This is one of my favorite times of year for writing fantasy baseball content. The season is all in front of us. We can look at every player and team through a lens of “What could be?” Oftentimes, that takes the shape of analysis filled with optimism and hope. In that vein, earlier this week, I looked at some pitchers who underperformed their SIERA in 2024 and could be in for much better seasons this year.
However, sometimes that blank slate could make us feel apprehensive or concerned. Today, that means we’re going to look at pitchers who overperformed their SIERA and might regress in 2025.
As a quick reminder, SIERA stands for Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average and, according to its definition, it “quantifies a pitcher’s performance by trying to eliminate factors the pitcher can’t control by himself.” That means, unlike stats like xFIP or ERA, SIERA considers balls in play and adjusts for the type of ball in play to determine what a pitcher’s results “should have been” based on probability. In that respect, SIERA has been tested as the most predictive of all ERA estimators, meaning a pitcher’s SIERA from a previous season is more likely to indicate their future ERA than xFIP or past ERA, etc.
There are obviously a lot of names here, so I’m not going to cover everybody in detail below.
A few of these pitchers are not really guys we’re drafting in most formats anyway. Javier Assad is currently sidelined with an oblique injury and has proven to be a solid depth starter but not somebody we rely on for fantasy. Similarly, Tyler Anderson had a good year with the Angels last year and Michael Lorenzen was solid for the Royals, but we know they’re both more of streaming options when they’re going well. Trevor Williams had a strong season last year, but we all know that his ERA was flukey. If you were to get a 3.96 ERA from Williams in 2025, you’d be happy with that. Same goes for Jameson Taillon, who was good for the Cubs in 2024 but is not likely a 3.27 ERA pitcher. I like Taillon in deeper formats again in 2025, but I’m certainly expecting an ERA closer to 4.00.
We know Reynaldo Lopez has been a talented but oft-injured pitcher for the majority of his MLB career, so him pitching well when in a (mostly) fully healthy season was great to see. However, we also know that a 2.00 ERA is not sustainable. We don’t need advanced metrics to tell us that. A 3.60 ERA is still solid, and we are confident that Lopez will pitch well when he’s healthy in 2025.
A few of the pitchers listed here are pitchers I actually like going into this season, and I’ve covered them in some recent articles. I’d encourage you to read this post-hype pitchers piece for why I like Shane Baz, and this late-round starting pitchers piece for why I like Luis L Ortiz and David Peterson in 2025. I’m also a huge fan of Bryan Woo, who I raved about in my Starting Pitcher Rankings. If we could guarantee 150 innings from him and his elbow, I think he’d be a top-20 starting pitcher in fantasy.
Corbin Burnes - Arizona Diamondbacks
Corbin Burnes is the biggest name on this list, so I wanted to start with him, but it will be short because I’m not at all worried.
There seem to be a lot of concerns about the number of innings Burnes has thrown in recent years and also on the performance of his cutter in 2024. I just don’t get the innings complaint. It seems that we ding a pitcher when they don’t throw enough innings, and now we’re trying to ding Burnes because he throws too many innings? Which is it? He has proven to be a workhorse, and I’m not just going to assume he breaks down this year because he’s thrown a lot of innings in previous seasons.
As far as the cutter goes, yes, it wasn’t a great pitch for much of the season. From the beginning of the year until August, Burnes was throwing the cutter 95.5 mph with two inches of horizontal movement and 13.3 inches of drop. It had just a 9.2% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and 27.6% CSW but also had just a 5% barrel rate, so it wasn’t getting hit hard, but it also wasn’t the dominant offering we’ve come to know. Yet, over the final month of the season, the pitch was 94.1 mph, with four inches of horizontal movement and five extra inches of vertical break. That led to a 15% SwStr% and 35.1% CSW.
So....yeah, he already fixed the cutter at the end of last season, and considering that has always been an elite pitch for him, I’m okay believing that the one month of stats was the result of a veteran just finding the grip and movement on the pitch he’s always had. Burnes is a locked-in top-five starting pitcher for me this season.
Ronel Blanco - Houston Astros
I’m skeptical of Ronel Blanco heading into 2025 because he came out of nowhere last year to post a 2.80 ERA and 1.09 WHIP with a 24.6% strikeout rate. On one hand, I have to acknowledge my bias of writing a guy off just because he’s 30 years old and had his first good MLB season; however, Blanco is 30 years old and just put together his only good MLB season. So how did he do it?
His four-seam fastball isn’t overly hard at just 94 mph, but he has elite extension and great iVB, so the fact that he keeps the four-seamer up over 50% of the time works well for him. He also started using the four-seamer inside to righties more in 2024, which is beneficial for him. It doesn’t miss a lot of bats, and he has just average control of it, but it also doesn’t get hit hard by righties, so those are pluses. On the downside, lefties had a 47% ICR off of it with a nearly 54% fly ball rate, so I feel like the 10.6% HR/FB ratio he gave up to lefties on his four-seamer is due for regression.
The big improvement for him in 2024 was the successful changeup. The “stuff” on the pitch didn’t change much from 2023, but he took some of the drop off of it and threw it low in the zone almost 10% more than he did in 2023. He also started throwing it inside to lefties more, starting it at the hip and then letting it break over the inside part of the plate. That led to a 7% jump in called strikes and also a huge improvement in the ICR allowed. The improvement in the changeup also likely allowed the four-seamer to perform better in 2024.
He rounds out his arsenal with a solid slider. The pitch grades out just around league average in PLV because he has a below-average zone rate on it to righties. Still, he gets TONS of chases off the plate and has a 23% SwStr% to righties, so we don’t mind the low zone rates here. The bigger concern is that the SwStr% is below average to lefties, as is the ICR. So this now makes the second pitch that is worse to lefties than righties.
At the end of the day, I see a pitcher with a fairly average four-seamer that will possibly regress against lefties, an elite slider that is not as successful against lefties, and a changeup that succeeds far more based on location than raw stuff. That’s a profile that can work, but it’s not the profile of a pitcher that feels like a locked-and-loaded fantasy asset. Unless he adds a cutter to keep lefties off his four-seamer and give himself a stronger foundation, I think there will be some strong stretches and some tough ones, and so I’m inclined to believe the ERA regressed closer to 4.00 and the strikeout rate falls as well.
Andrew Abbott - Cincinnati Reds
I’m not a big believer in Abbott for fantasy purposes, so it doesn’t surprise me to see him on this list. I know he has produced solid numbers in his 46 career MLB starts, and his minor league numbers in 2023 were stupid good, but I just don’t see the profile of a pitcher who will bring us enough goodness for fantasy leagues.
For starters, his four-seam fastball is below average. It has below-average velocity, average extension, average iVB, and a sub-10% SwStr% to both righties and lefties. He also has below-average zone rates and strike rates with it because it’s almost as if he knows it’s not a great pitch and is just trying to nibble with it. I’m fundamentally skeptical of pitchers who don’t have a fastball they can get ahead with for strikes, so this already has my haunches up.
Beyond the four-seamer, Abbott has a changeup that has a strong 22% ICR against righties but a below-average 12.4% SwStr% and a curveball that is commanded well and has just a 6% SwStr% to righties with a below-average ICR. He rounds out the arsenal with a sweeper that is weirdly better against righties than lefties. His sweeper misses bats to both, but righties have just a 25% ICR off of it, while lefties posted a 43% mark. Part of that is locations since Abbott has a nearly 10% middle-middle rate against lefties on the sweeper and doesn’t get it low and away enough.
So we have a pitcher with a below-average fastball who has a few secondaries that don’t miss bats but also don’t give up hard contact and a sweeper that goes against all convention by performing better against opposite-handed hitters. Oh, and that pitcher pitches in the worst ballpark for pitchers in all of baseball. That’s just not a profile that I can get behind for fantasy baseball unless there are a few pretty clear changes.
Hunter Greene - Cincinnati Reds
I mentioned Hunter Greene in another article where I talked about starting pitchers being drafted in the top 25 at the position who could bust in 2025, so I’ll just repeat a few of those thoughts here.
Hunter Greene checked the boxes for a potential starting pitcher bust in that article in three criteria and came close in a fourth. Despite seemingly having plus raw stuff, Greene posted a 23.3% two-strike chase rate and has been below average in that metric for his entire career. He also had a -24 Hit Luck score last season, which is absurdly high- one of the highest among all starting pitchers. He also had a 7.2% HR/FB rate, which is not only well below the league average but is significantly below his 13% career mark and speaks to major regression coming in 2025. Add to that a 48.1% quality pitch rating that was just above the 47.4% league average, and you have a few clear warning signs for Greene entering 2025.
I know people think Greene used his new splitter to fuel his breakout season in 2024, but that wasn’t the case. Yes, Greene needed a third pitch, so in that respect, the splitter was good; however, it was graded as a below-average pitch by PLV, and the only benefit of it seems to be that it added an extra wrinkle to his arsenal. The splitter didn’t give up hard contact, but it had just a 33% zone rate and a 53% strike rate to lefties, both of which were below average. As was its 22.7% CSW. It was also a poor two-strike pitch to lefties, so it wasn’t a pitch for strikes or swinging strikes and didn’t help improve Greene’s below-average two-strike chase rate at all.
The pitch could certainly improve in Greene’s second season throwing it, but his success last year was because of his four-seamer. He added extension to the pitch, which is rare, improved his zone rate, and gave up significantly less hard contact on it. However, he also had a -15 Hit Luck on his fastball, which tells us that 15 batted balls off the fastball that ended in outs should have been hits based on pitch quality and location. All of this means that Greene wasn’t a much different pitcher in 2024 and also got a bit lucky with his batted ball results, so that 2.75 ERA is likely to climb again in 2025. I wouldn’t be surprised if he registered a 3.75 ERA or something similar, given he pitches in the worst home park for pitchers, and his HR/FB% will most assuredly go back up closer to his career norms. Yet, even though he doesn’t miss bats in two-strike counts like he should, he seems to have the floor of a 27% strikeout rate pitcher, which is pretty darn good.
However, he did make improvements to his locations in 2024, which helped improve the contact quality allowed, and he has never allowed too many balls in play. He also has an above-average fastball and slider, so there is always a solid foundation for at least a decent MLB starting pitcher. His biggest risk factor may simply be that he averages nearly 98 mph on his four-seam fastball, and pitchers who throw that close to their max are seemingly far more likely to end up having to undergo surgery. All of those concerns have me not believing in the breakout season we saw from Greene last season.
Tobias Myers - Milwaukee Brewers and Seth Lugo - Kansas City Royals
I’m going to, probably unfairly, lump these two guys together simply because I think they’re both pitchers who advanced metrics like SIERA will never like as much as their results. Neither of them throws overly hard, and neither has a dominant pitch that makes you want to rewind your TV or head to the internet to make a GIF. However, they succeed because they have a tremendous feel for their arsenal and a large velocity band that creates deception and keeps hitters off-balance.
On the surface, Seth Lugo throws nine pitches, but it might even be more than that because he’s openly discussed how he can manipulate spin and movement based on whether he’s facing a righty or lefty. That means his individual pitches can change depending on the hitter, which makes it impossible for batters to sit on a specific pitch. On top of that, Lugo has such a wide range of velocities from his 92 mph fastball variations to his 90 mph cutter, 86 mph slider, 87 mph changeup, 81 mph sweeper, and 79 mph curve.
That kind of deep and varied pitch mix allowed him to reduce his four-seam usage to righties, which was one of his biggest weaknesses in previous seasons. The veteran did have some minor splits issues against lefties last season, which could be remedied by using his cutter more than 7.3% of the time against them. Yet, his command remains really strong, he has a few pitches that will miss enough bats to give him a 21% strikeout rate, and he should get a solid amount of wins on the Royals. I feel pretty confident that he’ll finish with an ERA better than that 3.93 SIERA.
I feel a bit less confident that Tobias Myers will outperform the 4.09 SIERA he had last year, but he has a similar profile and style to Lugo. Meyers throws six pitches with a wide velocity band from his 92 mph four-seamer, 89 mph cutter, 85 mph slider, 81 mph changeup, and 78 mph curve. He has 72nd-percentile zone rates and strike rates overall and 85th-percentile first-pitch strike rate, so he loves to fill up the zone and get ahead of batters.
He doesn’t miss many bats, but he allows a league average amount of contact and hard contact because he sequences his pitches well to allow them to tunnel and play well off of one another. He keeps the changeup middle or up the lefties more than you’d expect, but it allows the pitch to blend with the four-seamer and cutter and keep hitters from making authoritative contact. Same with the slider, which has just a 39th percentile low location against righties, but by keeping it more in the middle of the zone or up, Myers is able to have the slider play better off the cutter.
All of that does mean that Myers is walking a tightrope every time he goes out and relying a lot of consistent command and spin of his pitches; however, it is a profile that can work. His strikeout rates will never be high, and the track record isn’t there, so I’d limit my exposure to him to deeper formats, but I’m not betting on massive regression here.
Clarke Schmidt - New York Yankees
I’m actually a big fan of Clarke Schmidt for 2025. I think the changes he made to his arsenal last year were very real and something that we’ve seen brewing for a couple of seasons now. I talked at length about Schmidt in my pitch mix presentation at First Pitch Arizona, which I gave against for PitchCon this year, and you can watch it on YouTube here.
In 2023, Clarke Schmidt was trying to find a pitch to neutralize lefties. Not a swing-and-miss pitch but a pitch to limit damaging contact. In 2022, Schmidt was primarily a reliever, so his splits weren’t as big of a concern because the Yankees could control the hitters he faced; however, as a starter in 2023, Schmidt allowed a .236/.277/.405 slash line to righties, but a .303/.375/.500 slash line to lefties.
Clarke Schmidt added a cutter, which made sense on the surface because a cutter breaks in on the hands of left-handed hitters and is a fastball variation that he could theoretically command in the zone to induce weaker contact from opposite-handed hitters. As the 2023 season when on, he started to increase his usage of it, toying with the velocity and the locations. In 2024, the cutter was his most-used pitch, and he seemed to lock into a more beneficial plan of attack.
As you can see from the chart above, Schmidt started throwing the cutter harder but also not using it exclusively inside to lefties as much. The added velocity brought it closer to his sinker, and closing the velocity gap on fastball variations is always good for deception. He also started using the sinker up in the zone more, so the sinker and cutter attacked more of the same areas of the strike zone. He threw the sinker up in the zone just 23% of the time in 2023 but 44% in 2024. He also kept the sinker arm-side 10% more often, at 62%, but he wasn’t afraid to throw the cutter armside too, which allowed for more overlap there. So the cutter itself improved, but the location of his arsenal also improved, which is why he had an overall jump in swinging strike rate while also decreasing his hard contact allowed.
All of which is to say that I’m a believer in the changes Schmidt made to his arsenal, and I’m actively trying to get shares this season. I don’t believe the 2.84 ERA will stand, but something in the low 3.00-range seems entirely plausible to me.
Bryce Miller - Seattle Mariners
Bryce Miller is another pitcher I’m a little lower on than consensus. I love a lot of what Miller did last year and appreciate that he’s a young pitcher who is continuing to make improvements to his pitch mix and his approach, but I have him ranked 36th in my latest starting pitcher rankings, and I think there are some valid concerns around his pitch mix as we head into spring training.
He has an elite four-seam fastball but no secondary pitch that is consistently a plus-pitch. They can flash plus at times, but it’s a roll of the dice to see which pitch shows up in which start. That’s part of the reason that he allows as many balls in play as he does, and likely why his two-strike chase rate is lower than we’d like to see.
However, last year was just his second season as an MLB starter, and he made clear improvement, but the biggest concern for Miller is the two-strike chase rate. His four-seam fastball and curveball are the only pitches that posted an above-average chase rate in two-strike counts, and he barely throws the curveball. The splitter had a 29% mark against lefties, where the league average was 31.5%. The sweeper was at 23% to righties, where 28% is the league average, and the harder slider had just a 16.7% mark to righties, where 27% is the league average. That’s not where you want to be, and even though Bryce Miller seems to be adding a cutter this year, which I like, that’s not likely to help him with his two-strike chase rate, which means his four-seam fastball continues to be the only pitch he gets consistently swings on out of the zone in two-strike counts.
He could certainly improve one of his other pitches, but it is something to keep an eye on. We also know that Seattle is far and away the most pitcher-friendly park in baseball, and Miller had some concerning home and road splits that saw him pitch to a 4.07 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and 18% strikeout rate on the road. I think there is a path to him having another really strong season, and I’m not sure I see a 3.80 ERA coming in 2025, but I’m also not sure he’s a top-25 pitcher right now.
