With less than three weeks to go until Opening Day, the starting pitching position is already littered with landmines for Fantasy Baseball players to avoid. The two latest hits came Friday, when George Kirby (shoulder) and Gerrit Cole (elbow) were diagnosed with injuries that will keep them out for the start of the season – if not longer.
Kirby's is the less serious sounding issue of the two, as he is "week to week" with inflammation in his right shoulder. Cole's is inherently more worrying, as he is dealing with an as-of-now unspecified injury to his right elbow – the same elbow he missed nearly half the season with due to nerve issues in 2024.
Let's take a look at what these injuries mean for each pitcher's draft price, some potential replacements for their team's rotations, and we'll end with five potential waiver-wire replacements for those of you who have already drafted. Let's start with the more serious of the two injuries:
Gerrit Cole "concerned" about elbow, seeking second opinion
Between the end of the 2016 season and the end of the 2023 season, Cole was the very model of an modern ace, going on the IL just once in those seven seasons – for a positive COVID-19 test in 2021. But last year, his spring was derailed by elbow concerns, with what was eventually diagnosed as a nerve issue. He missed most of the first three months of the season, returning in June to put up a 3.41 ERA over 17 starts – albeit with his lowest strikeout rate since 2017.
Cole has been one of the toughest players to value in Fantasy drafts so far this spring, because it's been impossible to say whether he would ever recapture his pre-2024 form, when he was pretty consistently one of the first two or three pitchers drafted in every draft. He had settled in around the No. 15 starting pitcher in ADP before the injury, but he's going to go much, much later than that now.
How much later? I've moved him down to 175th overall in my rankings, as the No. 53 starting pitcher. But, frankly, that could be way too high – Cole has already had an MRI on the elbow but is seeking out second opinions before determining the next steps. Those next steps could be a few weeks of rest; it could be like last spring, where he was shut down for months before working his way back; or … well, it's hard not to think about the potential for a season-ending injury here, including one that could require surgery.
We're in that weird in-between time with this injury: We know there is an injury, but we don't have any idea how long that injury is going to keep the player out for, but it's probably best to err on the side of caution if you're drafting this weekend. Don't take Cole off your board entirely, but move him down to a point in the draft where, if the worst-case scenario does come to pass, it won't totally sink your team.
For me, that's in that 175 overall range in 12-team leagues, given the upside if he ends up more or less fine. By that point, you've already drafted 15 or so players, so the core of your team should be set. And the kind of pitchers going in that range are names like Kevin Gausman, Shane Baz, and Brandon Pfaadt – pitchers who are currently healthy, and who have interesting skills and upside, but who are by no means guaranteed to be difference makers in their own right.
But ultimately, it'll come down to your personal level of risk tolerance. If Cole ends up missing a month and comes back and pitches even at his diminished 2024 level, you've made a great pick around 175; if he misses the whole season, it wouldn't matter if he was your very last pick.
Yankees replacement options
It's a good thing they didn't trade Marcus Stroman, huh? The Yankees are already going to be without Luis Gil for the first three months or so of the season, and now they're going to have to dip even further into their depth options.
In this case, the likeliest outcome is prospect Will Warren opens the season as the No. 5 starter. Warren made six appearances (five starts) with the Yankees last season, and they did not go well, as he was tagged for 26 runs in 22.2 innings of work. And he didn't fare so well in Triple-A in 2024 either, putting up a 5.91 ERA. Scouts still like him, and there's been some demonstrated strikeout upside in the high-minors, but for mixed-league purposes, he's no more than a late-round flier right now.
George Kirby is "week to week"
This sure sounds like the less serious of the two, though shoulder injuries have a way of going from "not that serious" to "season-wrecking" without much warning. In this instance, an MRI showed "zero structural concerns," per GM Justin Hollander, so the team is simply going to rest Kirby, whose velocity has been fine this spring despite the fact that he wasn't recovering between starts the way he typically does.
Kirby has never been on the IL since making the majors, and was viewed as one of the safest pitchers around – an example of how "safe starting pitcher" is a pretty big oxymoron. He'll likely be shut down for at least a week before being re-evaluated, and then will probably need at least three weeks to work his way back up to MLB readiness, so a best-case scenario could see him back within a few weeks of Opening Day.
But we should never just assume the best-case scenario when it comes to pitching, especially because there's no guarantee Kirby will be the same guy when he returns. This could be the kind of injury that we forget about when he gets back on the mound, or it could be one that follows him all season – Kevin Gausman dealt with a similar situation last spring, and while he ended up not missing any time in-season, he was clearly a diminished version of himself.
For now, I'm moving Kirby into a tier of starting pitchers with similar injury/workload concerns. Starting at No. 30 with Kirby himself, he's joined by Jack Flaherty, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, and Spencer Strider in this tier in quick succession – and you could very well argue that Hunter Greene (No. 28) is in this tier as well. Any one of those pitchers could pitch like an ace in 2024, but all have workload concerns that limit the upside even in the best-case scenario. You could argue Kirby, the only one of them currently dealing with an injury, should be lower. I wouldn't fight back.
Mariners replacement options
As for the Mariners rotation, they'll have to dip into their depth to start the season, something they almost never had to do in 2023. That likely means former top prospect Emerson Hancock, a rare miss for the Mariners' vaunted pitching development in recent years. Hancock has made 15 starts at the MLB level and just hasn't shown the ability to consistently miss bats or keep the ball in the yard, a bad combination.
Hancock, 25, spent the offseason working on expanding his arsenal, mentioning a new curveball, sweeper, and cutter, along with refinements to his slider. He does have nine strikeouts to just two walks in 5.2 innings of work this spring, but he also has six earned runs allowed, so it's hard to call this an unqualified success so far.
Hancock is worth a look in AL-only leagues, but I'd put him behind even Warren in my search for late-round sleepers in mixed leagues.
Some waiver-wire targets to consider if you already drafted Cole or Kirby
Once the season starts, it's trivially easy to identify which players might be on the waiver-wire in any given league – just look at roster rates! – but most drafts haven't even happened yet, so that data isn't going to be helpful here. So what we're going to do is highlight six players with an ADP outside of the top-300 over the past two weeks in NFBC drafts, with the hope at least some of them will be available if your league already drafted:
- Cody Bradford, SP, Rangers – ADP: 310.1 – It looks like Bradford has a clear path to a spot in the Rangers rotation, and it doesn't hurt that his velocity is up 1.5 mph this spring. Bradford probably won't ever get huge strikeout numbers, but with his command and solid results on balls in play, any gains there could help him improve on his 3.54 ERA from last season. Not the highest upside arm, but a solid stabilizer.
- Ryan Weathers, SP, Marlins – ADP: 338.6 – Weathers showed some flashes last season, but the strikeout upside was inconsistent. He's flashing a bit more velocity and better fastball shape this spring, and if that pitch plays up and he can sustain the huge whiff rates he posted with his sweeper and changeup last season, there could be real upside here.
- Justin Verlander, SP, Giants – ADP: 347.5 – Most are treating Verlander as if he's more or less finished after he had a 5.48 ERA last season, and I get it. But moving to San Francisco gives him a significant upgrade in home ballpark, and he should be backed by a solid defense. If he can get back to being close to an average strikeout pitcher, he could still be pretty useful, even if an ace outcome is probably off the table at this point in his career.
- Tomoyuki Sugano, SP, Orioles – ADP: 375.9 – Sugano isn't going to blow you away with stuff, so you're hoping for a Seth Lugo-esque outcome here. He'll throw a ton of pitches and command them well, and the hope is those two characteristics will keep hitters uncomfortable, and the excellent supporting cast behind him can elevate him to Fantasy relevance.
- Max Meyer, SP, Marlins – ADP: 400.9 – For a breakdown of the changes Meyer has made this spring, check out this piece from Thomas Nestico's excellent Substack. In short, Meyer's velocity is up significantly, and his lower arm slot is helping the fastball play up even more. He's also added a sweeper that looks like it could be a good swing and miss pitch to add to his already-strong slider.
- Ben Brown, SP, Cubs – ADP: 549.6 – The stuff has always been remarkable for Brown, whose curveball looks like it could be one of the best pitches in baseball. He's healthy after last season's neck injury and trying to round out the arsenal, tweaking his changeup to hopefully give him a useful third pitch. The problem here is that Brown might be the least likely of this group to be in his team's rotation. I'd certainly rather see him in there than Matthew Boyd or Colin Rea, so let's see if the Cubs agree with me in the end.
