Building a 2025 $9 NFBC Pitching Staff

Auction day is one of my favorite days of the year. So what to do when you love auctioning, but your first event of the year isn’t for another four days? Fake buy players from auctions that did actually take place! For fun, last week I decided to check out the NFBC average auction values and build a standard 14-player offense for $14. That’s right, every player I selected had to come with an average auction value of just a buck. This week, I’m going to flip over to pitchers, building a $9 staff. Unlike in years past, I’m just going to choose from starting pitchers only and not speculate on saves from relievers this time. Discussing more cheap starting pitching is more actionable than naming a bunch of middle relievers who might net some saves.

Since the calendar just flipped to March and spring training just began recently, there’s only data for 25 auctions. That’s already a small sample, so I don’t have the luxury of filtering for a recent time period to ensure super early auctions are excluded.

There are only 41 starting pitchers with an AAV of $1, so that was my pool to choose from. Some of those names don’t have rotation spots right now and are likely to open the year in the minors or are already injured, limiting my options even further. And now, the most awesome collection of dollar players you’ll ever find…

Though the majority of the group of $1 pitchers are actually relatively young, I did opt for upside over safety here, mostly speculating on strikeout potential. So I ignored veteran volume guys like Chris Bassitt and Jameson Taillon who generally need lots of luck metrics fortune (like Taillon in 2024) to contribute in ERA and WHIP, and youngsters like Brayan Bello who seemingly don’t have the strikeout rate upside to become a fantasy ace.

Ignore José Soriano’s 3.42 ERA last year in his first mostly fully season as a starting pitcher. Both his SIERA and xFIP suggest he was quite fortunate, thanks primarily to a .269 BABIP. That said, the guy throws a 97.7 MPH sinker and every single one of his non-four seam fastballs registered Stuff+ grades over 100. Yet bizarrely, he was only able to muster a 20.7% strikeout rate, which is really surprising. He seemingly has the stuff to post a significantly higher mark, giving him serious upside (and the chance to post expected ERA marks actually matching the ERA he just posted!). He’s already got the extreme ground ball tendency, so the upside is there for him to become the next Framber Valdez. Of course, he missed time last year to injury, so volume could be an issue.

Confused by the inclusion of Merrill Kelly after I said I was ignoring the pitcher bucket he belongs in? The explanation is easy — I’m a sucker for a velocity bump. We do only have 17 fastballs from spring training recorded, but he averaged 93.4 MPH with the pitch, maxing out at 94.8 MPH already. During last season’s spring training, he averaged just 91.6 MPH with his fastball and maxed out at just 93.9 MPH. During the 2024 regular season, he averaged only 91.3 MPH, maxing out at 94.9 MPH, which he hit just once. So this bump is pretty significant. While the current average might not hold, the fact he has already essentially matched his max velocity from all of last season is an exciting sign.

Kelly did post a 25.9% strikeout rate in 2023, but that fell to just 21% last year and he sports a career mark of 21.9%. If the tiny sample spring velocity spike proves sustainable, he’s going to be a steal, as he might prove to no longer be just a boring veteran giving you the innings you need to compete in wins and strikeouts.

Yes, I’m going to keep speculating on Reid Detmers until he breaks out over a full season (sub-4.00 ERA) or retires. While a higher xERA than SIERA the past two seasons suggests that maybe he actually is a bit too hittable, I just can’t ignore the excellent SwStk% and above average strikeout rate. No matter how you feel about his non-sliders, he’s got to improve upon his inflated BABIP and HR/FB rate, and certainly that LOB% is going to surge back toward league average. With only one above average pitch according to Stuff+ (the slider), perhaps it really will take an improvement from one or multiple if his other three pitches. However, last year three of his pitches generated double digit SwStk% marks, so it’s really difficult to figure out what’s up here. This is especially true considering his Location+ is exactly 100, and his best pitch actually ranks worst there.

Casey Mize was one of my favorite starting pitcher sleepers last year as his velocity jumped during spring training. The hope was the increased gas would result in a breakout from the former top prospect. It wasn’t to be. While his fastball velocity did remain well above previous seasons, his strikeout rate actually fell from his last full season back in 2021. How do you average 95.5 MPH with your fastball and only strike out 17.3% of opposing batters?!

I was ready to jump off the bandwagon, so naturally, I recently learned that he went to Driveline Baseball this offseason to fix his slider, while he also plans to use his splitter more this season. Looks like I’m remaining on the bandwagon! The slider earned just a 96 Stuff+ grade last year, so any effort to increase that is welcome. This is especially true considering he threw the pitch 27.7% of the time last year, as his most used non-fourseamer. I’m more excited about the plan to throw his splitter more, though. The pitch was rated a 70/70 during his last prospects report back in 2021, but he threw it just 18.1% of the time. It finished with a Stuff+ mark of 103 and is his only pitch that has been at least 101 every year. It also generated a 17.3% SwStk% last year, the only pitch in double digits. So any plan to throw that pitch more is a good one, and should theoretically result in more strikeouts.

One type of pitcher I love to speculate on is the one with great stuff and strikeout skills, but below average control. It’s much less difficult to sharpen control than improve repertoire quality to increase strikeout rate. Edward Cabrera is a perfect example of the type of pitcher I’m referring to. He has averaged at least 96 MPH with his fastball since debuting back in 2021, but also sports a career 13.3% walk rate, recording double digits every year. What’s surprising is that his overall Stuff+ grade is actually just below average at 99. His most-used pitch is his changeup and that sported just a 98 mark, while his 96+ MPH fastball sat at just 89 last year! Yet, he has still managed a 26% career strikeout rate.

I don’t think there’s anything in his profile or what I’ve read so far in spring that hints at an imminent breakout. But often times pitchers suddenly make the leap with their control with no warning signs. So for a buck, it makes him worth speculating on. The issue is that it’s difficult to know when to let go because one game of bad control doesn’t really mean anything. Control could suddenly come to him in a game and remain at that elevated level all year, or come and go. So either take the risk and start him all year hoping to get lucky, or target someone else you think is easier to project from start to start.

I’m not usually a fan of pitchers making the transition from reliever to starter, but we’ve seen a lot of successes in recent years, and Kris Bubic is a bit of an exception. Bubic actually used to be a starter and is a former top prospect, but transitioned to the bullpen last year after returning from Tommy John surgery. He was so good in relief that there’s newfound hope for him as a starter despite his previously weak results and unimpressive strikeout rates. The question of course is how much of his improved results is because of his move to the bullpen where he gained velocity, and how much is due to simply improving his pitches after his TJ surgery rehab.

Unfortunately, Stuff+ doesn’t make me super optimistic. His fastball grade surged, but that’s likely mostly, or all, due to the increased velocity. He has thrown 40 fastballs captured by Statcast in spring so far and has averaged 92 MPH, which is slightly higher than where he was at in 2023, but just about where he was at in 2022 over a larger sample. Still, it’s spring, so perhaps he ends up in the low-92 MPH range which would still be his highest as a starter. I doubt he’ll get all the way up to his relief average though, which could make his fastball much less effective. The other two pitches he mainly three last year, his slider and changeup, were actually identical and lower in Stuff+ grades, respectively. So to me, it seems like the results were almost entirely driven by the increased fastball velocity, which isn’t going to be maintained as a starter. But I could be wrong, so he’s a decent speculation for just a buck.

I was excited about Ryan Weathers last year because of…a velocity jump, of course. But injury limited him to just 16 starts. And although his SwStk% and strikeout rate did jump from 2023, they were still nothing special. According to Stuff+, his slider is elite, but even with the improved velocity, his fastball was still below average. Interestingly, his changeup recorded the highest SwStk% last year, but was barely above average in Stuff+. It just goes to show that pitch types aren’t isolated and missing in Stuff+ grades are how the entire repertoire works together. With two pitches that generated mid-to-high teen SwStk%, and a fastball averaging in the mid-90s, I think there’s clearly big strikeout rate upside here.

Lucas Giolito missed all of the 2024 season after undergoing internal brace surgery on his right elbow last March. In 2022 and 2023, his ERAs approached 5.00 after breaking out in 2019 and maintaining strong skills for three seasons. Who wants to speculate on a guy who missed a year due to elbow surgery and is coming off near 5.00 ERAs?! Obviously, there’s significant risk here and you have to wonder how many innings he’ll be allowed to throw. But how many guys can you find for a buck that have performed at the level Giolito has during his prime years? We don’t have any Statcast data on him yet, so it’ll be important to monitor his velocity to get an idea of how effective he may be in his first year back. Even in his two down seasons, he still managed strikeout rates over 25%, which is rare when digging through the dollar bin.

In Round 26 of the LABR Mixed draft (full write-up next week), I had both Edward Cabrera and Max Meyer in my queue. I ultimately decided to draft the former given his history of strikeout rates in the Majors and the fact he’s actually recorded over 100 innings before. I was really hoping to draft both, but Meyer went the next pick and I was annoyed. But hey, at least I could fake draft him now for this exercise! Meyer is another former top prospect, but ended up undergoing TJ surgery as well back in 2022, causing him to miss the rest of that season and all of 2023. He made his way back to the Majors last year, but posted just an 18.5% strikeout rate, with a fastball velocity of 94.0 MPH, apparently below where he used to sit during his top prospect days.

Then in mid-February, we learned he added a sweeper to his pitch mix, which isn’t automatically a good thing, but a positive knowing he’s tinkering after an underwhelming 2024. Then there’s the velocity thing. We have just seven fastballs recorded so far, but he average 96.3 MPH with those, maxing at 97.7 MPH. Last year, he only maxed out at 96.6 MPH, so he’s already peaking at 1.1 MPH higher than he did all of last regular season. This makes me think he’ll easily obliterate his strikeout rate projections (a high of just 20.7%) and could threaten a mid-20% mark given his minor league history. He’s going to be flying up draft boards if that velocity sticks.