League Winners Week 1: Three Potential (Future) Aces
Very excited to debut this new column! Also happy Opening Day!
Welcome to League Winners! A new weekly, in-season column that I’m really excited to debut.
Starting next week it’ll be coming out each Wednesday. With Opening Day being Thursday this week, I couldn’t resist putting it out on Opening Day. Also, happy Opening Day!
Begining next week, it’ll be a paid subscriber exclusive column, but I wanted to give a sneak peak of the type of content and analysis that’ll be in each column.
Each Wednesday I’ll break down a number of potential impact trade targets or waiver wire targets for your consideration who could be league winners. These are the players you’ll want to be adding to your roster.
Really, it’s your weekly waiver wire and trade target type of columns all rolled into one, except for this one will be purely the highest upside players who could very well help you win your league championship in the fall.
Also, fun aside (!), to celebrate Opening Day and the new season, I’m running an Opening Day special here on the Substack. If you become a paid subscriber today (or through April 2), you get 20% off for the next 12 months.
Jackson Jobe
Where Jackson Jobe is being drafted (he has a 257.26 ADP, per NFBC data as of Wednesday) suggests some might not be as high on the young starter.
Or rather, some have trepidations about what he’ll bring to the table this year in fantasy, what his ultimate fantasy ceiling might be for just 2025, how many innings he’ll throw as a rookie.
All those things.
Maybe a combination of all of them.
But the fact that he’s being drafted so low in drafts suggests he might be fairly easy to trade for, relatively speaking. Of course, that’s easier said than done and the manager who drafted Jobe later might be similarly high on him.
But, nearly 100 pitchers have a higher ADP than Jobe. Ok, so not exactly 100. But 97 of them, per NFBC data.
And while plenty on that list near him – Drew Rassmussen, Reese Olson, Jesus Luzardo and Brandon Woodruff to name a few – have exciting upside, it might be near impossible to find a starter with Jackson Jobe’s fantasy ceiling this season who both is drafted that low and potentially undervalued by another fantasy manager.
Jobe made just two appearances and threw four innings in 2024 as he debuted for the Tigers, but his stuff and general upside were on full display, with a 106 Stuff+ and a 104 Pitching+ number in those four innings, per FanGraphs data. That’s a tiny sample size, but the stuff is one of the many reasons Jobe is the league’s best pitching prospect, and the stuff was certainly there early, even in a smaller sample size.
Furthermore, an injury to Alex Cobb early in spring training entrenched Jobe in the Tigers’ Opening Day rotation, well ahead of the competition of the fifth starter competition featuring Casey Mize, Kenta Maeda, Keider Montero and others.
Jobe’s stuff, elite home ballpark – at least in terms of pitcher-friendliness – and the similarly great pitching coaches he’ll be working with given him league-winning upside.
And with the potential for the Tigers to receive another draft pick if Jobe factors into the Rookie of the Year proceedings – not to mention Jobe’s immense potential in general, that’s the biggest thing here – the starter seems a good bet to stick in the Major League rotation all year unless he struggles immensely.
And given his upside, ability and the immensely fantasy-friendly environment around him, that seems unlikely.
He is, unsurprisingly, a potential league winner.
There’s top-20 (or better) fantasy starter upside here with the potential to be in and around the top 75 players overall, regardless of position.
Eury Perez
Sometimes adding a league winner isn’t about making the right trade, but sometimes about adding the right player and stashing them on your injured list ahead of time.
Enter Eury Perez, who’s set to open the year on the 60-day injured list but could make an impact later in the year for the Miami Marlins and fantasy managers alike.
The 21-year-old last pitched in 2023, pitching to a 3.15 ERA and a 4.11 FIP in 19 starts spanning 91.1 innings for the National League East club. Like Jobe, he was an elite pitching prospect.
Somewhat like Jobe (at least with Jobe’s ADP) it’s possible that Perez isn’t top of mind with fantasy managers in redraft leagues.
Take advantage of that by adding him ahead of time. Obviously don’t go too crazy from a FAAB standpoint, but there’s elite rotation upside here with the right-hander.
In his debut season, the 21-year-old finished in the 85th percentile or better in strikeout rate 28.9%, 85th percentile), whiff rate (33.7%, 93rd percentile) and xBA (.208, 88th percentile). His xERA (3.61, 74th percentile) and chase rate (31.0%, 75th percentile) weren’t too far off.
Here are the starters, along with Perez, who faced at least 350 batters in 2023 and had both a strikeout rate above 28% and a whiff rate north of 30%. There were only eight of them:
Eury Perez, Pablo Lopez, Hunter Greene, Freddy Peralta, Shohei Ohtani, Tarik Skubal, Tyler Glasnow and Spencer Strider.
Here were the starters who faced at least 350 batters in 2024 and had both a strikeout rate above 28% and a whiff rate north of 30%.
This year there were only nine of them:
Cole Ragans, Dylan Cease, Jack Flaherty, Tarik Skubal, Chris Sale, Tyler Glasnow, Paul Skenes, Blake Snell and Garrett Crochet.
Even just a half season or two months of Eury Perez on your fantasy pitching staff could make a significant difference. Add him now via waivers or free agency while you can.
Grayson Rodriguez
Similar to Perez, Rodriguez will open the season on the injured list as he’s not ready to return to pitching in the Majors yet. Per a report from The Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka on March 23 on Bluesky,
“Rodriguez will travel with the team but is starting near square zero in buildup. No ligament issues in inflamed elbow.”
Just like with Perez, there’s no exact date yet for the right-hander’s return, but even if he pitches for just the second half of the season, he could be a difference-maker in fantasy pennant chases and playoff races.
Last year the 25-year-old pitched to a 3.86 ERA and a 3.66 FIP in 116.2 innings spanning 20 starts for the Baltimore Orioles. Backed up by the O’s high-powered offense, he rattled off 13 (!) pitcher wins in just those 20 starts while adding 130 strikeouts compared to just 36 walks and 15 home runs allowed.
He finished the year in the 72nd percentile or better in chase rate (30.6%, 72nd percentile), whiff rate (30.0%, 82nd percentile) and strikeout rate (26.5%, 75th percentile).
Only nine full-time, qualified starters ticked all three boxes last year:
Carlos Rodon, Bailey Ober, David Festa, Paul Skenes, Jack Flaherty, Sonny Gray, Chris Sale, Blake Snell, Garrett Crochet.
Of that group, just six had a lower FIP than Rodriguez.
We see all the time in real-life baseball teams loading up a the traded deadline with plenty of impact acquisitions to bolster their team for the stretch run, Eury Perez and Grayson Rodriguez have a chance to be that heading into the 2025 stretch run for fantasy managers.
And there’s a chance you can acquire both for very little.
Now, the only caveat here with Rodriguez is that if you drafted early, the fantasy manager who selected Rodriguez might be hesitant to move him so soon after using a higher draft pick to select him. Waiting until injured list spots start to get a bit scarce (or full, rather) for that fantasy manager might be the prudent move.