Now that all of the positional recaps are complete, we shift our focus to the mound. Pitching is one of the most difficult parts of fantasy baseball. There is so much turnover year over year. A pitcher can be great one year, and then miss the entire next season with Tommy John Surgery. However, hitting on pitching is the easiest path to a championship. Keep reading for the 10 takeaways fantasy baseball managers should be making from the 2025 season.
10 Pitcher Takeaways from 2025
1) There are a clear top three pitchers for fantasy baseball
The top three are really not even up for debate at this position. All three have everything fantasy baseball managers can dream of. They are all relatively young and all have elite strikeout upside.
The truth is, entering 2024, fantasy baseball managers were already in on all three of these pitchers. Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, and Paul Skenes were already considered three of the best starting pitching options in fantasy baseball. They proved that in 2025. Skubal was the best of the bunch, with the other two also putting together $40 seasons according to FanGraphs Auction Calculator.
Entering the year, those three were toward the top, but many considered Zack Wheeler and even Logan Gilbert to be amongst that top tier. Age finally caught up to Wheeler, who could not miss a portion of the 2026 season. Gilbert, while still effective, was limited to just 131 innings. There really is no such thing as a safe pitcher, but Skenes, Skubal, and Crochet pace the position.
2) Relievers should be viewed as fickle and unreliable year over year
2024 was one of the best years to draft relievers ever. Fantasy baseball managers invested in arms such as Devin Williams, Emmanuel Clase, Raisel Iglesias, Edwin Diaz, and, for the most part, they were all elite. Those following a similar strategy in 2024 were sorely disappointed. Big names, with low ADPs, fell flat on their face this season.
Devin Williams and Emmanuel Clase (for different reasons) were huge busts for fantasy baseball managers. Mason Miller, viewed as one of the safest options, was traded at the deadline to a team that did not need a closer. Same with Ryan Helsley. Ryan Walker and Raisel Iglesias struggled to maintain the ninth-inning role throughout their seasons as well. Only four of the top 10 relievers drafted by fantasy baseball managers in 2025 paid off.
3) Nathan Eovaldi’s season is not garnering enough fantasy attention
Nathan Eovaldi finished the season as the fourth-best pitcher in fantasy baseball. The guy right behind Crochet, Skubal, and Skenes? Yeah, that was Eovaldi. While fantasy baseball managers have noticed his success, nobody is acting like he was the fourth-best pitcher in fantasy. The crazy part is that Eovaldi was the fourth-best pitcher while only throwing 130 innings. He went 11-3 with a 1.73 ERA.
Digging into his profile, nothing seems to have changed. He has elite control, but a strikeout rate of just 26% should limit his upside. He got extremely lucky in the LOB and BABIP categories, which should see regression in 2026. Eovaldi was elite for fantasy managers this season, but proceed with caution in 2026.
4) Investing in the “big three” prospects did not work out
Entering the year, there were three prospects that fantasy baseball managers were expecting to contribute in a big way for fantasy baseball. Bubba Chandler, Andrew Painter, and Jackson Jobe were considered the cream of the crop when it came to prospects. Jobe had already made his Major League debut in 2024, with Painter and Chandler expected to follow suit at some point in 2025.
Unfortunately, Jobe pitched just 49 innings before suffering a season-ending elbow injury. Chandler was kept in Triple-A for far too long and wound up only making four starts with the Major League team. Painter did not even make his debut as the team relied on veterans to lead them back to the playoffs. There is no such thing as a safe pitching prospect. It has been said before, and fantasy baseball managers need to remember that in 2026.
5) Target the discounted veterans, not the high-priced ones
There are always going to be veterans discounted due to a lack of perceived upside. Then, there are veterans who have built a level of trust with fantasy baseball managers and get pushed up draft boards due to the nostalgia of previous seasons. The wise move is to target veterans coming at that discount, not the ones heavily priced.
High draft capital was spent on Zack Wheeler, Corbin Burnes, and Chris Sale in 2025. All three dealt with injuries throughout the season. Wheeler and Sale still returned top 20 value, but they were drafted inside the top ten. Meanwhile, several discounted veterans outpaced their ADP. Max Fried finished at SP13. Freddy Peralta was the SP9 this season. Eovaldi was already talked about as the SP4. Nick Pivetta, Carlos Rodon, and Matthew Boyd are other examples of discounted veterans who outpaced their ADPs.
6) Players returning from long absences do not always find instant success
This takeaway is specific to Spencer Strider at the MLB level and Andrew Painter at the MiLB level. For Strider, the expectation set by many fantasy baseball managers was that as soon as he got back on the mound, he would be just as dominant as before. Similarly, for Painter, even though he had not pitched in two seasons, the thought was that he would pick up right where he left off.
Fantasy baseball managers need to realize that these are human beings. Rust is a real factor, and it takes time to shake that off. Painter was inconsistent throughout the season, but the stuff numbers were still there. Strider finished with a 4.45 ERA and saw his strikeout numbers drop dramatically. Strider finished as the SP161 according to FGAC.
7) Jesus Luzardo was dominant outside of a two-start stretch
Jesus Luzardo had one of the strangest seasons we have seen in a while. On paper, the results do not feel as good as they do if you watched him pitch. In his first season with Philadelphia, Luzardo made 32 starts and finished with a 3.92 ERA. He finished as the SP40 according to FGAC, but the results felt better than that.
The issue really boils down to two dreadful starts in the middle of the season. Luzardo gave up a combined 20 earned runs in a two-start stretch on May 31 and June 5. If you remove those two starts, Luzardo would have finished with a 3.03 ERA, which is more in line with his 2.90 FIP. 2025 represented a career season for Luzardo, and he could be a sneaky draft day value in 2026 thanks to the two-start blowup skewing his numbers.
8) Shohei Ohtani emerged from 2025 healthy and ready to contribute even more in 2026
Even though Ohtani did not contribute much on the mound in 2025, the takeaway from this season is overwhelmingly positive. Ohtani pitched just 47 regular-season innings, but he looked dominant. He struck out 33% of the batters he faced while seeing his walk rate drop to a career best 4.8%.
The biggest news is that Ohtani will be healthy heading into 2025. We already know what he can do with the bat. Add in additional value from Ohtani on the mound, and fantasy baseball managers will have a cheat code at the 1.01 in 2026 drafts. Ohtani is a true unicorn. Fantasy baseball and even regular baseball fans alike should not take watching him for granted.
9) Miami’s pitching development is top of the line
The Marlins have been pumping out fantasy-relevant pitchers for several years now. That trend continued once again in 2025. For starters, Edward Cabrera finally found some consistency on the mound. They also got Eury Perez to pick up right where he left off and had positive showings out of Ryan Weathers before he got injured. Janson Junk came out of nowhere to provide some sneaky streaming value, and Tyler Phillips turned into an intriguing back-of-the-pen arm.
Oh, and their prospects. Robby Snelling and Thomas White are the two best left-handed pitching prospects in all of baseball. There is a strong chance they will both contribute to the Marlins’ success in 2026. Fantasy baseball managers need to start giving a boost in value to Marlins pitchers because whatever they are doing works.
10) “Boring” still provides value for fantasy baseball teams
Nobody enjoys targeting the boring old veterans at the back of drafts. However, they consistently return value. Matthew Boyd finished as the SP20 in fantasy this season. Merrill Kelly was once again a top 30 starter. Ranger Suarez finished as a SP35.
Yes, it is important for fantasy baseball managers to target upside on their team. None of those arms mentioned were league-winning adds. However, filling out your team with reliable arms who can provide a level of stability is always a good strategy.
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