Early Starting Pitcher Stuff+, Injury Returnees & Rookies — A Review

A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed the early starting pitcher Stuff+ risers and fallers. Unfortunately, comparing 2025 Stuff+ to 2024 Stuff+ meant that I was missing a whole group of potentially interesting pitchers to evaluate — both injury returnees and rookies. So I dedicated a post to reviewing these two groups’ Stuff+, but without any comparisons to the previous season. Let’s find out how they finished the season.

Let’s first begin with the injury returnees.

Of the five injury returnees, two of them increased their Stuff+ after the first month, two suffered slight declines, and one finished exactly the same as how he started. On the negative side, all five pitchers experienced declines compared to 2023.

With a high-90s sinker and Stuff+ marks off the charts, Dustin May had been a perennial sleeper and breakout candidate. There has only been one problem — he can’t stay healthy! Heading into the season, he pitched in parts of five seasons, never recording more than 48 innings in any of them. He missed all of 2024 recovering from elbow surgery and an esophageal tear (ouch) and finally reached 100 innings for the first time this year, though he still managed to miss time to injury.

It figures that his healthiest season was actually his worst. He did gain some Stuff+ back after the precipitous decline early on, but that 101 mark still fell markedly short of his 117 mark from 2023. What’s interesting here is that he has never been able to translate his elite stuff into strikeouts, so despite the big drop in Stuff+ this season, his strikeout rate was right around his career average.

He lost his ground ball inducing ability and his walk rate jumped to its second highest mark compared to previous small samples. So suddenly this skill set just isn’t very good. He’ll still remain worthy of a flyer in deeper leagues in the hopes his stuff returns, but he’s definitely nothing more than a dollar days choice.

After returning from TJ surgery at the tail end of 2024, it was anyone’s guess how Jacob deGrom would perform at age 36/37. He opened the season with a sharp drop in Stuff+, but a 106 was still above average. So although it was far from vintage deGrom, you figured he could still remain a quality starter. Welp, that Stuff+ jumped five points by the end of the year. That still rated as his lowest since calculating the metric, but on an absolute basis, it’s near elite anyway.

The decline in stuff did have a clear effect on his strikeout rate. Owner of a career mark just above 30%, with two partial seasons over 40%, his 27.7% mark this year was well below recent norms and his lowest since 2016. However, combined with his usual low walk rate, plus a healthy dose of BABIP and LOB% luck, he managed to post yet another sub-3.00 ERA. I think it’s reasonable to assume this is his new level, but will he be worth rostering at a price possibly inflated by coming off his highest innings total since 2019?

It was a bizarre season for Kodai Senga, finished the first half with a microscopic 1.36 ERA, despite weaker stuff than he made his MLB debut with in 2023. After that luck-fueled first half, his fortunes turned, as they typically do, and his ERA skyrocketed to 6.56 over that second half. Then a trip to the IL and a surprising demotion to Triple-A ended his season. The degradation of his stuff crushed his strikeout rate, which fell from 29.1% to just 22.6%. With poor control, that’s typically a terrible combination, but he managed to post a low BABIP and high LOB% once again, overperforming both his SIERA and xERA to keep his season ERA right around 3.00.

Given the way his season ended, he’s highly unlikely to be valued like a 3.00 ERA guy. Assuming he has a rotation spot back, if his velocity jumps back up and it sounds like his stuff looks better, perhaps I’d buy in.

Incredibly, Sandy Alcantara’s Stuff+ barely budged after returning this season from TJ surgery. It also stayed pretty stable all season. His full season Stuff+ has now been rather consistent each year we have calculations for. Like May, though, Alcantara’s stuff hasn’t exactly translated into strikeouts yet. In fact, he just posted his lowest mark since 2019, as he actually finished just below 20%. That’s pretty crazy for a guy with that Stuff+ and a high 90s fastball/sinker.

But this was really a tale of two halves. He posted a bloated 7.22 ERA in the first half, but a 3.33 mark in the second half. His skills did improve in the second half, but not enough to justify the huge gap in ERA. Basically, he was unlucky in the first half and lucky in the second half, when his skills essentially returned to normal. I’m curious how he’ll be valued next year, as during his second half run, I had a feeling he was going to become a trendy 2026 sleeper. I’ll be buying depending on the price, but man I really want to see that strikeout rate spike.

Tyler Mahle only recorded a total of 38.1 innings in 2023 and 2024, so it wasn’t too surprising to see his Stuff+ drop. His mark actually remained stable all season long. What did surprise me looking into his profile is how poor his Stuff+ marks have been historically, particularly considering his above average strikeout rates. Perhaps it’s the high Location+ that has boosted his strikeout rate despite underwhelming stuff.

This year, injury once again bit, limiting him to just 86.2 innings. His strikeout rate fell to a career worst over any reasonable sample size, but a crazy amount of good fortune somehow kept his ERA well below 3.00. He overperformed both his SIERA and xERA marks significantly, and he hasn’t been a consistent overperformer during his career. He’ll almost certainly be overvalued in the majority of leagues, unless his stuff improves enough to push his strikeout rate back into the mid-20% range.

Now let’s flip over to the rookies.

Jackson Jobe entered the season as the top Tigers prospect, ranked ninth overall. Everyone was super excited for his rotation debut after he recorded four innings during a cup of coffee last year. He came out impressing with his stuff, which mostly held for another month before he went down with an elbow injury that ultimately required TJ surgery (ughhhh). In those 49 innings, he suffered from the May/Alcantara affliction in which he failed to turn quality stuff into strikeouts. How do you post a 109 Stuff+, but only a 17.9% strikeout rate?! That seems hard to do. His Location+ was below average, so perhaps that played a role in the disappointing strikeout rate, but I can’t believe it’s the entire explanation.

Since he also walked a double digit rate of opposing batters, the skills here were weak. You have to imagine the Tigers and/or Jobe himself will eventually figure out how to convert his stuff into strikeouts. But it’s anyone’s guess how his stuff recovers after returning from surgery.

Kumar Rocker is a tough man to project given his injury history and consistently small samples at various minor league stops. He has posted some strong strikeout rates here and there and features an 80 grade slider to go along with a mid-90s fastball. That would seem to result in a pretty good Stuff+, so it was shocking to see him open with just a 94 mark. It did improve to 98, but even that’s below expectations. Despite the velocity on his fastball, the pitch has received well below average scores by both PitchingBot and Stuff+. Even the slider was nothing special (below average by PitchingBot and slightly above average by Stuff+).

The below average stuff led to a sub-20% strikeout rate with an inflated ERA. I really have no idea what to expect here, but feel like he should be much better than this. He has always posted low walk rates over his many small samples, high GB% marks most of the time, and obviously scouts loved his slider. He’s an AL-Only league speculation.

After impressing during spring training with his splitter, many fantasy owners, including me, were sucked into the Roki Sasaki hype. Unfortunately, his velocity dipped compared to his Japan days, and it caused his fastball to grade out very poorly by Stuff+. His slider was either incredible, or just above average, depending on which stuff model you believe, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a weak overall Stuff+.

What also didn’t help was his wildness, as he walked 13.7% of opposing batters. So he wasn’t striking out anyone with his below average stuff, and was walking those who didn’t manage to put the ball in play. It’s a miracle he posted an ERA in the mid-4.00 range! After being used in relief, and even as a closer, in the postseason, it’s anyone’s guess what his role will be next year. Depending on how his stuff looks in spring training, I’m willing to gamble again if he’s a starter. Obviously, a middle relief role won’t amount to much fantasy value, but it’s hard to believe that’s where he’ll be relegated.

Shane Smith rode below average stuff, which actually remained rather stable all year, to a solid season. It’s actually surprising he managed the above average strikeout rate he did considering both his Stuff+ and Location+ were below average. He did gain velocity compared to his time at Triple-A in 2024, now averaging in the mid-90s with his fastball, so perhaps he could turn that into an improved Stuff+ mark next year that better matches with his strikeout rate. With middling skills across the board and a weak offense behind him, he’s really just an AL-Only guy in my mind.

Tomoyuki Sugano did improve his early Stuff+ from well below average to slightly less well below average. It all resulted in just a 15.7% strikeout rate, but at least it came with a low walk rate. He really lucked his way into sub-4.00 ERA marks over the first two months before the wheels fell off beginning in June. There’s no fantasy intrigue here, though it’s very possible this ends up being his one and only season in the Majors since he’s currently a free agent.