Crossed Up: First-Half Fantasy Pitcher All-Stars (7/17)

We made it to MLB’s All-Star break, and everyone can now take a slight breather from setting fantasy baseball lineups for a couple of days. But even though we get a mini break from game action, there’s never a bad time to assess our teams and the players on our teams to see what moves can be made moving forward.

In this week’s edition of Crossed Up on FTN Fantasy, I’ll be looking at a bunch of first-half pitching stars who were all drafted outside of the top 200 in ADP in March NFBC drafts. But before I get into the meat and potatoes of this article, I wanted to quickly mention four pitchers who fit the criteria but won’t be discussed below for various reasons.

Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates: Writing about Paul Skenes here is too easy, even if he fits the criteria. If we redrafted today, he’d be the first or second pitcher off the board along with Tarik Skubal. STUD.

Garrett Crochet, Chicago White Sox: The only knock against him being a top-five pitcher right now is the shorter track record and past injury history. For me, Crochet is a no-doubt top-10 pitcher at this point, and you can make a case for him as high as No. 3 behind Skenes and Skubal.

Taj Bradley, Tampa Bay Rays and Luis Gil, New York Yankees: I wrote about Bradley and Gil in the July 3 edition of Crossed Up.

Now, for the pitchers we’re discussing.

Seth Lugo, Kansas City Royals

Who had Seth Lugo being tied for the second-most wins and having the fourth-best ERA among qualified pitchers at the All-Star break on their 2024 bingo card? I’m not going to lie to you all and say that I did. Sure, Lugo had a solid 2023 season, but nobody could’ve expected him to have a 2.48 ERA at this point in the season. If you drafted him, congratulations. It’s been a fun ride so far, but the time is coming to hop off the ride and find the exit.

I’m not saying Lugo is going to suddenly be unrosterable. But there is literally nothing in the profile that supports his first-half performance. Just look at his ERA indicators for starters. While Lugo has a surface ERA of 2.48, he also has a 3.93 xERA, 3.31 FIP, 3.70 xFIP and 3.80 SIERA. Lugo also has worse than average contact and quality of contact metrics allowed, and has posted a 3.70 ERA since the start of June.

I’d expect 2022-2023 Lugo in the second half and not 2024 first-half Lugo. If you’re fine with that — as that is still a solid arm — then feel free to hold. But I also wouldn’t fault anyone for trying to sell high right now.

Ronel Blanco, Houston Astros

Can someone do me a favor and find the rabbit’s foot that Ronel Blanco has hidden on him when he pitches? Starting with a no-hitter kicking off his breakout season, Blanco has been phenomenal for most of the season and sits with a 2.56 ERA in 18 starts after the first three and a half months of the season. Out of the 68 qualified pitchers so far, Blanco has the sixth-best ERA but the 50^th-best K-BB rate at 13.6%.

Blanco hasn’t been pitching poorly by any means, but a bit of luck has factored into his performance so far. All of Blanco’s ERA indicators are in the 3.56 to 4.42 range and he’s also recorded a .178 BABIP and 86.3% strand rate. That BABIP is the lowest among qualified pitchers by a whopping 46 points and only Reynaldo Lopez has a higher strand rate. For reference, the lowest BABIP by a qualified pitcher last season was .244.

The regression monster is lurking in the shadows. It’s only a matter of time before it jumps out and takes a bite out of Blanco’s ratios.

Tanner Houck, Boston Red Sox

The transformation from being a risky upside arm to one of the better pitchers in baseball has been exciting to watch with Tanner Houck this season. After posting a 5.01 ERA in 21 starts last season, Houck has a 2.54 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 5.5% walk rate and a 23.5% strikeout rate this season. All of those marks outside of the strikeout rate are career-best marks for Houck if you exclude his three-start debut in 2020.

While Houck is missing fewer bats this season, there have been tangible changes that have aided in this breakout, and I’ll gladly take this version over the pre-2024 version. Andrew Bailey and company simplified Houck’s arsenal, mainly going with his slider (42.3%), sinker (29.9%) and splitter (25.5%) while ditching the four-seamer and nearly ditching the cutter (2.2%). The results have shown that that was the right move as both of Houck’s secondaries have a BAA under .200 and a SLG under .300 while the sinker has helped him post a career-high 55.2% groundball rate.

I’m not going to rank Houck as an ace moving forward, but he can definitely stick in the Logan Webb/Max Fried section of rankings as a solid SP2 for fantasy purposes.

Jared Jones, Pittsburgh Pirates

While he’s currently on the IL with a lat strain, Jared Jones was one of the bigger breakout performers of the first half. Even with his production falling off after a dominant start to the season, Jones still had a 3.56 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 7.3% walk rate and a 26.4% strikeout rate. Jones also currently ranks second behind Garrett Crochet in SwStr rate.

There’s no denying Jones is a talented pitcher, and having Gerrit Cole and Hunter Greene as two of the similar pitchers to him on Savant based on velocity and movement is a pretty good duo to be compared to. But just how valuable can Jones be long-term? Well, it’s probably going to be in a similar range to one of the pitchers I just mentioned (Greene).

The reason why I’m hesitant to call Jones an ace moving forward is his lack of a third effective offering. Jones has a good four-seamer/slider combination, but both his curveball and changeup have a BAA over .300 and a SLG allowed over .550. If he wants to push fantasy ace status, one of those pitches will need to take a solid step forward. If not, Jones is still in SP2/3 range.

Mason Miller, Oakland Athletics

I’m going to cheat a little bit here as Mason Miller’s ADP was just inside the top 200 overall, but he fits in an article like this. In 39.2 innings this season, Miller has compiled a 2.27 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 9.3% walk rate and a ridiculous 46.7% strikeout rate. Needless to say, but the transition from the rotation to the bullpen was a massive success.

There’s been so much turnover at the top of the relief pitcher position in fantasy over the last few years, making Miller’s emergence a godsend. Can he stick as one of the best fantasy relievers in the game? That is a question that can be answered by watching Miller pitch for an innings. Yes.

Both of Miller’s offerings have a whiff rate above 40%, including his four-seamer, which has a 41.5% whiff rate. It’s hard to square up or even make contact with a pitch that averages 100.9 mph that Miller commands well. His slider is one of the best in the game as well with a .140 BAA, .193 SLG and 46.1% whiff rate.

Even on a team like Oakland, Miller has what it takes to be the best fantasy reliever moving forward, or at least one of the top few.

Jake Irvin, Washington Nationals

Who would’ve thought Jake Irvin would be pitching this well at the All-Star break? In 20 starts, Irvin has posted a 3.49 ERA and 1.11 WHIP while trimming his walk rate from 10.2% in 2023 to 6.2% so far in 2024. Many of his ERA indicators are close to his actual ERA as well, so it’s not like this has been a fluke. However, Irvin is limited to being more of a top-75 starter moving forward due to his below-average ability to miss bats which has resulted in a 21.2% strikeout rate, 22.5% whiff rate and 9.9% SwStr rate this season.

Ranger Suárez, Philadelphia Phillies

Zack Wheeler leads the Phillies with a 2.70 ERA, but Ranger Suárez is right behind him at 2.76 and was lower than Wheeler for part of the season. Suárez also has a 1.04 WHIP and 18.8% K-BB rate, and all of his ERA indicators are below 3.30. While Suárez is likely capped in the 24-25% strikeout rate range, his ability to limit walks, generate plenty of groundballs (54.6%) and limit barrels (5.1%) make him a fairly safe pitcher to roster moving forward that should continue to provide top-40 SP value, maybe more.

Jack Flaherty, Detroit Tigers

While I’m concerned about his nagging back issues, Jack Flaherty has been incredibly impressive this season. Luckily, I have a few shares, both in redraft and dynasty. In 16 starts, Flaherty has posted a 3.13 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 4.3% walk rate and a 32.1% strikeout rate. He’s been pitching better this year than during his breakout 2018-2019 seasons. And you know what? I’m mostly buying in. Flaherty ranks in the top 7% of pitchers in whiff, walk, and strikeout rate while also having better than league average marks in chase rate, groundball rate, and all of the quality of contact metrics. If he can remain healthy, I’d be fine ranking and valuing Flaherty as a top-25 arm. But again, back issues always worry me. Invest with caution.