4 Fantasy Baseball Busts to Avoid (2025)

When it comes to fantasy baseball, landing the right starting pitchers can make or break your season. Drafting an ace is crucial, but finding value arms and avoiding potential busts is just as important. To help you navigate the 2024 fantasy baseball landscape, we’ve gathered insights from our collection of Featured Pros. These experts break down the starting pitchers to target and avoid, highlighting sleepers, breakouts, and potential landmines based on performance trends, advanced metrics, and team situations. Before you draft, check out their expert takes on which arms can give you an edge-and which ones could derail your championship hopes.

Fantasy Baseball Busts to Avoid

Who’s your biggest bust inside the top 20 SPs and why?

Chris Sale (SP – ATL)

“Chris Sale was dominant last season, but you’re paying for him to be great again at in his age 36 season. He pitched 177.2 innings last season, which is the most innings he threw since 2017. From 2021-23, Sale pitched a combined 151 innings. He couldn’t pitch at the end of the season due to a back injury. At cost, he’s a fade.”
– Adam Ronis (FantasyLife)

Corbin Burnes (SP – ARI)

“Corbin Burnes, Arizona Diamondbacks Picking a “bust” inside the Top 20 at a position is hardly fair, but as the sixth-ranked SP with an ADP of #35, I’m choosing Burnes. His K% is in perennial decline, making it more a fact than even a trend. According to Fangraphs, 2024 was his worst season since 2019 in BAA, BABIP, and WHIP, while his Barrels, Barrel%, HardHit, and Hardhit% were all their worst going back to 2020. If Burnes didn’t decline in a category in 2024, it’s probably because someone forgot to chart him for it. I have Burnes projected, at his best, for an ERA of around 3.40 with 170 strikeouts and a Whip of 1.15. For the 6th-ranked SP, I can get those numbers at SP57, where Nathan Eovaldi and Jose Berrios roam.”
– Chris Mitchell (FantasyData)

Logan Webb (SP – SF)

“Since I am running out of ways to express my bewilderment that Jacob deGrom is in the Top 20, I’ll go with Logan Webb. Webb continued being MLB’s Mr. GroundBall in 2024, boasting a 57.2% ground ball rate while throwing 204 2/3 innings. Webb’s durability and compiled innings are his claim to fantasy relevancy, as his 20.5% strikeout rate requires volume to have a positive impact. Of note, his 3.41 ERA featured some luck with an xERA of 4.31, and his WHIP jumped to 1.23 from 1.07. He has double-digit wins in each of the last two years, which again is more of a product of his innings than anything else. I’m afraid 2025 may be the year that Webb fails to recoup his value.”
– Kelly Kirby (FantasyPros)

Jacob deGrom (SP – TEX)

“Jacob deGrom turns 37 years old in a few months. He hasn’t pitched a full season since all the way back in 2019, when he was a spry 31-year-old. While I still think deGrom can be really good, obviously, I struggle with a price tag that is pushing the Top 50 in redraft leagues. I won’t go as far as to say you’re drafting him at his ceiling, but we have no way of knowing what his ceiling really is at this point. I AM confident in saying you’re drafting him closer to his realistic ceiling than his realistic floor because we’ve seen the floor at some point every year since 2021. My main issue with gambling on deGrom at this price is this: if you hit on deGrom, he isn’t a league winner. He’s just another really good pick that you paid a fair price for. But if you miss on him, it could be a dagger in your season. ”
– Mike Maher (FantasyPros)