SPaRPs *TOP 10*

starting pitchers as relief pitchers

Not a new concept, obviously, but after last season, I think it is worth exploring. All of these guys populate my Top 175 SP Ranks, but for this exercise I am going to focus mostly on value and possible upside avenues. I personally do not think it will be nearly as impactful as last year, mostly because it was just an extreme outlier season for that sort of eligibility—but it was one that I absolutely crushed with ranking them and pursuing them in my leagues. Ragans, Reynaldo and Crochet may not be walking through that door, but we can still mine some good contributors with this crew.

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1. Jackson Jobe/DET- As we stand today, I am thinking his chances of beginning the season in the rotation are looking pretty good. I don’t believe any pitching prospect should be compared to Skenes, it simply isn’t fair. If someone is at least in that sort of vicinity, it is Jobe. The command isn’t quite fully formed with him, but the stuff is very much a top-of-the-rotation starter kit. He’s working on two new pitches right now, too. The home park is great for pitchers and the defense looks maybe a little above average. This rank is all about upside for a very reasonable price, an ADP of 200+, but one that is sure to be on the rise soon. He’s not going to be able to go a ton of innings this year, but they have a solid chance to be very impactful ones. He can really tilt early season matches for you in the RP slot. He will likely rank somewhere in the early 50s on the universal update.

2. Bowden Francis/TOR- He is going to cost more than almost any other RP eligible guy. People that are keeping him suppressed in their rankings are likely claiming recency bias, but I’ve followed Francis since his days as a Brewers prospect. It has just taken him a lot longer to figure it out. The FA is solid plus, the split is very nasty and he located a sinker after a respite in AAA. Very key to him taking a full step forward will be re-locating the curve. I am projecting him to do just that, it generally looked normal last year, but it was very unlucky—with a .558 slug against but a .389 xSLG. He also had similar misfortune on his revamped slider (it morphed into a sweeper) with a .583 slug against, but a .387 xSLG. Looking under the hood at the new pitch, there are some very interesting metrics; primarily a 43.6% whiff rate, a 29.6% K rate and a 28.6% putaway on it. He only used it around 9% of the time, but this has the classic harbingers of a very solid 4th offering. It’s not all roses with him, the .211 babip is not likely sustainable (although he has a .208 career babip over 140+ innings) and he also gave up 9 HRs in that electric 10 start sample to close out the season. I still think the pros are bigly outweighing the cons with Francis, and it also helps that he is locked into a spot.