MLB breakout pitchers: 10 arms to bet on early in 2024 season

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Each year, I write this column to try to highlight some pitchers who will outperform projections and are worth betting on in the upcoming season. Last year, Kyle Bradish, Zach Eflin, Josiah Gray and George Kirby were listed as some pitchers to bet on in 2023, and even Mitch Keller shined in the first half before some second-half struggles.

Even though it’s impossible to know for sure given that we don’t know how the market will price these guys start to start the year, here are 10 pitchers I’m looking to bet on early in 2024.

Brandon Pfaadt, Diamondbacks

There is major disagreement among the public projection systems for Brandon Pfaadt’s projected ERA in 2024. THE BAT has Pfaadt with a 4.83 ERA, while ZiPS is nearly a full run lower at 3.97. He’s undervalued in the betting markets because of the meaningful changes he made in the second half of the 2024 season. Pfaadt’s first stint in the big leagues was a disaster:

• First 25 2/3 innings before demotion: 9.82 ERA, 7.46 FIP, 21 K, 10 BB, 9 HR
• Final 70 1/3 innings after call up: 4.22 ERA, 4.35 FIP, 73 K, 16 BB, 13 HR
• Twenty-two playoff innings: 3.27 ERA, 3.35 FIP, 26 K, 5 BB, 3 HR

There was steady improvement throughout the year that peaked in the playoffs. I’ve long been a believer in Diamondbacks pitching coach Brent Strom, and improvements from Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly in recent years give a lot of optimism for Pfaadt’s development.

Another underrated element is catcher Gabriel Moreno, who is one of the best game-callers and pitch-framers in baseball behind the plate.

Pfaadt’s spring training workload was extremely limited as he threw 5 2/3 innings and was ineffective with an 11.12 ERA in three starts. Those results could throw some cold water on Pfaadt to start the year, but the arrow is clearly pointing upward for the young Arizona starter.

Pfaadt’s 107 Stuff+ and improved command numbers in the second half of 2023 give him as high of an upside as any pitcher on the staff. He’s going to need to find a solve to more effectively handle lefties given his pitch mix, but the development of a plus sinker to pair with his excellent sweeper was very efficient at getting righties out.

Hunter Brown, Astros

‘Baby Verlander’ was a common breakout pick among the baseball community last year and that never really materialized. Brown seemed to run out of gas in the second half of the season and finished with a 5.02 ERA. Now, I’m looking to buy Brown as a bit of a post-hype breakout pitcher.

His xERA and xFIP were both closer to 4.3 last season, and his SIERA shows that the ERA was quite misleading to how he really pitched. The Stuff+ metrics remain excellent and Brown’s entire 2023 portfolio screams positive regression candidate entering 2024.

Not only did he allow an unsustainably high 22% HR/FB rate that should come down and lower his homers allowed, but Brown had one of the lowest strand rates in the league last year.

Brown has the stuff to pitch to a 3.50 ERA, but the projection systems still expect him around 4.00 this year. I’m buying Brown and the Astros, whose regular season injuries hid how good they really were last season.

Shota Imanaga, Cubs

Fellow Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s massive contract with the Dodgers stole the headlines of the winter, which leaves Shōta Imanaga as a much bigger unknown and likely underrated pitcher entering 2024.

Even if you ignore the NPB numbers because it’s a very difficult comparison across leagues, we saw glimpses of Imanaga in the World Baseball Classic last year. He threw 58 pitches in front of the Statcast machines and registered an impressive 133 Stuff+.

Unsurprisingly, the projection systems are all over the place on Imanaga. ZiPS is as low as 3.55 with his ERA, while THE BAT is at 4.88. The difference in the projections mostly come down to home run prevention, which is notoriously variable and difficult to predict year to year.

Imanaga faced 41 hitters in spring training and managed 19 strikeouts with just two walks. Even if he gives up some homers, he projects for excellent K-BB% and will benefit from more difficult hitting conditions in Wrigley Field before temperatures warm and the wind is consistently blowing out in summer.

Imanaga has a wide range of outcomes, but I’m a buyer in his stuff to befuddle plenty of major league hitters.

Cristopher Sanchez, Phillies

Cristopher Sánchez was a revelation in the back of the Philadelphia rotation last season. Sánchez always had plus stuff and no real ability to command it in the past.

He appeared destined to a role in the Phillies' bullpen, but they tore him down and changed him from a flamethrowing fastball guy into a command-first sinker guy with average velocity. They had Sánchez lean on his plus changeup and sinker combination and it was extremely effective at generating ground balls.

Now, Sánchez was throwing harder in the spring and the results were mixed overall. His Location+ numbers last season were 101, which is above-average command and if he combines that with improved stuff on his sinker, there’s another level for the Phillies lefty.

He finished last season with a 3.44 ERA and 3.74 xERA. The projection systems don’t think he can repeat that, but there’s room for him to positively regress with homers. Sánchez allowed a homer on 22.2% of fly balls last year, which is unlikely to continue. If he’s throwing harder and limiting homers, Sánchez can replicate his 2023 numbers and beat the market once again.

Kutter Crawford, Red Sox

Kutter Crawford made the midseason edition of this list last year and followed it up by posting quality numbers in the Boston rotation in the second half. Of all pitchers who threw at least 110 innings last season, Crawford ranked 26th in K-BB%. If you take just his post-All-Star break numbers, Crawford becomes even more appealing.

He finished the season with a 4.04 ERA and a 3.25 xERA, so there’s more room for Crawford to take a serious step forward in 2024. The projection systems don’t see it with Crawford, who has a consensus 4.5 ERA projection for the season.

His 103 Stuff+ and 4.34 Pitching+ projected ERA combined with his excellent K-BB% and quality xERA from batted ball data suggest that those projections are too low on him.

Jared Jones, Pirates

Jared Jones may not be the top pitching prospect for the Pirates, but he’s my favorite Pirates pitcher to bet on in 2024. He made the Opening Day roster and will be pitching in the rotation after he posted the fourth-best Stuff+ of any pitcher in all of spring training.

There are still questions about how good the fastball command is, but it’s an elite pitch by Stuff+. Jones has four pitches that grade out as above average by Stuff+.

The projections don’t expect much from Jones this season with an ERA around 4.75, but his stuff is certainly good enough to give him a higher upside than that. Any time you have two excellent breaking balls with plus stuff and command as Jones does, you’ll be lethal once ahead in counts.

He didn’t allow a single earned run in spring training, even if that’s a bit misleading given his concerning eight walks in 16 innings and three total runs allowed. There’s command refinement needed to be truly great, but his stuff is even better than Paul Skenes' right now.

Luis Severino, Mets

Luis Severino’s 2023 season was so out-of-character and shocking that I’m almost willing to throw it out entirely and chalk it up to injury. You have to watch the fastball velocity closely with Severino because there were signs last year that he was not totally healthy.

Not only did his homers allowed skyrocket to a ridiculous 2.32 per 9, but his K-BB% cratered and that was all despite relatively normal pitch modeling metrics. Severino gets a fresh start in Queens with a new team, a better park for homer suppression and entire offseason to get right. Severino’s extensive injury history makes him a risky bet in fantasy, but when he’s on the mound, I think Severino is an excellent bet on pitcher and bounce-back candidate.

It wasn’t that long ago that Severino was pitching at and priced near an ace-level pitcher with a 2.94 xERA in 2022.

Nick Pivetta, Red Sox

Nick Pivetta is the Stuff+ champion of the spring — no pitcher had a higher rating in spring training this year. My colleague Sean Zerillo has hyped Pivetta as a longshot bet for strikeout leader, and while I’m too scarred as a Phillies fan to bet on a long overdue potential Pivetta breakout, I do think he’ll be undervalued from start to start early in the year. Pivetta threw 142 innings last year and registered a career-low ERA and a career-high in strikeouts.

The shape of that production suggests that Pivetta could take another step forward this season and beat the relatively modest 4.50 ERA consensus projections.

Only three pitchers — Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Spencer Strider — had a higher strikeout rate than Pivetta after July 1 last season. Pivetta was eighth in K-BB% in the second half and while the home run problem will continue to exist pitching half of his games in Fenway Park, his FIP, xFIP and xERA were all lower than his 4.04 ERA in 2023.

Pivetta’s sweeper grades out really well by the pitch modeling metrics and I’m decently confident I’ll be betting Pivetta in his first start in Seattle this weekend.

A.J. Puk, Marlins

A.J. Puk is being stretched out into a starter and he’s much needed in the Marlins' rotation given their injury situation right now. Puk had a career-high 32.2% strikeout rate in Miami last season and combined it with a career-best 3.04 xERA.

You’d expect his stuff to go down marginally if he’s throwing longer spring outings, but he was the most dominant pitcher in baseball this spring.

Puk had a 115 Stuff+ last year, which even if you project downward for 2024 as a starter, he’s worth a look. This spring he has 23 strikeouts in 13 innings with just three walks, a 1.32 ERA, and impressive underlying stuff profiles mean he could be a stellar arm for the Marlins rotation.

ATC and THE BAT expect his ERA to start with a 4, and I’m pretty confident that Puk’s spring metrics are real and he’s going to be an extremely effective five-and-dive arm for Miami worth betting on.

Sean Manaea, Mets

Sean Manaea is on this list for the second consecutive season because of his more defined role this season. Manaea was stuck between one inning reliever, bulk middle man and traditional starter at various points of last year, and still managed to finish the season with a 4.44 ERA.

Not only were Manaea’s peripheral pitching stats better than his 4.44 ERA — 3.9 FIP and 4.01 xFIP — but the lefty grades out well in a new Pitcher List metric called Str-ICR that evaluates how effectively pitchers throw strikes and limit high-quality contact.

We’ve learned that pitchers can effectively control BABIP more than we thought over the years, and limiting walks and homers seems quite important to outperforming pitching expectations.

If you compare 2023 WHIP to projected WHIP using the Str-ICR metric, Manaea is quite undervalued. He ranked 15th in expected WHIP by the metric.