2026 Fantasy Baseball Season in Review – Starting Pitching Duds

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  • By Paul Williamson

    Last Updated on October 29, 2026 4:01 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: October 29, 2026

    Year in and year out, the debate rages as to how early is too early to draft a starting pitcher?

    The year-to-year variance is greater when it comes to pitchers, and the injury risk is also greater, so pitchers often get faded by a good chunk of managers.

    Starting pitchers that have a down year and burn managers early in drafts may fall a bit too much as the opportunity to buy the dips in ADP can create great value.

    Let’s dive into which arms might be great 2027 values.

    Paul Skenes – Pittsburgh Pirates

    This is probably the most debated and discussed ‘dud’ of the starting pitchers in 2026.

    He was a near-consensus top starting pitcher off the board and was nowhere close to meeting that expectation.

    After two straight years of providing a sub-2.00 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP we saw the ERA jump to 3.82 and the WHIP jump to 1.12.

    The K% also dropped some but not too bad at all from 29.5% to 28.3% and the BB% went up slightly from 5.7% to 6.9%. The swing and miss was mostly still there as well with a 13.2% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) as he also got a bit more chase than with a career best 32.1% outside-zone swing rate (O-Sw%).

    While there was alot talk about the dip in fastball velocity (98.2 MPH to 96.8), the metrics against it were just as solid as they usually are with a .208 xBA, .386 xSLG, .290 xwOBA and a 29.7% whiff rate all are not any different than what we saw in 2025.

    While all of his secondary offerings saw a jump in expected stats against them, the changeup and splitter both saw the largest jumps of his most-used secondaries

    The splitter –

    • xwOBA – .308 –> .332
    • xSLG – ..373 –> .407
    • BA – .269 –> .323
    • xBA – .264 –> .296

    The changeup –

    • xwOBA – .123 –> .246
    • xSLG – .253 –> .294
    • SLG – .126 –> .384

    When we look at stuff+ we see a major drop for both

    • Changeup – 100 –> 85
    • Splitter – 96 –> 85

    When you have a touch slower fastball with a change up that doesn’t lose velocity but loses around an inch of arm-side movement and a little over an inch of vertical drop, the separation between the two pitches isn’t as extreme.

    Same can be said of the splitter.

    We also saw him completely disavow his low-usage curveball and maybe that was a mistake as it gave hitters one more glove-side pitch to think about, also potentially helping arm-side stuff play a bit up. Also that curve had a 40% whiff rate in 2025 with a 111 stuff+.

    Another thing to consider is he has seen another drop in ground ball rate from 51.3% in his rookie year to 44.3% in 2025 to 39.9% in 2026.

    This is when we talk about the sinker.

    The sinker batting average against it jumped from .220 to .291 and the SLG when from .293 to .430.

    And it stopped being a reliable ground ball offering going from a -2 degrees launch angle to eight degrees.

    The good news is the sinker lost just a tick of velocity but the break stayed the same but that was enough for the stuff+ to drop form 114 to 95.

    While the results on the surface and ‘under the hood’ got worse, I think the 3.86 ERA was not earned.

    These xStats he returned were still well below league average like a .216 xBA and .281 xwOBA allowed.

    The overall quality of contact allowed was still solid with a 7.3% barrel rate allowed and an 88.0 MPH average exit velocity (avgEV).

    His strand rate (or left on base, LOB%) went from 82%+ last two years down to 69.7% this year and all of his ERA estimators show a much better arm to be in 2027.

    • 3.28 xERA
    • 3.33 FIP
    • 3.34 SIERA

    The changes in the shapes and velocity in his arsenal are far from extreme. He is and should still be a great pitcher moving forward especially considering the unluckiness he faced this year.

    No, he shouldn’t be the top pitcher off the board but if he should easily be considered a top-10 SP in 2027, if not closer to the top-5.

    Bryan Woo – Seattle Mariners

    After being drafted as a top-10 SP in 2026, Woo was far from a top-10 SP in-season.

    After two seasons of a sub-3.00 ERA and sub-1.00 WHIP, his ERA jumped to 4.01 with a 1.10 WHIP.

    At first glance, some ‘under the hood numbers’ jump out where we can find some positive regression for Woo.

    First, the left-on-base rate (LOB%) or strand rate, was 66.2% after 76.8% in 2024 and 80.4% in 2025. That number regressing seems reasonable and is a path to improving the ERA.

    ERA estimators also indicate he was a better pitcher than his ratios suggest.

    • 3.24 FIP
    • 3.59 SIERA
    • 3.67 xERA

    He also continued to have solid K and BB numbers with a 24.6% K% and 5.5% BB%.

    Diving a bit deeper, he has noticeable home/away splits.

    The home and away splits show a 5.22 ERA on the road vs. a 2.64 mark at home.

    • K% – 29.1% home/21.2% away
    • BAA – .172 home/.276 away
    • WHIP – 0.82 home/1.36 away
    • FIP – 2.63 home/3.79 away
    • xERA – 3.13 home/4.10 away

    Seattle’s park is most definitely a pitcher’s park with Statcast Park Factors ranking it as the worst hitter’s park and is the worst park for strikeouts (or best if you’re a pitcher).

    Lots of hitters complain about the unique batter’s eye in centerfield and that certainly helps explain the ranking.

    In fact, for Woo, pitching away from Seattle has been a sneaky problem for him his whole career with career marks that are right along what we saw out of him this year.

    • 3.94 FIP
    • 1.17 WHIP
    •  21.7% K%

    And he is a stud at home.

    I think we are at a point now with Bryan Woo that we can’t view him as a ‘must-start’ when he isn’t in Seattle. He is likely someone to bench when he visits more hitter friendly environments, especially against the more competent offenses in the league especially considering the K-upside on the road is back at the ‘prove it’ stage.

    It helps explain how he has had an above league average K%s with swing-and-miss metrics that are closer to league average. His 77.8% contact% and 11.7% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) are not typically numbers you see from someone returning K%’s of around 25% or better.

    But the park in Seattle will give him a bump as his 21% K% on the road more matches that contact%.

    With a high contact rate and a high hard-hit rate over his last two seasons (42.9% this year, 41.8% in 2025), that is a lot of hard-hit balls in play.

    Woo is known for an elite fastball the plays up in the zone, but this year, he saw it get hammered much more than usual.

    • avgEV – 87.7 MPH –> 90.7
    • xwOBA – .259 –> .324
    • xSLG – .356 –> .436

    Looking at the movement and velo on the four-seamer, we only saw improvements with an added inch of arm-side break and slight increase in velocity to 96.1 MPH.

    This was the only pitch that saw this kind of jump in metrics as his sweeper/slider combo was just as effective as ever and the sinker did its job.

    At the end of the day, his consistent poor K% numbers on the road and lackluster whiff numbers do not inspire much confidence in me keeping him as an SP1 for 2027. But to give him some credit, we have seen better ratios on the road (just one good K% season in 2025 on the road so that’s not great) in 2024 and 2025 so I do still see him within the top-25. He would need to fall for me to buy and he will fall. But how far is the question.

    Freddy Peralta – Tampa Bay Rays

    Outside of the backend of 2026 and the postseason, Peralta was quite the dud for fantasy managers.

    After being drafted as a high-end SP2 in 2026, he returned some pretty pedestrian/poor production.

    He went 10-11 with a 4.42 ERA, 21.4% K% and 1.33 WHIP.

    He has never had those poor ratios even as a full-time starter and his K% has never been that bad.

    The one metric that fell off the most for him was the swing-and-miss as the contact rate he allowed went up to 76.8% with an 11.1% SwStr%. The in-zone contact (Z-Con%) was also a career worst at 83.6%.

    The added contact led to more balls put in play and that is the real culprit here.

    He returned of the lowest barrel rates of his career at 5.8% to go with his usually soft 37.2% hard-hit rate.

    Peralta continued to rely on a four-seamer/change up approach this year as he continued to shy more away from his slider/sweeper. But this was the first year he had a sub-30% whiff% against it at 28.9%.

    The velo dropped on it this year but did see a corresponding increase in movement, but that ended up leading a lower stuff+ grade (97) and less whiff.

    However, in Tampa, he was able to get that change up velocity back up to 88-89 in the month of September with an added tick on his four-seamer as well, even seeing improved induced vertical break (IVB or ‘ride’).

    While the results in September included a 0.96 ERA and 0.89 WHIP, the swinging strike (SwStr%) was still stuck at 10.0%.

    Turn the calendar into October for the postseason?

    His four-seamer continued to sit at the improved 96-98 range with an 88-89 mark for the change and he threw those almost exclusively and he has a 12.2% SwStr% in the post season.

    Given his history of solid swing and miss ability as he has had a 27%+ K% with a 12%+ SwStr% for his entire career, added with the way he ended the year with the added velo and the eventual return of the swing and miss, I can see me buying the dip on Peralta.

    Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the ranks, I have a feeling he is going to fall into the SP30/35 range and that seems reasonable to me. Especially if he stays in Tampa, but that seems unlikely.

    Logan Webb – San Francisco Giants

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    October 29, 2026, 4:01 pm