The last part of the rotation (at the start of the 2026 fantasy season) | Baseball prospectus

Translated by Marco Gámez

During the season, I usually rely on a few stats as a shortcut. I’ve talked about this before and said that I appreciate the simplicity of the strikeout-to-walk ratio. It’s about as useful as you can hope for during the season, as it’s a good indicator of real change, but it’s also useful in times like these. Moments of inactivity, when all sample sizes are already finalized and we can step back to see a bigger picture, a view that is easier to forget than obsessing over the selection’s every move for six months or more.

I started evaluating pitchers who increased their P-BB percentage from 2024 to 2025. The parameters were pretty simple: I included all players who logged at least 50 innings as a starter each season. There are still 114 qualified people left. Honestly, it’s a lot less than I expected, and perhaps something worth exploring further as we approach recruiting season. Can view them all here.

These types of improvements make noise when they happen. The basic rules of the game make it difficult not to notice when a pitcher is dominating more often than not. What’s interesting is that as a group, only 45 of these players had an increase in their P-BB percentage this season. Of those 45, I’d say only about 20 or 25 showed a really notable increase, of 2% or more. Of those 20 or 25, only 10 went from average (~14%) or lower P-BB rates to higher ones. That’s always a line I’m interested in when analyzing data year after year. If I cross that threshold, I’m much more likely to believe in what’s happening.

But the ones that interest me most now are the ones we might not notice, especially in the context of your peer group. They may not be superstars, but I’m interested in them as a fifth starter for my 2026 rotations. Here are some notes on each.

Michael LorenzenRoyals (8% increase in P-BB rate)

Lorenzen has been a disaster for a while now. When he signed with the Royals I thought, “Yeah, that makes sense.” They like tough, hard-working guys, and he will add innings to a team that has established “trying modestly at the margins of the roster” as a key competitive strategy. He has almost never had a season where an increase in strikeouts coincided with a decrease in walks. While his P-BB percentage was barely average in the end, it was the highest he had since 2019.

He threw more sliders and curveballs in 2025 than the year before, though he didn’t use either significantly. He had more missed swings and chases on most of his pitches, but especially on those two. He’ll be 34 next year, so maybe it was just an anomaly; the type of variation that occurs during a long race. Or maybe he found something in his pitch range that allowed him to be as efficient as he hasn’t been since 2019.

Cade PovichOrioles (4.47% P-BB rate increase)

Povich had a 5.20 ERA in nearly 80 innings when he debuted in 2024. He had a 5.21 ERA in 112 innings this season. The year of our Lord is 2025, so we don’t use ERA as a fundamental statistic, but you should keep this in mind for a pitcher who has similar performances in almost 200 innings. He also continues to allow too many home runs. (If you like weird stats, he averaged 1.36 home runs per nine innings in both 2024 and 2025.)

He lowered his walk rate a bit, but the real improvement came from adding more strikeouts. He hit more swings outside the zone with both his sinker and his curveball, using the former more often. The Orioles are an odd team today and it seems unlikely they will get rid of him. He has shown more growth than some rotation mates and could have room to improve further based on his performance in the minor leagues.

(Trevor Rogers doesn’t quite fit here as I assume people will know him much better from what he showed in 2025, regardless of whether they think he can repeat it or not).

Max MeijerMarlins (5.96% increase in P-BB rate)

Meyer was one of the first revelations of the season before collapsing and ultimately ending his year with hip-labral repair surgery. I talked to him about what he did differently in the first few weeks when things were going well. In short: he consciously threw more sinkers, and also consciously made more of a distinction between his slider and his sweeper.

But when something went wrong, it really went wrong. In five of his last seven starts before the end of the season, he struck out less than one batter per inning. We will probably never know how much trouble his hip suffered before it became a public issue. This seems to be one of those cases where if he had gotten injured first and then finished the season hard, we would be talking about him a lot more. Still, I see real growth in his skills, a guaranteed role in the big team and a recovery schedule that will allow him to start next season healthy.

Bono: Emmet SheehanDodgers (7.7% increase in P-BB percentage)

Sheehan did not qualify for the group considered in this exercise because he did not pitch in 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. The improvement highlighted here is the difference between 2023 and 2025, including his time as a reliever. He has had less success in that role than as a starter.

At the end of the season he adjusted his use of the slider and was simply unworkable. abuse the launch against right-handed hitters. It’s a big reason he struck out 45 in his final 32 innings of the year. Their game plan isn’t very advanced, but it was effective.

I think opinions will be divided on him when the selection season arrives. There’s the Dodgers effect, which means he could be ruled out because the Dodgers tend to bury anyone they don’t fully trust. But it is also possible that he managed to gain that complete trust. With the withdrawal of Clayton Kershaw There should be an open spot in the rotation, and Sheehan has done enough to keep it.