A few weeks ago, I found myself scrolling through the position leaders and noticed a lot of sophomore hitters who stood out, so this week I decide to do the same with pitchers. And let me tell you, there are a ton of sophomore pitchers that are standing out, including top-line starters and elite relievers. On the flip side, many promising young arms lost most if not all of their sophomore seasons to injury, while a few others regressed after an impressive rookie year.

Let’s take a look at a (large) group of guys whose stock has improved and a handful who lost that shine and some value after a (mostly) lost season.

RISERS

The Mariners added two more young, low-walk arms to their rotation last year in Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo, further strengthening the strongest part of their organization. With George Kirby, Luis Castillo and Logan Gilbert already in the rotation, both Miller and Woo are essentially a luxury. Miller, the former number one overall prospect in the Mariners organization, has essentially replicated his impressive rookie season, though he has slightly raised his strikeout rate, lowered his home run rate and raised his ground ball rate. He’s throwing his dominant fastball much less than in 2023, but he has added a very good splitter, increased his sinker usage and lowered his slider usage. His splitter has been one of the best in the bigs, as he is tied with Tanner Houck at the top of the run value leaderboards, at 7. His fastball has improved as he’s used it less, and it has been much better than in his rookie year, where the pitch value was a 0, whereas it is a 10 this year. He has been very aggressive in the big leagues, attacking hitters early (64.2% first-pitch strike rate over his first two years) and attacking the strike zone often (54.6% zone rate). Woo has also improved in his sophomore year, though injuries have limited his innings. His strikeout rate has dropped, from 25.1% to 19.6%, but his walk-rate and home run rates have also dropped, these two to elite levels (2.5% walk rate, 4.7% HR/FB rate). He’s rasied his groundball rate from 40.3% to 42.9%, lowing both his line-drive and flyball rates by a full percentage point or higher. His fastball and sinker are elite pitches, while his changeup and sweeper are very solid off-speed offerings that are solid strikeout pitches and play off of his fastball and sinker very well. His already great barrel-rate has dropped from 6.3% his rookie year to 1.8% his sophomore year, with elite exit velocities and hard-hit rates as well. Woo’s value would absolutely soar if he can stay healthy the rest of the season and continue to pitch at an elite level, whereas Miller is probably already a top 20 or so dynasty pitcher and should be treated as such in trade discussions.

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