Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.
I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings. I should also note that the two new minor league stadiums that the Athletics and Rays are playing in this year currently have neutral park factors in my calculations, though both should play like hitters parks (those series are marked in yellow below).
The Dodgers and Cubs gain an extra day off next week to offset their early start in Japan in March. That means they’ll only play five games, though the Dodgers will need to call up a spot starter anyway after Bobby Miller was optioned after his own spot start on Thursday. Roster Resource has Matt Sauer listed as the starter on Wednesday but it’s possible Los Angeles will activate Tony Gonsolin for that start instead.
After spending most of the month rehabbing, we’ll probably see the season debuts of Ranger Suárez, Brayan Bello, Tobias Myers, and Lance McCullers Jr. (!) next week and Jack Leiter and Pablo López are on track to be activated from their short stints on the IL too.
Cold Right Now (CRN) is a weekly Ottoneu feature focused on players being dropped or who should be dropped in Ottoneu leagues. In this feature we will break down players into three sections:
Roster Cuts: Analysis of players who have been cut in a high percentage of leagues.
Recent Injuries: A look at the implications of recent injuries (not all, just some high-profile ones).
Cold Performers: Players with a low P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.
This article will typically run once per week and will help fantasy managers keep track of players that need to be given extra attention to improve rosters.
The wave of early season injuries has hit hard and your fantasy baseball team is more than likely feeling the effects. One of my Ottoneu teams has eight pitchers currently on the IL and I dropped two other injured pitchers in my desperate search for reinforcements. Hopefully, these eight under-rostered pitchers — four starters and four relievers — can help you in your own search for pitching help.
Tyler Mahle is finally healthy after working back from Tommy John surgery in 2023 and a shoulder injury last year. At his peak, he was a strikeout generating machine, producing a 27.1% strikeout rate across three seasons from 2020–22. He hasn’t reached that same level of effectiveness yet, but his first four starts this year have been promising. So far, he’s allowed just two earned runs and eight hits across 19.2 innings, and it seems like the command issues that limited him to just 1.2 innings in his first start are behind him. The velocity on his four-seamer hasn’t returned all the way — and it might not — but he’s getting more induced vertical movement on the pitch than ever before. Opposing batters aren’t swinging and missing against his secondary pitches yet, but the whiff rate on his heater 36.2% of the time! He’s gotten a bit lucky in the batted ball department so I’m sure some regression is coming, but as long as he’s healthy, he looks like he can be a useful starter in all fantasy formats.
Andrew Heaney has been a frequent recommendation in this column over the last few years. He’s the type of pitcher who has hot streaks where he looks incredibly impressive for a time but he isn’t consistent enough to deserve a high roster rate. He’s started off this year on a heater, allowing six runs across 18 innings in his first three starts with a phenomenal 20.0% K-BB%. He’s adjusted his repertoire to feature three different variations of his sweeping breaking ball — Statcast classifies them as a curveball, slider, and slow curve but they’re all generally the same shape with different velocities. He’s also added a sinker to his mix which gives him another weapon to keep batters off his four-seamer. These adjustments to his arsenal have my attention and I’m interested to see if they can help him reduce the amount of hard contact he allows off his heater.
After struggling in the starting rotation for a season and half, Matthew Liberatore found some success pitching out of the bullpen late last year. The Cardinals moved him back to the rotation to start this year and his first three starts of the season have been fantastic from a peripherals standpoint even if the actual run prevention hasn’t been up to snuff. He’s struck out 18 and walked just one in 18.1 innings and he’s managed to work around the platoon issues that have been a problem for him throughout his career. You can chalk that up to a greater emphasis on his changeup and cutter and better command of his entire repertoire.
After signing late in the spring, the Brewers called up Jose Quintana to make his season debut last week and he held the potent Diamondbacks offense scoreless over seven innings. At 36 years old, his best years are probably behind him, but he’s been a useful innings eater for a few years now. One thing to note: he threw his sinker more than half the time in his first start and more than half the balls in play off him were on the ground. Something to keep an eye on if you’re looking to add him.
Many teams are still sorting through the pecking order in their bullpens as they figure out which guys they can trust with high leverage opportunities. The four relievers listed above aren’t necessarily pitching in the ninth or eighth inning, but their peripherals are so good that they could find themselves in those spots sooner rather than later.
Randy Rodríguez has struck out more than 40% of the batters he’s faced so far this season and the Giants are starting to give him more and more high leverage work as a result. Tyler Rogers has been their long-time setup man but Rodríguez’s high-octane stuff fits the role a lot better.
After the Astros traded away Ryan Pressley this offseason, a spot towards the back of their bullpen opened up. Bryan King has quickly filled that opening by also striking out more than 40% of the batters he’s faced. As a left-hander, he’ll likely get high-leverage work when facing pockets of left-handed batters in the late innings, giving him some specific usage patterns.
The Cardinals didn’t really have many good setup options in front of their All-Star closer Ryan Helsley. In steps Phil Maton. He quickly grabbed the eighth inning role in St. Louis and doesn’t really have many competitors for the role.
Injuries wrecked Gabe Speier’s season last year but he’s healthy and firing bullets at the back of the Mariners’ ‘pen. Like King, Speier should see some specific usage patterns as a left-handed reliever and the impending return of Matt Brash could see him pushed down the pecking order in a few weeks.
The 2025 version of Hot Right Now will typically include three sections:
Current Auctions: A closer look at players being auctioned at a high rate.
Roster Adds: Analysis of players with high add% changes.
Hot Performers: Players with a high P/G or P/IP in recent weeks.
The FanGraphs Ottoneu team plans to run this feature weekly, updating fantasy managers on the biggest movers in Ottoneu leagues with an analysis of how these players could or could not help your roster.
Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.
I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings. I should also note that the two new minor league stadiums that the Athletics and Rays are playing in this year currently have neutral park factors in my calculations, though both should play like hitters parks (those series are marked in yellow below).
The Orioles are the only team with two easier matchups next week, but unfortunately, their rotation is a bit up in the air with the injury to Zack Eflin. I don’t really trust any of their other starters, even against weaker opponents at home.
The two Florida teams pull some pretty tough opponents next week. The Marlins host the Diamondbacks and then head to Philadelphia while the Rays host the Red Sox and Yankees. It’s still too early to put much stock in the early park factors for George M. Steinbrenner Field, but Statcast lists its current park factor as 92, though I wonder if that’s more to do with the weather than the actual park dimensions.
When Niv Shah re-launched Six Picks as part of the Ottoneu family, I wrote both about what Six Picks is and how I play Six Picks. With another season underway, I wanted to talk about Six Picks again, but honestly, you should just go back and read those two pieces if you want that info. Instead, today I just want to talk about why I love Six Picks (with some thoughts on things you can do to make sure you love it, too).
We’re now more than a full week into the season, so clearly we have enough data to actually evaluate these auctions and adds and hot starts, right? Right?
Welcome back to the Ottoneu Starting Pitching Planner. Based on the Roster Resource Probables Grid, I’ve organized every starter slated to start next week into four categories: start, maybe, risky, and sit. The first and last category are pretty self-explanatory. Starters who fall into the “maybe” category are guys you could start if you need to keep up with the innings pitched pace in points leagues or need to hit your games started cap in head-to-head leagues; they’re good bets to turn in a decent start, but you shouldn’t automatically insert them into your lineup. If you’ve fallen behind on the innings pitched pace or you’re really starving for starts in a head-to-head matchup, you could turn to a “risky” starter or two.
I’ve also calculated a “Matchup Score” for each series using a straight combination of opponent’s home/away wOBA, opponent wOBA over the last 14 days, and the park factor for the ballpark the teams are playing in. It’s indexed so that 100 is average and anything above that is a favorable matchup and anything below is unfavorable. That matchup rating informs some of the sit/start recommendations I’m making, though the quality of the pitcher definitely takes precedence. To start the season, I’ll be relying on projected team wOBA until there’s sufficient in-season data to start calculating these matchup ratings. I should also note that the two new minor league stadiums that the Athletics and Rays are playing in this year currently have neutral park factors in my calculations, though both should play like hitters parks (those series are marked in yellow below).
The toughest schedule next week might belong to the Brewers who travel to the thin air of Colorado and then to Arizona to face the potent D-Backs lineup. Their rotation is a mess anyway with Freddy Peralta and Nestor Cortes essentially the only two pitchers you’d even consider starting, and luckily enough, they’re both scheduled to pitch in Coors Field next week.
There isn’t a single team with two great matchups next week, though the Yankees come close with a series in Detroit and then a home series against the Giants.
Credit: Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Last year, Cold Right Now, included a section on injuries, one on players being cut and a third on players performing poorly. This year, I am not going to cover the “injuries” separate from the players being cut. If a player is injured and not being cut, he probably doesn’t need to be covered here. If he does, I can always make an exception.
Welcome back to the Ottoneu Drip, a twice-monthly column dedicated to identifying under-rostered pitchers in Ottoneu leagues who might be worth a second look. I went back through the archives from last year and correctly identified Spencer Arrighetti, Mitchell Parker, Tobias Myers, Kris Bubic, Hunter Gaddis, Porter Hodge, and Luke Weaver as clear wins among a host of other short-term value plays. Let’s not get hung up on some of the misses…
Anyway, since we’ve only got a weekend’s worth of games in the bag, I decided I’d look at some of the standout starts from Opening Weekend to see if any of these under-rostered pitchers are worth rostering to start the season. I’ll give some pretty brief analysis since we’re only talking about a single start, but some of these starters might show up again in this column later on this season — if they’re not rostered at a higher rate before then.
Cade Povich – vBOS, 4.1 IP, 29.1 points
Povich looked pretty good against the potent Red Sox offense, though he couldn’t complete the fifth frame after throwing 94 pitches to get 13 outs. The good news is that eight of those outs were strikeouts and he earned five whiffs on 10 swings against his curveball. Povich had a solid spring training and brought his swing-and-miss stuff with him into his first start of the season. He’ll need to work on his pitch efficiency if he wants to keep his spot in the rotation once some of the rest of Baltimore’s starters get healthy.
Jordan Hicks – @HOU, 6 IP, 47.8 points
Hicks was brilliant against the Astros on Monday, allowing just a single hit and two walks to go along with six strikeouts. The most encouraging thing was the 98 mph average on his sinker on the night. That’s three and a half ticks higher than where that pitch was sitting last year and that kind of velocity jump is a really good sign for Hicks’s health. His sweeper was also sitting more than two mph higher and it returned a 50% whiff rate on the night. The big concern with Hicks’s transition to the rotation last year was his ability to maintain his high velocity he was known for as a reliever. If he’s sitting 98 mph across six innings without a drop off towards the end of his outing, that’s very intriguing.
Mitchell Parker – vPHI, 6.1 IP, 32.7 points
Parker worked around a very active Phillies lineup on Sunday and managed to hold them scoreless over 6.1 innings. He had spurts of usefulness last year and this start just reminds us that his solid command and deep repertoire can be effective if it’s all working together for him. He could be worth a flyer if you’re willing to put up with some of the rough starts while avoiding some of the tougher matchups.
Zack Littell – vCOL, 6 IP, 48.0 points
Chad already covered Littell in his Hot Right Now post yesterday but I’ll just add that Littell, like Parker, was valuable in spurts last year with the same kind of kitchen sink approach. It’s not an exciting profile, but their kind of unexciting bulk innings can be useful in Ottoneu where reaching the innings threshold is probably the easiest way to maximize your total points in the format.
JP Sears – @SEA, 6.2 IP, 38.0 points
Sears has always had a decent strikeout-to-walk ratio which has made him an intriguing undervalued player in Ottoneu. Of course, he’s also prone to allow a ridiculous amount of home runs which has always crashed his value in the format. He did allow a single homer in his start in Seattle but he also kept 50% of his batted balls on the ground which is a new wrinkle. If he suddenly figured out how to increase his groundball rate even slightly from his career norms, he might also be able to cut down on the number of batted balls flying over the fence. Something worth monitoring.
Martín Pérez – vMIN, 6 IP, 50.4 points
Pérez no-hit the Twins for six innings in his debut with the White Sox but the most surprising stat from that outing were the nine strikeouts he racked up. He’s never really had swing-and-miss stuff, but he got seven whiffs on 11 swings with his changeup on Monday. He’s not worth rostering yet — and probably won’t be — but keep an eye on his strikeout rate and his home run rate. He’s not that far removed from a 4.93 P/IP season in 2022.
Kyle Freeland – @TBR, 6 IP, 53.2 points Germán Márquez – @PHI, 6 IP, 42.0 points
It’s always hard to roster Rockies pitchers, especially in Ottoneu where home runs really trash a pitcher’s value. Freeland cruised through six innings against the Rays on Opening Day, striking out seven on just 67 pitches. He was super aggressive in the zone and Tampa obliged by swinging at nearly everything and had only two hits and a bunch of whiffs to show for it. Márquez’s start against the Phillies was a little more interesting. He’s essentially the only Colorado pitcher who has been worth rostering over the last few seasons, though he missed a ton of time the last two years thanks to Tommy John surgery. He was fantastic in Philadelphia on Monday; his velocity was up and he earned 10 whiffs against the potent Phillies lineup. I wouldn’t rush to go out and add Márquez, but he could be an interesting add if he can keep this up and there’s always the possibility Colorado trades him midseason.
