Lack of Depth: Starting Pitchers with No Backup Plan
Hitters are figuring out how to hit velocity, so we look into the pitchers who are too dependent on their heaters for success
Pitchers are throwing harder now than ever before. Everybody knows that. What is less known is that, in 2026, hitters made real gains in handling that velo.
After four years of being stuck in the .295-.300 range of wOBA against high velo, hitters added more than 20 points to their quality of contact against high velo.
They also cut their SwStr% against high velo (97+) from 12.9% in 2024 to 12.3%, a huge improvement.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. I wrote yesterday about the cat-and-mouse game of hitters adjusting to what pitchers are doing.
Any time pitchers start doing something more often, it won’t take the hitters too long to make the adjustments to take away some of the edge those pitchers have found.
I don’t have the data to prove it, but it follows that velo in the minors is up as well. And we have to be near the limits, right? I suppose people twenty years ago wouldn’t have thought it possible for this many players to be ripping off 98+mph heaters all of the time, but it happened.
But there is a human limitation, and we’ve had nearly ten years in full-out data mode, so there’s been plenty of time for pitchers to optimize. I would have to imagine we’re near the top.
So hitters, in the last four years, have gotten used to high velocity. And with that experience, they’ve improved.
And since we saw the hitters really break through just last year, I think 2026 is a good year to take action on this. It probably takes more than one offseason for pitchers to adjust to this, so they’ll probably mostly come into 2026 doing the same stuff.
Who does this hurt? It’s the pitchers who are most dependent on those high-velo fastballs. And, lucky for us, these pitchers are pretty easy to pick out.
For every pitcher being drafted this year, I’ve wrangled up these data points:
Their ADP
Their average velo on their primary fastball (four-seamers or sinkers, but it’s almost always four-seamers)
How many pitches they throw above 10% usage
The results we’re looking for, in terms of pitchers to downgrade/fade, would be the guys with heavy fastball velo and a lack of depth in the pitch mix.
Level 1
To put specifics on the query:
Top 200 ADP
Fastball Velo above 96
Two pitches thrown above 10% usage
There are three results:
These three show you that you can have success without much depth. All four-seamer and slider combos are not created equal. And these three guys have made it work.
Cease:
There are five pitches here, but the fastball and slider account for 82% of them. While the league, on average, was faring better against high-velo heaters last year, Cease wasn’t part of that. Here’s some data on Cease’s fastball:
It was his fastball’s best year if you’re just looking at these two stats. That’s overly simplistic, but those are the two stats we highlighted that the league improved on. So that should be taken as good news. His fastball got better while the league was getting worse.
The other thing we need to be aware of among these two-pitch guys is the splits. Especially if the two pitches are a heater and a slider. Sliders work a lot better with the platoon advantage. But again, it wasn’t an issue for him in 2025. He gave up a much worse .354 xwOBA in 2024 while he was having a pretty good season. It dropped to .326 last year.
I think last year was about bad luck. That said, we’ve seen the roller coaster from Cease for his whole career, and now he goes to a worse park. It could go poorly again, but this particular study isn’t making me like him any less.
Eury:
Eury’s career is just getting going. He had the derailing Tommy John surgery, but that’s well in the past now. Those 1,673 pitches we see there were from last year, after his return from the surgery. You could argue he doesn’t even deserve to be here. He had three pitches knocking on the door of 10% usage. I think he’ll come into 2026 throwing at least one of those three pitches more often. And that could really take him to a tier one level.
Splits:
No problem there. He had a higher K% and SwStr% against lefties. That’s a good sign. The fastball and slider are elite. Any tertiary offering is gravy. Buy Eury!
Chase Burns:
58% usage on the fastball, and an injury last year. Those are reasons for hesitation. But the fastball and slider are elite. A 13% SwStr% on the fastball and a stupid 23% mark on the slider.
Splits:
Lefties struck out 35% of the time against him last year (small sample), but they did do well when getting to the ball. A .332 xwOBA with four homers on just 413 pitches thrown. In Cincy, the home run could be a problem. The changeup exists, at least, and it was fine (17% SwStr%, 45% Strike%). So any little improvement to that should lead to more usage against lefties and more success.
I like all three of these guys for the 2026 drafts, but I would say all three of them have much lower floors than you feel comfortable with when talking about a fantasy SP1 or SP2.
Let’s loosen up the query a bit and go to level two.