A Hard Four – High ADP Starting Pitchers

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Four starting pitchers being drafted at 200+ ADP that could blossom in the 2020 shortened season.

Today we’re going to take a look at 4 Starting Pitchers that are not being looked at early in drafts, with everyone here coming in at 200+ ADP. Lets dig in!

1. Griffin Canning

The Griffin, a mix between a lion and a eagle, is one of my favorite mythical creatures. With the Latin translation for Griffin meaning “curved” referring to its beak,  its no coincidence the Canning has a wonderful curveball. Canning was called up by the Angels in April of 2019 and was off to a hot start, toting a 2.57 ERA through may. the game caught up to the rookie though, and he found himself in a rough patch in July before ultimately ending up on the IL. Canning was diagnosed with chronic changes to his UCL and was shut down, not expecting to be ready for the start of the 2020 season. Canning has since returned throwing from a mound though and is on track to make a difference right away in a Angels rotation that needs all the help it can get. Back to the bender, Canning’s curveball is on the tighter side, not so much of a looper, and he managed to find the zone with it 46% of the time while batters only swung 50%. The slider was a pretty good offering for the young hurler as well, with a zone rate at 40% and a whiff rate north of 45%. Canning’s changeup can use a bit of work, with just a 13% whiff rate, it was mostly used to take lefties off balance, and was hit around to the tune of a .485 xSLG. That changeup could have been even worse if not for a good fastball in Canning’s corner. Canning has shown great command with that 4 seamer and the pitch has great has above average drop and break. Griffin Canning should improve in his sophomore campaign and has a chance to become the top dog of the Angels staff.

2. Joe Musgrove

Oh Joe. How I wish I could quit you. With 3 secondary pitches above league average whiff rate, zone rate, and K rate though (Slider, Change, Curve) I never will. Joe has been a full time starter for the pirates for 2 years, and has been teetering on a breakout for the same amount of time. Towards the end of last season Musgrove moved to a shortened arm action in his delivery, providing himself with 3 ticks of extra velocity, bringing his fastball all the way up to 95mph from his regular 92mph! With that added velocity Joe managed to absolutely spike his K% to 37% though 3 starts in September. Joe Musgrove is elite in the fact that he has 3 secondary options with swinging strike rate over 15%, being 1 of only 5 pitchers to do so in 2019, the Pirates have been fastball first team for quite some time though, and made Musgrove throw more fastballs then I suspect he wanted to. With longtime fastball oriented pitching coach Ray Searage finally gone and replaced by analytics minded Oscar Marin in Pittsburgh, Joe should at last be able to unleash a barrage of breaking balls to batters and find a way to break through in 2020. 

3. Pablo Lopez

Pablo loves to live low, low and below the strike zone. He works mostly off a fantastic changeup that boasts a 30% swinging strike rate, and a 45.8% O-swing. Pablo’s changeup is also able to be thrown for strikes with a 43% zone rate. Pablo’s fastball finds the zone at a 57% rate, which at first glance would give one the idea that he has good command of it, but its more control than command. When the 4 seamer does land in the zone it often gets him in trouble, and batters managed take advantage of it by sitting heat. Lopez offers a curve and a sinker that he like to drop in for strikes as well. The curve is not great put away pitch but it is good enough to be used 20% of the time, while opponents only hit .210 against it. The sinker is used mostly against right handed batters and produces some good swing and miss (22%) when throw below the zone and provides a great tunneling option for the changeup. All Pablo Lopez has to do is harness some Fastball command and find the ability to pepper the top of the strike zone with cheese, and his already great sinker and changeup tunneling will become devastating in 2020. 

4. Mike Foltynewicz

Mike Foltynewicz is going to to be the most turn key starter of this group, only a year removed from his tremendous 2018 all star season. Folty lost a tick and half on both his fastball and his slider from 2018 to 2019 though, and while his slider returned similar swinging strike numbers, the avg against rose from .111 in 2018 to .242 in 2019. The fastball was knocked around to a .636 xSLG. In 2018 Folty threw his 4 seamer 40% of the time, while throwing his sinker only 16% of the time. In 2019 those fastball numbers met in the middle and Folty threw his slider/4 seamer/sinker all between 25%-28%, which I thought would help his ability to tunnel the slider. I was wrong. Folty’s sinker returned a .365 xSLG in 2018, in 2019 that number jumped about .463, almost 100 points higher! I would love to see Folty go back to pounding high heat and mixing the sinker when necessary, alternatively it would be nice to see some more changeup usage. The changeup was not a big piece of the gameplan in 2019, only being thrown 9.5% of the time, but showed great results with batters hitting only a measly .178 against it, a 50% zone rate, and a 44% chase and miss, shown here by Anthony Rendon. If Folty can reclaim that tick of heat back to his fastball and keep control of it, he will have no problem landing himself on the All-Star team for the next few years.

Thanks for reading! You can find more great DFS and season long content at WinDaily.com, and find me on Twitter at @TimmySigs.