Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
The finish line for the 2024 MLB season is in view at this point. If you’re still reading this article here in the second half of September, you’re either still in contention in your fantasy baseball league, already planning for 2025, or just love to consume fantasy baseball content. Whichever it is, let’s finish the season strong and continue to prep for 2025 while we’re at it.
This week, I’m diving into the profiles of three intriguing pitchers to determine what has gone right or wrong and how I’m valuing them in 2025 and beyond.
Frankie Montas, Milwaukee Brewers
Is Frankie Montas finally back to being a consistently useable fantasy arm and not just a streamer in good matchups on the road? Getting out of Cincinnati certainly helped, as Montas has looked like a whole new pitcher with Milwaukee. In nine starts for the Brew Crew, Montas has posted a 3.55 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 1.16 WHIP, 9.5% walk rate and a 28.6% strikeout rate. Montas has also racked up at least eight strikeouts in three straight starts including two starts with 10 strikeouts against Colorado and Philadelphia.
Should we trust Montas again? Has anything changed for him in Milwaukee?
The answer to the latter is “Not really.” The arsenal usage rates for Montas have shifted month to month, but there’s no consistent trends for any pitch since arriving in Milwaukee. Montas’ sinker usage is slowly rising and his four-seam usage dropped to 25.7% this month but also rose from 29.5% to 38.5% in his first month with the Brewers.
The big change for Montas has been that he’s missing more bats than he did in Milwaukee. As mentioned above, Montas has a 28.6% strikeout rate with Milwaukee compared to a 19% rate in 19 starts with the Reds. Montas’ four-seamer whiff rate has risen from 22.8% in his last month with Cincinnati to 29.4% and 34.1% in his first two months with Milwaukee. He also has a 59.1% whiff rate on his slider this month after being below 25% in each of the last two months.
This wasn’t even one of those “he needs to get out of Cincinnati” situations as Montas’ home/road splits in Cincinnati were pretty similar. This has all boiled down to him missing more bats.
All in all, I do believe Montas is back to being someone that we can roster all season instead of being simply a streamer option. However, at the same time, I’m not rushing out to acquire him either. Montas still has worse than league average walk and QoC metrics allowed, so I’m not expecting a return to his Oakland form, but a top-75 SP.
Taj Bradley, Tampa Bay Rays
Can someone please let me know where the ace-level Taj Bradley went? That was a much more enjoyable version than the one we’ve seen over the last two months. In fact, if you break down Bradley’s last 18 starts into two nine-start segments, the difference between the two is night and day.
The first nine start segment spans from June 8 to July 25. In those nine starts, Bradley posted a stellar 0.82 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, .162 BAA and a 22.3% K-BB rate. That dominant stretch had many — myself included — wondering if Bradley was blossoming into a fantasy ace after hinting at that level of upside in the minors and during his 2023 rookie season.
However, the last nine starts have been an absolute disaster. Starting with his July 31 start, Bradley has recorded a 7.88 ERA, 1.64 WHIP, .310 BAA and a 13.8% K-BB rate. There are always ups and downs throughout a season, but Bradley has been one the far end of both sides of the pitching spectrum without any sort of layover in the middle, going from arguably the best pitcher in baseball from June 8-July 25 to the worst over the last seven weeks.
Bradley has begun using his cutter more in September, but his August usage rates were similar to his June/July rates when he was dominating. But the issue for Bradley has always been that he allows too much hard-contact due to inconsistent command. Overall this season, Bradley has allowed a 10.8% barrel rate, 91.3 mph AVG EV, and a 42.9% hard-hit rate which are all in line with what he allowed during his rookie season in 2023.
Bradley has around a league-average walk rate, so it’s not a control issue but he tends to leave too many pitches over the heart of the plate, especially with his four-seam fastball which is getting hit around to the tune of a .274 BAA and .521 SLG this season. Meanwhile, Bradley’s cutter, curveball and splitter all have a BAA under .225 and a whiff rate above 32%. It’s encouraging to see better metrics on the cutter this season, but Bradley’s four-seamer is still a problem.
Maybe he can incorporate a sinker this offseason to help, but a tweak needs to be made here. Given the upside he’s already shown, I’m willing to buy low in dynasty and invest in redraft next season. Long-term, I still believe Bradley is going to be a top-25 SP for fantasy, just maybe not an ace.
Hayden Birdsong, San Francisco Giants
Outside of having one of the nicest sounding last names in baseball, Hayden Birdsong has become one of the hardest pitchers for me to rank. If we look at the pitching leaders in the second half of the season, Birdsong ranks 18th in BAA and 12th in strikeout rate among the 144 pitchers with at least 30 innings pitches.
Limiting hits and striking batters out are two important ingredients to pitching successfully, however, Birdsong has a 5.26 ERA in the second half largely due to his bloated 15.7% walk rate. That walk rate is the worst in baseball in the second half of the season and is 1.6% worse than the second-worst mark of 14.1% by Luis Gil. And for the season, Birdsong’s 14.4% walk rate over 57 innings is the second-worst mark behind only Aroldis Chapman and is tied for the worst mark for starters with Triston McKenzie.
Walks were an issue for Birdsong in the minors as well, but not to this extent as he usually hovered around the 10-11% range.
Obviously the walks are a major issue, but let’s circle back around to the hits allowed for Birdsong. While his BAA is respectable, Birdsong is allowing too much hard contact to the tune of a 91.8 mph AVG EV and a 49% hard-hit rate, both of which are in the 1st percentile of pitchers this season.
In general, this isn’t a profile I usually like to invest in. Sure, Birdsong will get you strikeouts and have stretches where he’ll look like an impact arm given his ability to miss bats. However, the walk rate and QoC metrics are major red flags right now and need to be improved before I’d be willing to invest in dynasty or 2025 drafts.
