https://theathletic.com/5426812/2024/04/19/mlb-starting-pitcher-fantasy-baseball-ranking/
Speed is the name of the game. Just as major-league teams are working on models that can help them make decisions faster, so do public analysts trying to help people beat the line, win that overall prize, or at least beat their college friends in that fantasy league.
In the effort to make better decisions faster, we have a few statistics that can aid our efforts:
• Fastball velocity stabilizes quickly — three starts should reliably predict the rest of the season.
• Relatedly, Stuff+ becomes meaningful after as little as one start, at least when it comes to fastballs and sliders.
• Strikeout-minus-walk rate is one of the most powerful small-sample tools.
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Burnes:
Stuff+ told us before the season that Burnes had a great curveball that he could feature more, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he's done exactly that in Baltimore. He's also seen his fastball velocity return to 2022 levels. The result has been vintage Burnes, at a time when it seems like all the aces are falling around him. Long-term park factors are funky in Baltimore — with the new dimensions, Burnes should easily put up a low-threes ERA with plenty of strikeouts.
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G-Rod:
Like with this teammate Burnes, you can expect Rodriguez to beat this ERA projection. He now has two fastballs and two secondaries that are elite in terms of physical characteristics, so it's a full arsenal. Even using last year's data to improve the sample size, he's shown above-average command of four pitches, too. The only question mark is the fact that he lacks a slider. The cutter isn't great — overuse of that pitch early last season is what got him in trouble — and he hasn't consistently thrown a hard breaking ball. Otherwise, he's golden Grayson.