be Luis Castillo. However, I believe Luis Castillo has a no trade clause. He makes the most money by far of that group. So he's probably just less likely to fetch that impact bat that they're looking for. So if you were looking to move one of them, I think Logan Gilbert or Bryce Miller probably makes the most sense. They're the closest to being a sell high. And I think it's probably more true of Bryce Miller. and here's why this question matters because it's not just they're going to get traded and they'll be on a different team. The extent to which the Mariners pitchers benefit from pitching at, it's not Safeco, T-Mobile.

It's one of those things where like everything I learned about baseball when I was 18 just stuck. Every name for every ballpark. So it's just Safeco forever for me. Team Mobile Park. Logan Gilbert had a 2-49 ERA, 29.000. 38% strikeout rate at home last year. You had a 394 ERA and a 25% strikeout rate on the road. And if you think that sounds extreme,

Bryce Miller had a 196 ERA at home with a 30% strikeout rate. It was basically the best pitcher in baseball at home. On the road, Bryce Miller had a 425 ERA and a 17.8% strikeout rate. Wow. He was basically like Kyle Hendricks on the road. That's probably an exaggeration. But the gap we're talking about here is huge.

And that's really scary because we, you know, we talk a lot about how T-Mobile Park is a tough place for hitters. They don't see the ball well. The Mariners have really leaned into that with their pitch design, I think, and their pitch development. And it's made it so that they've got a great rotation that might be extra dependent on that home park. And I could see Bryce Miller going from being, you know, a borderline.

stud to really more like a mid-rotation arm. So that's my concern. If he gets trading, if I was the Mariners, that's probably the guy I'd be looking to trade. One of the big name free agents this offseason is Corbyn Burns. And we've seen over the past couple of years, swinging strike rates, strikeout rate, steadily declining now. That did pick up late in the season.

He said he figured something out with his cutter grip. What do you think? Can Corbyn Burns still be a legit ace for fantasy? Absolutely. think he can be. One thing for him is just in terms of projecting innings moving forward. I don't know if there's anybody besides maybe Zach Wheeler that you should be more comfortable projecting volume from than Corbyn Burns. He's thrown over 3,000 pitches three years in a row. He's become one of the true workhorses in baseball. The problem is he's become more of a volume guy over the past couple of years. 2021. He was a 35.6% strikeout rate pitcher. 2024 was just 23.1. That's basically average, maybe a little bit better. And the primary problem has been the cutter. Like you mentioned, he dropped from like a 30% whiff rate with that cutter to 19% last year,

which was good for just 34th among 44 pitchers who threw their cutters at least 100, or ended 100 played appearances with their cutter last season. That's a below average mark. But in September, like you mentioned, he got the feel back for it, got that width rate back up to 26. percent over the final month, had a good postseason start as well, looked more like the pre-2020 version. I think he's a top five pitcher for 2025. We'll see where he signs. That might push him up or down a spot, but on the whole, I do think Corbyn Burns can still be an ace. All right, last one we're going to hit on here. Garrett Cole, we know that he missed a lot of time last year with an elbow

injury, had some blow-up starts, most notably against the Mets and the Red Sox. And then look pretty good in the postseason, what do you think? Are you betting on a Garicol bounce back for 2025? That postseason is a little bit of a mirage, though, isn't it? Frank, I know you're a Yankees fan, so you're probably aware. He had a 217 ERA in the postseason. That doesn't count the five runs he gave up in that World Series start, which, yes, they were unearned, but at least some of them were his fault.

And he just overall, he had 22 strikeouts, over 29 innings while walking 10 batters. Just a 17.7% strike rate would be by far the worst of his career. The 8% walk rate would be, would match the worst rate of his career. And we just didn't see the slider for him last season. That was the big thing. Maybe it was just because he was coming back from that nerve issue in his elbow and spring training.

But the slider just never looked right. It went from his second most used pitch to his fourth most used pitch. The cutter and knuckle curve weren't quite. as effective. And he's 34. And how much do you want to bet on a 34-year-old bouncing back at this point in their career? I think it's possible. But I'm viewing Garrett Cole more as a number two starting pitcher. We've seen skills decline a couple years in a row from him, strike our rate, not nearly what it once was. So I think he's a solid number two. You're probably going to be behind the eight ball if he's your ace in 2025. All right. So,

We got to four questions here. Chris actually answered seven starting pitcher questions in his newsletter. It's also an article on the website, so make sure to check that out. If you want to get more, you want to read more questions, see more answers. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today and Five, and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.