SP Workload Expectations
A look at the last two years of IP workloads for relevant fantasy baseball pitchers in 2026
This is more or less a data dump post. I figured it would be good to put together a resource that shows you SPs in order of ADP this year, alongside how many innings they’ve thrown the last two seasons (minor leagues included). I’ve also dropped in their OOPSY IP projection for this year to give you an idea of what the market might have as an expectation.
Give a man a Google sheet, feed him for a morning. Give a man a Python course, feed him for a lifetime.
~ Jon Anderson 2026
check out my Python course here so you can compile these sorts of data sheets in seconds on your own
But it’s Friday morning and I don’t really want to turn my real job computer yet, so let’s walk quickly through some ADP clumps.
Considerations
It’s more concerning when we have a young pitcher coming off a low innings total. We’ll see Chris Sale here right away with a pretty low innings count last year. At age 37, the Braves aren’t going to save his arm for next year. But it’s a far different story with a guy like Chase Burns, for whom the Reds have long-term plans.
ADP 1-50
The 2024 and 2025 innings counts do count minor league innings, but they do not count postseason innings.
When you’re at the top, you don’t find too many guys with limited IP expectations. They’re at the top of the list for a reason. But Cole Ragans is a concern for us. If he does throw 170 innings this year, he has about as good a chance as anybody at taking home a Cy Young (okay, he’s a tier behind Skubal and Crochet in that regard, but you get it). He’s 28, so the Royals probably don’t want to exhaust the dude in the second half if they don’t have a great reason for it. The injuries from last year are also not what you want to see. He’s clearly the guy to be a little bit afraid of here if you’re really focused on volume.
But in head-to-head leagues where you’re more concerned with per-start production, it’s not as big a concern. I’d probably pump the brakes on Ragans hype a little bit in most situations.
Hunter Greene is also red here with 119 innings thrown last year. Notably, he had no arm injuries last year; it was groin stuff.
I think he could easily get to 170 innings before the Reds might consider the red light, and in this day and age, that’s close enough to the league leaders where you’re perfectly fine with it as long as the ratios are sparkling, which they will be.
ADP 51-100
Not a ton of issues in this group. Kyle Bradish stands out among the top 50 SPs, though.
With just 105 innings thrown over the last two years, we have trouble beliving he’ll exceed 150 this year. As the tweet above alludes to, that doesn’t count him out for 30 starts. Maybe he’s just more of a five-inning guy than a six-inning guy along the way, and maybe they give him extra rest in the middle of the season with the All Star break or find some reasons to skip a start or two along the way. If you think Bradish is an SP1 per-game, then I’d say go for it. But in points leagues where volume is king, you might temper expectations a little bit.
It was awesome to see Eury Perez pile up 118 innings last year after the TJ zero in 2024. Do the math. +118 innings per year. That puts him at 236 this year. Book it! I don’t think you see Eury at 170 unless the Marlins are seriously in the running. But even at 160, I think the dude could smash and be one of the best fantasy pitchers in the league. I’m all aboard, but he’s another guy who is very likely to pull up 30-40 innings shy of the league leaders.
Nolan McLean threw 162 innings last year when you include the minor leagues, so that’s really great to see.
ADP 100-150
This seems to be where those aces with health/workload concerns congregate. People would normally want them well inside the top 100, but they can’t do it because of the risk, but there’s usually not a league where every drafter is willing to let them get past 150. So they all end up together here. It’s a beautiful thing.
And it’s especially advantageous for those leagues I mentioned above. Those shallow head-to-head leagues where the per-game value is accentuated the streaming/replacement value is high. You can survive a couple of months with Blake Snell in a ten-team league where like 80 SPs are rostered at any given time. In a 15-team roto league; much tougher ask.
I wouldn’t expect 170 innings from anybody on the Dodgers. It sounds like Snell is immediately starting with a projected max of around there. He might not start the year on the IL, but it does seem like he’ll be one of their last guys to make a start. If they do slot him as the #5 guy and skip a turn for him at the beginning of the year, that means he doesn’t get on the bump until the third week of the fantasy season. He’s also not exactly an innings hog even when he’s healthy. Since 2021, he has 16 starts >= 7 innings, and just one >= 8 innings. I’d call 140 innings a success.
Chase Burns is a tough one, man. We know he has Cy Young-level talent. But he threw just 109 innings last year and had a flexor strain IL stint, which is pretty alarming. But he came back from it, and there’s some theorizing that it wasn’t a true IL stint; it was more conveniently timed for innings management. Anybody out there saying they know he can’t stay healthy is lying or deceiving themselves. Burns could absolutely throw 150+ innings this year with some of the league’s best ratios. But he does seem to me one of the riskier picks in these early rounds.
Tyler Glasnow and Brandon Woodruff are here. They had to fall somewhere. This is Glasnow’s cheapest tag in three years, and he’s not even currently hurt.
But it’s just become so clear that he can’t handle a full season, and the Dodgers have no reason to even try it. Woodruff ended the year with an injury you do not like to see. His history has me on full avoid mode.
Michael King and Emmet Sheehan round out the red cells in this one. King missed a bunch of time with right shoulder stuff last year, not great. It was inflammation, though, and he returned, so that’s less concerning than other situations. I’m not sure he can get the whole way back to 170, but 140-150 shouldn’t be surprising at all. It’s kind of a “yellow light” situation.
With Sheehan, he’s another Dodgers pitcher who they just won’t need to push it on. But he’s also young and fully back and recovered from his May 2024 Tommy John. I’m not a Tommy John expert (#yet), but I think this is about the sweet spot for a guy like Sheehan. Two full years removed from the surgery and a mostly full season of making starts last year. He might be a sneaky bet to lead the Dodgers in innings pitched this year, and we also think he’s really good.
ADP 150-200
Sandy Alcantara sets the bar here. Pretty incredible to throw 175 innings after a goose egg in 2024 following Tommy John surgery.
I don’t see any big concerns in this group. Bubba Chandler has thrown two full seasons in these last two, at least as far as minor league workloads go. He’s avoided the IL completely in these last two, which is good news.
ADP 200-250
As the skill level of the pitchers goes down as you go through the draft, your concerns about how many innings they might throw takes a back seat. There’s no guarantee that you’ll even want these dudes on your roster come June, even if they are healthy.
But you see the two innings that Shane McClanahan has thrown these last two years. It’s a vastly different situation with McClanahan than it was with Alcantara last year. There’s a 0% chance McClanahan throws 170 innings this year. Best case scenario feels like 130.
Joe Musgrove, as a veteran guy, could be a dude who goes for 150+ following his zero. I don’t see why the Padres would bother taking it easy with him. That makes it sound like it’s easy to come back from TJ and make 30+ starts, which it’s not. But I’d be less concerned about Musgrove than some other dudes. He’ll be a good one to watch in spring since it’s been so long since we’ve seen him and we need to reacclimate ourselves.
Bryce Miller threw 180 innings in that 2024 breakout season, but got hurt, sucked, and threw just 104 last year. He’s a bounce-back candidate, but as a younger arm coming into the season as the team’s #5 option, I think there’s a pretty low ceiling on his workload this year.
Connelly Early also probably won’t explode for 190 innings. He might not even be in the big league rotation at the beginning of the year. But 104 → 120 would make you think there’s upside for 160.
ADP 250-300
Ryan Weathers, man! He just doesn’t look like a big league workhorse guy. But crazier things have happened.
The Yankees’ goal with Gerrit Cole probably centers around the postseason. They’re nowhere near the playoff lock that the Dodgers are, but they have to be feeling pretty good about getting there with the roster they’re coming in with. So I think they take it easy with Cole, and I also have questions about how good he’ll even be at this point.
Sean Manaea missed a bunch of time last year. It was an oblique strain, so not an arm thing. I suspect that he’ll have his usual run of 3-4 weeks looking like an ace, but once again, the end-of-year numbers will be unimpressive. That’s the Manaea we’ve come to know and hate.
Braxton Ashcraft is likely capped around 160. And that would be a success story through the lens of him truly being good enough as an MLB starter to get there. In the back of my mind, I still wonder if he won’t turn back into a middle reliever. I’m interested enough to draft him and find out, but I don’t think the upside is anything all that special.
ADP 300-350
Good volume from Robby Snelling last year. I don’t know how much left he has to prove in AAA, so I think you’ll see 120+ innings from him in the Majors this year. I’m just not exactly sure when that starts.
Justin Steele is a guy you wouldn’t think they’d have huge restrictions on. He’s 30, and he’ll get a late start to the year (his TJ was last April). So once he’s back, I think his workload will be mostly what you’ve come to expect from him.
Reid Detmers pitched out of the bullpen last year, so that’s the main reason for his lack of innings (64). He also had left elbow inflammation late in the season, which casts some more doubt on him. But I think he has pretty huge upside at this price level as a guy with good stuff re-entering the rotation after a successful year in the pen.
This turned out to be a lot more than a data dump, but I suppose that’s a good thing. Happy Spring Training Opening Day, everybody!