Having early, mid, and late-round targets at each position is an essential element of drafting successfully. And a major part of having a strong fantasy baseball team is establishing a solid base of pitching. Having multiple targets at different points in the draft should help support you in the inevitable circumstance that one of your league mates snipes your top choice. For the targets below, I am using NFBC ADP for reference.
Early Round Pitching Target
Logan Gilbert – SEA
I will die on the hill that if the Mariners had a better offense, Logan Gilbert would be the best pitcher in baseball.
For one thing, Logan Gilbert has been durable and reliable, tossing 185 innings or more each of the last three seasons. In those three seasons, he has ended with 3.20, 3.73, and 3.23 ERAs. Plus, he has improved his strikeout-per-nine, walk-per-nine, and groundball rates each season to elite levels.
Gilbert’s two primary pitches are a fastball and slider combination that had .204 and .210 batting averages against last season, respectively. His splitter is essentially unhittable – it had a .101 BAA last season, along with a 50% whiff rate and a 24% putaway rate. Five of his pitches had a putaway rate of over 20%, and four had whiff rates of 27% or better.
The only real knock on Gilbert is that he may not win many games, thanks to an offense and bullpen that struggled to support him last year. Still, if you miss out on Tarik Skubal or Paul Skenes, Gilbert should be one of your top choices as an early-round target.
Mid-Round Pitching Target
Jared Jones – PIT
Jared Jones ended last season with a 4.14 ERA and a 6-8 record in 121 IP, but has some great underlying numbers that make him a hot target this season.
He owned a 9.7 strikeout-per-nine rate and walked 2.8 batters per nine innings. Jones did that with a 72% strand rate and induced a 31% chase rate.
Jones tosses four pitches primarily, but his fastball and slider are his most effective. Both were above league average at getting batters out last season. Both pitches had batting averages against of .224 or better, but his slider was insane. It had a 37% whiff rate and a 25% putaway rate. If he can improve his changeup slightly, perhaps throwing it less in the zone, it would help him get lefty batters out and take his production to another level.
One sign that Jones could have been even better last season was his 3.78 xFIP and 3.72 SIERA. Slight improvements could have him perform closer to those metrics or even better this season. Look for Jones as a mid-round target this season in drafts.
Late-Round Pitching Target
Brady Singer – CIN
Despite moving to hitter-friendly Great American Ballpark, Brady Singer should be able to avoid falling victim to it and perform pretty well along the way. There are plenty of positive trends in Singer’s profile that should lend well to fantasy production.
First, Singer has been durable, increasing his innings three years in a row. Last season, he improved his strikeout-per-nine and walks-per-nine rates from 2023. He also improved his ERA to 3.71, the second-best of his career. For reference, he also owned a 3.62 xFIP and a 3.89 SIERA, both showing how well he pitched.
Singer has a career 49% groundball rate, which is ideal for a hitter-friendly park. He does this with a wicked slider that results in outs more than league average. He also has a solid slider that should play well in Cincy. Singer also has some swing and miss, with two of his pitches possessing a 35% whiff rate, and three with a 20% putaway rate.
Projections are undervaluing him, and he looks like he could be a huge sleeper as a late-round target in drafts.
For more of the great fantasy baseball rankings and analysis you’ve come to expect from FantraxHQ, check out our full 2025 Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit! We’re here for you all the way up until Opening Day and then on into your championship run.
