Early Draft Prices for 2024’s Biggest Breakout Pitchers

Believe it or not there are already 2025 drafts going on over the NFBC! I have resisted the urge to participate in any just yet, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been dialed into the early average draft position (ADP) data – make sure to change the dates to 10/01/24 through the current date as it defaults the 2024 data. I was particularly curious what kind of price hikes we’d see on some of the biggest breakout pitchers from the season so I went over to our Player Rater to find my pitchers of interest.

I landed on a group of 6 who were all drafted outside pick-200 while finishing as Top 30 starters. Since it is Draft Champions season (50-round Draft & Hold format), I’m comparing this early ADP to their DC ADP from March 20th-27th which consisted of 21 drafts.

Here’s where they are going through 5 DC drafts and what I think about their chances of a repeat:

Paul Skenes, PIT | 2024 ADP: 283 | 2025 ADP: 11

No surprises here as the 2023 #1 overall pick took the league by storm in mid-May and never looked back. In fact, some boards have him as the #1 starter ahead of Tarik Skubal. He has peaked as high as #5 overall and I believe he will go #1 overall in at least one Main Event next spring, barring any sort of news that would create extra injury concerns. He is undoubtedly the best pitcher on this list and thus there isn’t much else to say. I know some will need more than 133 IP to him this high and while I acknowledge nothing is certain and he could suffer a sophomore slump, there is simply nothing in his profile to suggest there is a high or even moderate likelihood of that. You might get him on the turn or just after as he has a max pick of 18, but if you really want Skenes next year, I suggest a mid-to-late 1st round focus for your KDS.

Jack Flaherty, FA | 2024 ADP: 286 | 2025 ADP: 96

Flaherty is one of two arms on this list participating the World Series with a young Yankees righty coming up soon. The Tigers brought Flaherty in on a reclamation 1-year deal, and it couldn’t have worked better. The team believed the 28-year-old righty still had his 2019 upside (2.75 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 23% K-BB in 196 IP) and they didn’t even have to make fundamental changes to draw it out of him. He dumped his 9% cutter and sprinkled that across the rest of arsenal with the biggest boost being a 4-point jump in slider usage to 29%.

He located everything better, but even that resulted in just a 3-point boost of his Location+ to 102. It did help him cut his walk rate nearly in half to 6% while the strikeouts returned with a vengeance as a career-best 33% Chase rate (7th in MLB) aided his return to the 30% K rate plateau (4th), matching 2019’s output. He will head back into the free agent market again this winter and I think both of his 2024 teams should be very interested in bringing him back. The World Series could adjust his price even more and yet another shift is likely after he signs in the winter. I’m unlikely to speculate on Flaherty as a Top 100 pick without knowing what team he is on for 2025, but if he lands in a good spot (and I’d be fine with either of his 2024 teams) then something in the 85-110 pick range makes sense to me.

Reynaldo López, ATL | 2024 ADP: 352 | 2025 ADP: 138

Yessss, investing in ReyLo for a decade finally paid off! Long-term investments in re-draft leagues are the new meta.  😎 Look, obviously I had no clue we’d get an ace turn out of ReyLo after two full seasons out of the bullpen and just 18 total starts in the last four seasons heading into 2024. He brought his curveball back into the mix as a true third pitch just to give enough of a different look off his fastball-slider combo that dominated the opposition. He maintained the strikeout gains from the bullpen to post a 27% K rate in 136 innings after just a 20% in 373 innings the last time he was a full-time starter in 2018-19. His stuff always looked like it had another level but just didn’t click as a White Sox starter in his mid-20s.

Home run suppression has been instrumental in his two best seasons (0.14 HR9 in 2022) and given how much they’ve plagued him at his worst, I am skeptical that the 0.66 mark from this year holds. I can’t ignore the 87% LOB rate, either. It’s very reliever-esque and was a key factor in that 1.99 ERA over 136 innings. No one is expecting a sub-2.00 or even sub-3.00 ERA from López, but regression of both his HR rate and LOB rate could make for harsh landing where even his 3.58 SIERA is ambitious. The market is showing restraint with ReyLo as he is going around pitchers other risky pitchers like Jared Jones (injury/experience, 126 ADP), Robbie Ray (injury, 134), Shane Baz (injury, 138), our next guy (experience, 148), Kevin Gausman (aging, 151) so if he is your flavor risk – and we all know he is for me – then I don’t hate the price point. He’s gone as late as 173 and I’m likely to push toward that end of his range if I buy back in.

Luis Gil, NYY | 2024 ADP: 388 | 2025 ADP: 148

Gil had just 4 total innings in 2022-23 before exploding for a 152-inning breakout campaign. I know it’s easy to retrofit a Spring Training narrative onto a big season after it’s happened – watch, I’m about to do it right now – and I know for every big ST performance there are 3-4 where the guy doesn’t do shit that year, buuuutt Gil’s spring success was the impetus for me drafting him. He had 23 Ks and just 6 BB in 16 innings when it was all said and done, though many fantasy managers had to draft Gil before he locked in that 5th starter role as it was competitive until pretty late. It’s also worth noting he didn’t hold his walk rate improvements at all during the season with an MLB-high 77 walks but he was so unhittable that he was able to succeed in spite of the control issues.

But can he do it again?

Not like this, I don’t think so. As nasty as he is, we can’t bank on a .188 AVG again and if the hit regression isn’t countered by control improvements, that WHIP is headed sky-high. Frankly, we already saw a preview of it down the stretch with a 5.03 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, and 9% K-BB in 34 IP over his final seven starts. As I mentioned in the ReyLo bit, Gil goes in a range with other risky guys but even just between the two of them, I prefer López.

Just as a brief aside, there were some pretty interesting names in that Spring Training K-BB% leaderboard as Shota Imanaga led the league at 37% and a lot of the season’s biggest breakouts or returns to excellence populating the Top 20 including Flaherty 4th (31%), Tyler Glasnow 6th (31%), Chris Sale 9th (29%), Dylan Cease 11th (28%), Gil 12th (28%), Bailey Ober 13th (27%), and Tarik Skubal 14th (27%). Jordan Hicks was 8th with a 29% mark but it still came with a 12% BB so I wasn’t really sold. And even he still had a great run to start the year. I doubt anyone jumped off at the perfect right moment when it started going downhill, but let’s say you quit him sometime in June/early-July, you got 15-18 starts of a mid-3.00s ERA.

Continuing on, we see more notable breakout/resurgent names in the 16-25 range including José Soriano 17th (26%), our last guy on this list 19th (26%), Albert Suárez 수아레즈 20th (25%), and Ryan Pepiot 23rd (25%). We were kind of shielded from most of the misses because they just didn’t get into rotations. Guys like Paolo Espino 2nd (33%), Jhony Brito 15th (27%), Chase Silseth 16th (27% — still a big fan of his!), and Daniel Duarte 18th (26%) were easy to ignore as their spring performance couldn’t even win over their teams let alone fantasy managers. There were a couple misses, though.

A.J. Puk and Gil could’ve easily flipped seasons if we run it back. He was 2nd in K-BB at 34% buoyed by a walk rate he wouldn’t maintain in the slightest and it crushed him. He walked 17 batters in 4 starts costing him his rotation spot. He did rebound in the bullpen with Miami and was even better in Arizona, but everyone who drafted him cut him long before that, plus he wasn’t a closer anyway so it was just good middle relief innings.

If you did happen to buy into Adrian Houser’s 10th ranked K-BB (28%), you were likely able to pull the escape hatch pretty early and maybe even dodged 2 of his 3 April duds as they were trips to ATL and LAD (13 ER in 9 IP). I can’t even really say you should’ve known better because of his 1.5 HR9 in spring as he allowed just 0.6 HR9 in 6 starts before losing his rotation spot. I’m not suggesting we use Spring Training K-BB leaderboards as a de facto draft list, just that I’ve been firmly off the “ST stats don’t matter at all” train for a while with basic ol’ strikeouts and walks being my main focus (for hitters, too).

Seth Lugo, KCR | 2024 ADP: 252 | 2025 ADP: 164

One clear change in this stat-heavy era of fantasy baseball is that seasons like Lugo’s don’t get nearly as overrated the following year. I’m not saying I’d even pay this price point, but a decade ago he’s a Top 100 pick for sure. It was a dream season and a lot of fun to watch but I don’t think he’s fundamentally different from the 2023 version. This was everything coming together to maximize Lugo’s current skillset, not an emergence of new skills. His solid base of skills (16% K-BB, 10% SwStr) combined with KC’s amazing defense, and career-best HR suppression (0.7 HR9, 7% HR/FB) to facilitate a career year. If you buy in with a mid-3.00s ERA and 1.15-1.20 WHIP in mind, I can get behind it. KC’s defense could be excellent again and he might keep the HRs at bay again, just don’t count on either.

Ronel Blanco, HOU | 2024 ADP: 557 | 2025 ADP: 222

I referenced Blanco in the Spring Training leaderboard part. He was the one who slotted 19th in K-BB% and then he opened the season with a no-hitter and 6 1-hit innings of shutout ball after that! He never lost his stride, allowing more than 4 ER just once in 30 starts while leading baseball with a 6.1 H9 rate. He’s like an older Gil without all the strikeouts which makes him particularly dangerous for next year. That said, as with Lugo, the market is not overdoing it with Blanco so he certainly doesn’t need to repeat his 2024 to be worth a post-200 pick. His 4.15 FIP isn’t exactly best case, but it’s definitely around where I see him and again the combination of extreme hit suppression and poor control makes him a major WHIP risk. Be careful.

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Besides Skenes, who do you think has the best chance to put up another Top 30 SP season? And who are you most willing to pay for at these price points (Skenes-included)?