The WHIP Strat: 2026
Revealing the key SP names who are a part of this year's WHIP strategy
I introduced this idea last year, and I explained it in full in that post. Click below to read that, and see the pitchers it ended up recommending a season ago.
But I’ll summarize:
WHIP is equally as important as any other category in your league
WHIP is much more consistent (and therefore predictable) than ERA and wins
Ipso facto, it makes sense to focus on WHIP when putting together a fantasy team
Because of that second point, the projections will be much more accurate when projecting WHIP. So if you’re drafting a pitcher because he projects to help the WHIP of your fantasy team, you’re more likely to actually realize that projected benefit than if you’re relying on projections for other categories.
The results last year were STUNNING. This post told you to draft Tarik Skubal last year - an incredible piece of advice. That’s a joke.
Some actual success stories included
Nathan Eovaldi
Matthew Boyd
Drew Rasmussen
Eury Perez
Here was the “example staff” derived from this:
There were a few injuries to those guys, which we can’t really do anything about, but otherwise it would’ve been a pretty successful build.
So let’s get into it this year.
ADP 1-50
For every clump of SPs, I’ll show you all of the names in there with their three-year history of WHIP and their 2026 projection (ATC).
There’s not much to talk about for this first clump. You don’t find many SPs making their way to the top 50 without being really good at everything. But there are differences! We’re better off looking for avoids in this clump rather than targets. A couple of names on that front:
Cristopher Sanchez
Sanchez’s best skill is keeping the ball in the yard and on the ground. It was a 59% GB%, a 26% K%, and a 5.5% BB% last season. That turned into a very good 1.06 WHIP, and it came in a bunch of innings, so it was a smash. The WHIP worry for 2026 is that his strikeout rate was well short of the elite names in the league. Ground balls are fantastic for keeping your ERA down, but not so much for your WHIP.
You’ll get outs at a higher rate on fly balls, as compared to ground balls. There’s a whole chart in this tweet that shows that.
Most batted balls are between 75-100, and you can see the differences in BABIP between those two batted ball types at that range.
All of that to say, if any SP inside the top 30 in ADP is going to have a WHIP above 1.15, Sanchez is the best bet.
Hunter Brown
Another post of Hunter Brown hate! In this case, I’m just following the numbers, bro! His 1.17 WHIP projection is the worst of the group. That’s mostly because of the 1.36 mark he put up in 2023 and the 1.27 in 2024. His history before last year (when all sorts of weird and lucky things were happening to his benefit) was a pretty bad WHIP. I’m not going to assume that he’s suddenly a sub-1.05 guy now.
Best Targets
My advice is to either use your first or second pick on one of the big three (Skubal, Skenes, Crochet), or roll the dice a bit on Sale or deGrom.
ADP 50-100
You have to lower expectations as the rounds go by. You’re probably not going to find a 1.05 WHIP after pick 100, so we’ll mostly be comparing these pitchers to the guys in the same general ADP range.
The targets here:
George Kirby
Joe Ryan
Spencer Schwellenbach
Nick Pivetta
What you’ll notice in this post, if you went back and read last year’s, is a lot of repeat names. But that kinda proves my point, doesn’t it? There’s less change year-to-year in WHIP expectations. So you might end up looking like some middle schooler on draft day cause you’re always picking the same guys, but that’s okay, let them think that!
The guys I’d stay away from if I’m really, really focused on the strategy:
Freddy Peralta (BB% over 9% in each of the last two years)
Logan Webb (career 1.20 WHIP)
Nolan McLean (I expect the K% to drop and at least an 8.5% BB%)
Framber Valdez (career 1.20 WHIP)
ADP 100-150
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