Fantasy baseball streaming starting pitchers: Time to roster Brandon Pfaadt or Christian Scott?

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 Christian Scott, Brandon Pfaadt, and Owen Murphy.

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 the whole week, I won’t be able to provide a detailed analysis for each one; I’ll highlight the matchup and offer 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. I also won’t be mentioning pitchers that I would not start in any format.

Check out this week’s MLB Power Rankings!

Starting Pitcher Streamers of the Week

This is a brutal streaming day, and I’m not even sure how confident I am in the guys I placed in the Fairly Confident tier. Erick Fedde has pitched well of late, and Texas is really struggling, but it’s a roll of the dice. I like Jameson Taillon the most of all of these pitchers, but this is his first start off the IL, which would make it tough to put him in my lineup.

We just mentioned Texas struggling, so I like Noah Schultz here, and I think Reynaldo Lopez and Brandon Sproat could turn in decent outings against struggling offenses. Then we have a whole crop of recognizable names who I would rather not trust outside of deeper formats.

I know Gage Jump has been bad of late, but he’s back on the road, so I’ll trust him here. I also trust Landen Roupp to continue off of his good last start. Christian Scott is a pitcher I like, and you can read my full write-up on him below, but this is not a great spot for him. Some for Cade Cavalli, who I have come around on thanks to the new cutter but has to pitch in Coors Field. I think Martin Perez, Michael McGreevy, and Anthony Kay are due for some regression, but these are solid matchups.

Small slate here, but, yes, I’m still in on Ian Seymour. I think he bounces back here, and Dustin May bounced back with a strong start his last time out. I know Shane Bieber looked better in his last outing, but I don’t trust his health, so he makes me nervous. I have a detailed write-up on Brandon Pfaadt below.

Shane Drohan gets the Rockies outside of Coors, so you’re gonna roll with that. Roki Sasaki came out of the All-Star break throwing 101 mph and gets the Mets, so I guess we can roll the dice here, and I do like Andre Pallante at home against a mediocre Reds offense.

Not a lot of great options here because I’m not really a believer in Brandon Young, and the Braves are not a good matchup. Robert Gasser gets to face the Rockies in Milwaukee, so we like that matchup, and Ryan Johnson has actually been pretty solid over his last five starts. He’s a deep league option against the Giants but one more good start, and I may have to write him up here.

Maybe it would have been right to put Janson Junk in “Fairly Confident,” but the Padres haven’t been great, so let’s give it a go. This will be Connor Preilipp’s first start off the IL (if he starts), so I don’t love trusting him here, but this will be Ronel Blanco’s second start, so he could be an option if he looks good in the first one. This will also be Jameson Taillon’s second start, but the Pirates are an elite offense against righties.

Starting Pitcher Pitch Mix Changes

Christian Scott (New Cutter, Sweeper Usage)

Scott has thrown back-to-back scoreless outings in July and, in four starts since coming off the IL, has a 2.37 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and 33.3% strikeout rate. So is this a legitimate breakout for the young Mets starter who missed essentially all of last season after Tommy John surgery?

This year, Scott has come to the park with some new weapons. His four-seam fastball usage has dipped a bit overall from what we saw in 2024, and most of that is because he is throwing it less often to left-handed hitters now that he has a cutter. After not throwing a cutter in 2024, Scott is using it nearly 23% of the time to lefties this season. Even though he throws it 61% of the time early in counts, he actually uses it more as a two-strike offering to lefties than most cutters are used, and the pitch has both an above-average early called strike rate and an above-average PutAway Rate.

It’s 89.7 mph with three inches of horizontal movement and 5.1 inches of “ride.” Scott locates the cutter well up in the zone, which allows it to play well off of a four-seam fastball that is 95.5 mph with 14 inches of vertical movement and nearly 10 inches of arm-side run. Over his last four starts, lefties have posted a 17% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and nearly 38% strikeout rate against Scott, which is a really important step in his development.

Lefties are seeing about 65% four-seam and cutter from Scott, but then he will mix in a sweeper and curve, all but abandoning a splitter that he used 54% of the time to lefties in his nine starts in 2024.

The curve is another new pitch and seems to have taken the place of the slider he threw last year. The curve is 82.5 mph with nearly nine inches of horizontal movement and over seven inches of drop. He uses it primarily to left-handed hitters and throws it 75% of the time in two-strike counts. It has a below-average PutAway Rate and hasn’t been a successful pitch, but the idea of it is to give him another whiff offering to lefties because he doesn’t want to use the sweeper too often against them.

It makes sense in theory, but his sweeper is 81.3 mph with over 17 inches of horizontal movement and 3.5 inches of “rise,” which means the pitches are in a similar velocity band, but the sweeper has way more, well, sweep, and the curve has about 10 inches more drop. That could create some deception there, but you’d also love to see a bit more of a velocity gap. Still, the pitch mix changes have helped Scott unlock more success against lefties.

Righties still see about 90% four-seam fastball and sweeper, which makes some sense, but is becoming a bit of an issue because Scott’s four-seamer is just an average swing-and-miss pitch to righties and an average strike pitch too. His command of it isn’t great, and it has allowed a 56% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR), which is way worse than the 42% league average. He has mixed in some cutters against righties recently, but that isn’t helping, and he’s struggling to command his sweeper well in zone.

Some of this could be rust after a year off after surgery, but I also think Scott may be better off as a sinker/sweeper pitcher to righties and moving away from the four-seam fastball even more. There is enough here to add him in most league types, but I don’t think we’re seeing a plane taking off for a smooth flight. There will be some turbulence throughout the remainder of the season.

Brandon Pfaadt – Diamondbacks (Four-Seam Usage, Changeup)

Pfaadt re-entered the rotation on June 30th and has posted a 2.14 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and 15.7% strikeout rate in four starts, so I thought he was worth looking at. Right away, we see that really low strikeout rate, and we’re getting the feeling that this will not be a splendid review.

Since coming back, Pfaadt has been 31% four-seamer, 18.5% sinker, 17% changeup, 12.3% curve, 10% sweeper, and 10% cutter. That’s an 11.2% increase in four-seam usage over his first 13 appearances this season. He’s also seen an over 8% increase in changeup usage but a 9% drop in curve usage and a 3% decrease in sinker usage.

Pfaadt’s biggest issue in the past was against lefties because he can’t use his sweeper against them. He’s tried the curve and the cutter, and it seems like now he’s leaning on the changeup. In his four starts since coming back, he’s thrown the changeup nearly 26% of the time to lefties with just 17% curveball usage. Earlier in the year, he was 30% curve and just 16% changeup to lefties. He has also dropped the cutter usage from 16% to lefties to 10% and increased his four-seam usage.

What stands out about the move away from the curveball is the issue of command. On the season, his curve has a 32% zone rate to lefties and a 53% strike rate. Both are far below average. So even though the curve was a decent whiff pitch (67th percentile SwStr% to lefties), Pfaadt wanted to be in the zone more. The changeup still has a below-average zone rate, but it has a much higher overall strike rate, coming in at 60% of these last four starts. The changeup doesn’t miss bats, just a 12% SwStr% to lefties since coming back, but it’s inducing 80% groundballs, which is clearly what Pfaadt is looking for.

I’m not sure I get the reduction in cutter usage to lefties, though. On the season, it has a below-average zone rate and an 89th percentile strike rate to lefties while posting a 13% SwStr%, which is well above-average for a cutter. I think the issue was that he was struggling to get the cutter up in the zone, so it was giving up a lot of line drives and barrels. The four-seamer is a pitch he commands better up in the zone, which pairs better with the changeup he’s now using more low in the zone. However, this is another trade-off where we are dialing back on a pitch that misses bats and increasing the usage of a pitch that does not.

Overall, these changes have helped Pfaadt stay in the zone more and avoid hard contact. His zone rate is up from 43.2% to 51.3%. His strike rate is up from 63.3% to 68.5%. His called strike rate is up from 15.8% to 19%, and his barrel rate allowed is down from 11.7% to 0% (small sample). The trade-off is that his already low 11.5% SwStr% has been just 7% over his last four starts. If you need ratio help, that could work, but the ceiling doesn’t seem very high with this approach, and it keeps Pfaadt as more of a deeper league play.

Owen Murphy – Braves (Arsenal Breakdown)

I know Murphy was optioned to the minors, but with Bryce Elder struggling, I think there will be a chance for Murphy to earn a spot in the Braves rotation in the weeks ahead. The 22-year-old has allowed five runs (three earned) on six hits in 6.2 innings for the Braves this season with a 6/2 K/BB ratio, and the results at Triple-A have been more exciting.

What I like about Murphy is that he has a 93 mph four-seamer with elite 18″ of vertical movement and a really flat approach angle. He’s throwing it up in the zone just 52% of the time, so I’d like to see that change because I think it can be a good pitch that can miss a league-average amount of bats. He also has tremendous command of it in the zone, with a 99th percentile zone rate and 97th percentile strike rate. Maybe the solution is to throw fewer strikes and try to get some swing and misses above the zone.

That would help set up his changeup and slider at the bottom of the zone. The slider is a pitch he’s used 22% of the time to righties so far in the big leagues. It’s 87.4 mph with four inches of horizontal movement and five inches of rise, so it’s a tight and flat slider. Given that, he should have better command of it, but Murphy has just a league-average zone rate and a 15th-percentile strike rate on the pitch against righties. It has had a lot of success (in a small sample) as a two-strike offering, which is important.

He also does throw the changeup 13% of the time to righties and has an impressive 86% strike rate without much contact allowed. However, the changeup is his primary secondary to lefties, with 28% usage. Yet, it has not registered a single swinging strike. He commands it well in terms of strike rate, but he doesn’t have precise command of it in the strike zone, which makes it very much a work in progress, but a nice piece to have. He also has a curve he throws 15% of the time to lefties and has flashed the ability to miss some bats while also posting an 85th percentile strike rate.

It’s a small sample, and none of the secondary pitches appear to be elite; however, Murphy has a solid four-seamer and three secondary pitches that he can throw for strikes and use against hitters of both handedness. That’s a profile that could certainly work if he were given more of a chance to start, and if the slider or changeup take another step forward, Murphy could be an intriguing arm to watch in 2027.