Fantasy Baseball Draft Targets: Joe Musgrove, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Corbin Burnes (2024)

My starting pitcher rankings are mostly based upon my fScores, with a heavier lean on fStuff and fERA than on fControl, even though fControl is necessary for pitchers to be starters.

A minimum of a 95 should be desired for a starting pitcher in fControl, though there are some exceptions in certain circumstances (i.e., Dylan Cease and prime Robbie Ray). The fScores have been historically accurate when it comes to pitching, and I continue to refine them further by installing arsenal bonuses based on a number of high stuff pitches, stuff plus and location plus embedded into the equations.

We will go through each of my starting pitcher tiers and select the biggest values in each tier where you can get the most production per tier for the value of each player. The goal is to select players who will give the same production as the rest of the pitchers in the tier at a much lower value.

If you are curious about the fScore ratings, you can check out my fScore rankings and information here.

Draft Arbitrage: Starting Pitchers to Draft

NOTE: All ADPs are based on NFBC after Feb. 1.

Corbin Burnes (BAL)

fPDurability	fStuff	fControl	fERA	TOTAL	FUTURE
123	120	108	166	129	129

Tim’s Rank: 1

ADP: 3

Reasoning: Corbin Burnes gets the edge over Spencer Strider for two reasons. The first of which is he has a better track record of durability and pitching more innings. Strider pitched 186 2/3 in 2023, which is a career high, against Burnes, who has pitched 202 and 193 2/3 in his last two seasons. Of course, Burnes has been around a lot longer to build up, but their track record sometimes speaks for itself. Additionally, while Strider has a 13% higher fStuff at 131, Burnes has a 39% higher fERA than Strider, meaning he is less likely to give up significant damage.

Lastly, he has a wider arsenal than Strider. Strider throws his fastball and slider a combined 93% of the time. While they are both insane pitches, Burnes has five pitches he mixes in at over an 8% clip per pitch. Burnes had the highest Stuff+ in baseball in the second half, including four pitches that rated over 116, while Strider had only one pitch (his fastball) over 116.

What about Gerrit Cole? Burnes beats out Cole just slightly with 4% better fStuff and 12% worse fControl. Still, Burnes again takes the day in fERA with a 19% edge. This one is closer to me than Burnes and Strider. Cole has been a legit stud for years and, like Burnes, has a legit five-pitch mix with three pitches over a 114 Stuff+. It’s fun to have the best fastball in baseball, but I’ll take the expanded arsenal and workload of players like Burnes and Cole, providing some nice value if you can get them in the second round of your draft.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD)

fPDurability	fStuff	fControl	fERA	TOTAL	FUTURE
101	113	127	165	126	144

Tim’s Rank: 5

ADP: 11

Reasoning: Yoshinobu Yamamoto gets hit in the rankings because he is an “unknown.” However, we saw him in the World Baseball Classic, where he was unhittable. Now, the Dodgers were just willing to give him the biggest contract in baseball history. I did a ton of work creating a correlation table between Japanese pitchers in their first year in the Majors and how stats correlated from their last three years in Japan. With that, I trust what I’m seeing on these fScores to be at least 80-90% accurate.

Joe Musgrove (SDP)

fPDurability	fStuff	fControl	fERA	TOTAL	FUTURE
90	107	120	150	120	129

Tim’s Rank: 10

ADP: 28

Reasoning: Joe Musgrove was excellent again in 2023 when he was healthy. He’s proven to be one of the better control and run prevention pitchers in the Majors for four years running now and manages a good number of strikeouts to boot. The Padres have a killer defense behind Musgrove (which will get better with Ha-Seong Kim moving to SS and Xander Bogaerts to 2B). Musgrove is only taking a hit because of his injuries last year, but he’s healthy and finished the season with solid numbers in just over 97 innings.

Musgrove has a six-pitch arsenal, with four of them being plus pitches with over a 102 Stuff+. Musgrove gets dinged in some rankings because his worst pitch is his fastball, but he only throws it 24% of the time and has good command of it. He plays this pitch up by also throwing a cutter and sinker, but his money pitches are that cutter against his curve, slider and changeup. Musgrove is a breaking ball master and has always been a high-command pitcheers since his Astros days. I’m not concerned about the durability; he had back-to-back 181 IP seasons before last year.