Starting Pitchers Who Are Buried In ADP

Drafting early into the “Draft Season” can definitely be a double-edged sword, you could be taking advantage of the early market but you also are risking potential injuries to your players. If you do prefer to draft early I decided to dig into the current ADP and check out some starting pitchers who are going so late that they might be hard to find.

Justin Dunn ADP 650

Justin Dunn finished the 2021 season with just 50.1 innings pitched due to an IL stint from a shoulder issue. In those 50.1 innings, he provided a 3.75 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, and 22.5 K%. The good news in terms of health is that he has been fully cleared for a normal offseason. The other good news is that the Seattle Mariners currently don’t have a lot of starting pitching. While that could change in free agency right now their rotation looks to consist of Marco Gonzales, Chris Flexen, Logan Gilbert (I love you), Justin Dunn, and that’s it. Dunn seems to have a spot there, even if they sign an arm so before really diving into Dunn just the fact that he has a spot and is going at pick 650 seems like a bargain.

On to Mr. Dunn over here, the 3.75 ERA is nice but it came with a ton of flaws. Looking at ERA indicators it came with a 4.86 xERA, 4.74 FIP, 5.61 xFIP, and 5.18 SIERA. He also had a 13.3 walk rate, which was a career-low. Yes, a career-low. We are looking at a pitcher who is going for free here though so of course there will be flaws. The interesting thing with Dunn is there is reason to think he was on to something in 2021.

Check out his velocity.

He increased the velocity on all of his pitches. The four-seam velocity increased by 2.5 MPH, that’s not something you see every day. With that increase came an increase in vertical movement.

That yellow line actually indicates both his slider and his four-seam. With that came a nice increase in whiff rate on both of his four-seam and slider. Additionally, the slider increased its chase rate. All good things and all intriguing trends to see.

Now everything overall is still about league average for him but when you are looking for bottom-of-the-barrel pitching Dunn seems like a solid choice as he has a spot in the rotation, an increase in velocity, and is only 26 years old. In NFBC DC’s I’d be adding Justin Dunn to my list.

Dakota Hudson ADP 450

Dakota Hudson isn’t too buried into the player pool but I think he is very interesting at a 450 ADP. With injuries derailing his 2020 and 2021 we haven’t seen much of Hudson as of late. Let’s give a quick reminder of who he is though.

Hudson became a full-time starter in 2019 and was able to pitch eight starts in 2020. In his combined 40 starts in those two seasons, he held a 3.24 ERA and 1.33 WHIP. The strikeout rate sat at 18.4% and he had an overall K-BB% of 7.3% (bad). To shoot it straight, he isn’t going to get your strikeouts and is clearly a groundball pitcher (56.9 GB% between 201919 and 2020). It works for him though.

The key to Hudson is the team he plays for. Pitching for the Cardinals helps him tremendously. It’s a pitcher-friendly ballpark and their defense continues to be elite. According to Baseball Savant, last season their team’s OAA was first in the league. As a ground ball pitcher, you could not wish for better. Dakota Hudson at pick 450, I’ll take my chances on his health.

Michael Wacha ADP 537

I’m not sure a lot of people realize how good Michael Wacha was towards the end of the season. In the last two months of the season, he finished with a 5.40 ERA and 1.31 WHIP, not great. But those numbers came with a 4.09 FIP, 3.65 xFIP, 3.81 SIERA, and 18.8 K-BB%. In the last month, his K-BB% rose to 22.5% with a 27.0 K%. All of this is because for the first time in his career he increased his changeup usage to over 32%.

His changeup year in and year out has been dominant. In the last three seasons, it has averaged an SwStr% over 20% with an O-Swing% near 40%. It induces weak contact as well as groundballs. It does virtually everything so you can see why this is such a great move on his part.

Small usage samples are a fickle thing though, so definitely take this with a grain of salt while at the same time it’s still something and something we can’t just ignore. I know he is a free agent but someone will take a shot on him and he should be in the rotation. If that pitch mix does stick and you can get a pitcher with say a 25% strikeout rate at pick 537 that seems like a steal.