Fantasy baseball streamers and arsenal changes for Jack Leiter, Taj Bradley, and more

Welcome to your fantasy baseball starting pitcher happy place. This is a new column for me this year that will combine a few things I’ve done in the past. In this article, every Monday, you’ll not only get a list of my favorite streaming starting pitchers for the whole week, but underneath that, you’ll get a breakdown of a few pitchers who are making interesting changes to their pitch mix. Today I covered Jack Leiter, Taj Bradley, Janson Junk, Kyle Harrison, and Edward Cabrera.

It’s a little bit of rankings and a little bit of analysis, and hopefully a lot of help for your teams.

As far as which pitchers on this list you’ll want to stream, your decisions will change based on your league type and settings. Since I’m listing starters for all week, I’m not going to be able to give a detailed analysis for each one; I’ll just highlight the matchup and some quick thoughts. As is usual with my articles, a streaming starter pitcher is rostered in less than 40% of Yahoo formats, so just keep that in mind as we’re going through because I won’t be mentioning pitchers who are rostered in more leagues than that, and I also won’t be mentioning pitchers who I would not start in any format.

Starting Pitcher Streamers of the Week

I wrote about Janson Junk in detail below these charts, so you can see my thoughts on him there. I don’t love Casey Mize, but I do like this spot for him. Michael Wacha, Jameson Taillon, and Brandon Williamson are just matchup plays, but I think they’re decent ones. I just can’t get behind the other plays too much. I like Justin Wrobleski, but it’s a bad matchup, and he’s not stretched out.

Those early velocity concerns for Reynaldo Lopez appear to be out the window, and he finds himself in a good spot this week. I also think Cade Cavalli, Noah Cameron, and Matthew Liberatore are all streamers in a 12-team league, so this is when you use them, because these matchups are great. I’m not yet sold on Taj Bradley, and you can read more in my write-up about him below these charts.

Most teams have their aces lined up for this day, so there aren’t really many streaming options that I really like. I’ve always been a fan of Joey Cantillo, but he’s volatile, and Reid Detmers is doing some interesting things this year that I’m buying into, but I don’t love the matchup. This is also likely Joe Boyle’s last turn in the rotation before Ryan Pepiot comes back, and it’s a bad start, so you can probably drop him.

I wrote about Ryan Weathers and Randy Vasquez in my Sunday night tweet thread, so you should check that out. I also believe that Mick Abel will put it together at some point this season, but you don’t need to roster him right now while we wait.

A lot of fringe options this week. I do like Eric Lauer, and we know he was pitching sick his last time out. I also dig the changes Bryce Elder is making, which I wrote about below, but I don’t FULLY believe in them, so I’m dipping a toe into the pool. I’m still holding firm on Landen Roupp though; I’m a believer.

We’ve seen almost all of these pitchers already this week. Parker Messick no longer qualifies as a streamer, but I kept him in because his usage surged when he pitched last night. I like him, but I don’t love the matchup. I’m also not starting Luis Gil right back from the minors. I do like Max Scherzer this week, and you can see my full, tepid write-up on Kyle Harrison below these charts.

You’ve seen all these names on the list from earlier in the week. Brayan Bello and Jameson Taillon both get decent matchups here if you need a late-week stream. If Taj Bradley looks good again early in the week, then I’d probably move him up to another tier. I also am not a huge Cade Povich fan, even if he does have a rotation spot, and given Spencer Arrighetti’s offseason and spring injury issues, I’m not going to start him in his first game this season, even if I love that ballpark for pitchers.

Starting Pitcher Pitch Mix Changes

Jack Leiter – Texas Rangers (New Cutter, New usage patterns)

We saw more four-seam fastball usage from Leiter in his second start, so the notion that he will “feature” his off-speed pitches may not be true, but it’s also pretty clear that this is a young pitcher who is evolving and building a more complete arsenal. His changeup usage is up 9% overall and over 11% to lefties. He cut a little arm-side run from the pitch and added a little bit more drop, but he’s just commanding it in the zone much better, with a 73% strike rate on his changeup after posting a 54% mark last year. He’s also mixing the changeup in more as a two-strike pitch to righties to keep them off balance, and it has a 30% PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch turns into a strikeout. That’s well above average.

Leiter also has a new cutter. It’s 93.4 mph with 10.3” of vertical break and 1.7” of glove-side movement. The addition of the cutter is likely also why he added over two inches of drop to his slider, to create more differentiation. He uses his cutter more to righties than lefties an duses it 78% of the time early in counts, so batters may start to look for the cutter or think they’re seeing a cutter and then they get a slider, which is why the slider’s swinging strike rate (SwStr%) has jumped to nearly 29%, and it’s performing far better in two-strike counts. He also added over three inches of drop to his curveball, which has turned it into a decent whiff pitch against lefties early on in the season. I love the evolution we’re seeing from Leiter here, and we know the prospect pedigree is strong, so we could be in for a true breakout.

Edward Cabrera – Chicago Cubs (Sinker usage, New shape for curve)

On one hand, the Cubs have cut out Cabrera’s sinker, and I don’t like that. His four-seamer has just a 39% zone rate and 51% strike rate this season. He has always struggled to command it; that’s why the sinker was so important for him. He needs a fastball for strikes. On the other hand, the Cubs seem to have him pitching backwards more often. He’s using his slider 75% of the time early in counts to righties, and his changeup 67% of the time early in counts to lefties. The only issue there is that he doesn’t really command his changeup well either, with just a 26.5% zone rate and 53% strike rate. His changeup is also slower this year and with less extension but similar movement, so I love that he’s throwing it more, but I don’t love the pitch as much through two outings.

He has also changed the shape of his curve. It’s now one mph harder but has lost about five inches of horizontal movement and five inches of drop. So far, the pitch has just a 4.5% SwStr% to lefties after posting a 20% mark last season, and Cabrera is only using it 9% of the time to righties. Overall, Cabrera’s zone rate is down from 45.6% to 31.6%, and his strike rate is down from 63.2% to 56.5%. The only pitch he is getting more whiffs on this year is the slider, and I’m a little concerned that his early success had more to do with facing the Guardians and Angels than anything.

Kyle Harrison – Milwaukee Brewers (New Changeup, New shape on Four-seamer)

Another pitcher off to a strong start that I’m not as enamored with. Kyle Harrison’s four-seam fastball has two inches more induced vertical break (iVB), and continues to be a really strong offering that he can get plenty of whiffs on at the top of the zone. But that’s still basically all he has. In his last start, he threw just nine changeups, and that was the pitch we heard all offseason was going to be this big new offering. It’s a new kick-changeup, which is dropping five inches more than the version he threw last season, so we love that, but he has just a 10% SwStr% on it and has struggled to get it down below the zone. On top of that, his curve is still not bringing much to the table. It’s a solid offering against lefties, and he uses it almost 42% of the time against them, but, against righties, it has just a 3% SwStr% and a league average strike rate overall. He’s not giving up much hard contact on it so far, but it’s basically the same as the pitch we saw last year, and righties hit that pitch incredibly hard, so we’ll see what happens over the course of the season.

He scrapped the cutter he learned last year, so the only other real change is that he moved significantly towards the first base side of the rubber. That’s not nothing, but it’s basically that and a good four-seam fastball. For now, I’m not fully buying in that this is a legitimate breakout.

Janson Junk – Miami Marlins (Velocity bump, New Changeup)

Janson Junk is pitching on Monday night, so this could look foolish by then, but I’m intrigued by what I saw from him in his debut. I didn’t watch it initially, but Nick Pollack was gushing about him on our On the Corner podcast, so I went back to see the start. It seems like an offseason at Driveline may have helped Junk. He was up almost two mph on his four-seam fastball with 19″ of iVB and a super flat attack angle. That has the makings of a pretty darn good fastball if he can get it up in the zone. Junk also switched his changeup to a kick change that now has almost four inches more run and over four inches more drop. He used it early in the count in his first start, but I think it could be better as a two-strike pitch. He already had a pretty good slider last year, so add these two revamped offerings with that slider and a sweeper that also now has two inches more drop, and I’m a little bit intrigued by this.

Taj Bradley – Minnesota Twins (New cutter shape)

Listen, I know everybody is going gaga over Bradley, but I’m not sure I can be in. The biggest difference is that he seems to have a new shape to his cutter. Bradley’s cutter looked different as well. It was one mph slower than last year, with almost three inches more drop and a touch more run, so it’s operating more like a slider. So far, he’s using it more often to righties, and it’s doing a good job of missing bats, with a 19% SwStr% through two starts. That gives him a solid whiff pitch to right-handed hitters to pair with his splitter, which has a 23% SwStr% to lefties. The pitch has slightly more drop this season with less horizontal movement, and, through two starts, his zone rate and called strike rate are up a bit. Maybe that will work.

Lastly, his four-seam fastball is up to 97.2 mph, which is one mph harder than last year, and has 1.2 inches more iVB with less horizontal movement. That’s a pretty big difference. However, it has just a 6% SwStr% so far this season and has given up a lot of hard contact. With his cutter now more of a swing-and-miss slider, he really needs that four-seamer to get ahead in the count. It’s OK if it doesn’t miss too many bats as a strike pitch, but it can’t ALSO give up lots of hard contact. We’ll see where he’s at in another couple of starts, but I continue to think that this is a solid whiff profile built on an unstable foundation.