Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Targets, Sleepers & Fades For 2025

Targets

Roki Sasaki, SP, Dodgers

Using historical translations of Japanese baseball performance to their major league equivalencies, Sasaki’s sublime 2023 performance as a 21-year-old was essentially Jacob deGrom. His 2024 performance, while a step back, was still reminiscent of Hunter Brown. Assuming that he is not nursing an arm injury and both seasons are within natural variance for his true talent, blending the two seasons with the most recent one weighted more suggests a 1.12 WHIP and 3.17 ERA with a strikeout-minus-walk rate of 19%, which is essentially 2024 Max Fried or Cole Ragans as a 23-year-old. Putting it all together, it seems like a reasonable floor for Sasaki is Tyler Glasnow with a ceiling of being a top five pitcher in baseball annually. It goes without saying that Sasaki should be your first pick in an FYPD and probably a top 25 selection in a dynasty startup. [Dylan]

Shane McClanahan, SP, Rays 

After missing the entire 2024 season following Tommy John surgery, the lefty should return to the Rays rotation in 2025. Prior to his injury, McClanahan was establishing himself as one of the top lefthanded starters in the game, as he posted a 2.85 ERA with a 28.4% strikeout rate and 7.6% walk rate. Between 2022 and the time of McClanahan’s injury in August 2023, his 21.3% strikeout to walk rate ranked 10th in all of baseball. The pitchers that rank ahead of him over that period would all be considered aces. Entering his age-28 season coming off an injury, there’s some risk that McClanahan’s stuff doesn’t fully return or he struggles to recapture his command. Steamer has confidence in a return to form for McClanahan, however, as they project him for 161 innings in 2025 with a 3.31 ERA and 180 total strikeouts. [Geoff]

Spencer Schwellenbach, SP, Braves

After only 110 innings of professional baseball under his belt, Atlanta’s second-round pick from 2021 made his major league debut and proceeded to throw 123.2 innings with a 3.35 ERA (all ERA estimators were within 0.07 runs of his ERA). With his combination of pinpoint control—his walk rate was in the 95th percentile in MLB—and ability to elicit a 96th percentile chase rate from a six-pitch arsenal, Schwellenbach shows very few flaws in his profile except maybe mediocre strikeout rates. With a 96 mph four-seamer, an above-average slider and a splitter that has only a .187 wOBA against it, the 24-year-old should be a stalwart in the middle of the Braves rotation for years, putting up ERAs in the mid 3s with low WHIPs due to his command. [Dylan]

Sandy Alcantara, SP, Marlins

2025 feels like the year of the bounceback for starters coming off of injury. Both of my targets had Tommy John surgery in 2023 and missed all of 2024. Like McClanahan before him, Alcantara was one of the best pitchers in the game prior to the procedure. He returned to the mound last fall, throwing live batting practice in September. Alcantara had a down year in 2023 after an outstanding Cy Young Award-winning season in 2022. While he’s not a strikeout machine, Alcantara generates lots of groundballs, goes deep into starts and will rack up strikeouts based on his ability to get deeper into outings. Streamer projects 189 innings out of Alcantara in 2025, and even 170 innings at his current price would be a value. [Geoff]

Sleepers

Brandon Pfaadt, SP, Diamondbacks

Would you be surprised if I told you that in 2024, Pfaadt threw over 180 innings, with over a strikeout per inning, a 1.24 WHIP and a FIP, xERA, xFIP and SIERA all between 3.58 and 3.75? The reason this might surprise you is because he had an ERA of 4.71. A lot of it had to do with his LOB% of 64.5%, a much lower number than average, and one that typically regresses back to the mean on a yearly basis. Based on this alone, he had essentially the same 2024 season as Aaron Nola, while being five years younger. It seems like he’s not getting the fanfare in dynasty circles that he probably should be getting. [Dylan]

Quinn Mathews, SP, Cardinals

After a breakout 2024 season in which Mathews climbed each rung of the minor league ladder, he finds himself on the cusp of the majors. While it’s unlikely Mathews pitches himself into the rotation out of camp, it’s plausible he does. At the very least, he should debut in the first few months of the season. While his value exploded in 2024, it’s possible that the fantasy industry still has yet to fully catch up. Beyond his improved velocity, Mathews has multiple above-average-or-better secondaries in his changeup and slider. He’s had advanced pitchability and command dating back to his time at Stanford, and that should serve him well in his first taste of MLB. In the next two years, Mathews could emerge as the Cardinals’ de facto ace. [Geoff]

Drew Rasmussen, SP/RP, Rays

In 2023, Rasmussen was a popular sleeper in redraft leagues, but his season was ultimately cut short in July of that year with UCL surgery. Having missed nearly the entire 2024 season—he did return for 30ish innings of extremely effective pitching—it is proving difficult to understand how to value Rasmussen for 2025. Is he a starter? Will he remain in the pen? How many innings could he even throw in 2025? What would his future role be? Because of this uncertainty, I think fantasy managers rostering Rasmussen are unclear what his contribution will be. I think one should expect 100 innings of WHIP of around 1.10 and an ERA of low 3s. If he is in the bullpen, his floor is similar to Matt Strahm—the 89th ranked pitcher in 2024—with a ceiling of someone like Yoshinobu Yamamoto, as there’s a likelihood of him being in the rotation for 2026 and beyond, and he’s still only 30 years old. That high ceiling paired with a high floor makes him someone worth targeting. [Dylan]

Chase Dollander, SP, Rockies

I can hear your inner monologue: “A Rockies pitcher as a recommendation? Pontes is big tripping!” While Dollander calling Coors Field his home park is certainly a strike against him, he might have the high-level skills to survive. Dollander’s fastball is elite. It has an excellent combination of velocity, movement, deception and command, giving him a true weapon with the pitch. His hard cutter-like slider and curveball give him a pair of above-average breaking ball shapes. It’s simply a matter of how elevation impacts the movement of his arsenal. From a pure skills perspective, you can argue Dollander is, pound for pound, not all that different from Jackson Jobe, Bubba Chandler or Andrew Painter. It’s a risk, but if Dollander was on any team but the Rockies, his draft price would potentially double. [Geoff]

Fades

Chris Sale, SP, Braves 

Look, it was a great season for Sale as he captured his first Cy Young Award and won the NL pitching triple crown. Despite this, I’m less likely to buy in on a repeat performance. It’s not due to any decline in skills but rather a skepticism around his ability to stay healthy. Back spasms kept him off the Braves’ roster for the Wild Card Series, and it could be a sign of things to come. Sale is entering his age-36 season, and with his health history the past six years, I’d look elsewhere for a reliable veteran starter. [Geoff]

Kevin Gausman, SP, Blue Jays

In 2023, Kevin Gausman threw 185 innings and struck out 237 batters. In 2024, his fastball’s velocity was 0.7 mph slower and, in a near-equivalent 181 innings, his strikeouts plummeted to 162. His xERA, an estimator on the ERA scale modeled from the quality of batted balls yielded, ballooned from 3.85 to 4.71, while his xFIP and SIERA also added essentially an extra run year-over-year. Most of it can be attributed to the fact that his killer splitter didn’t garner the chases that it used to. In the three years prior, Gausman elicited chases in the top 10% of the league, but in 2024, his chase rate was barely average. Whether he was tipping pitches or just becoming predictable is not clear, but at the age of 34, it is probably too risky to invest assuming a bounce back due to seasonal variance. If you have him on your roster, you may need to hold, but if you don’t, trade for him only if you understand that 2024 might have actually been the beginning of the decline period. [Dylan]