4 Breakout Pitchers Who Can Be Elite in 2020

It’s important to nail your early picks, and nothing is more fun than a super late pick providing awesome value. But leagues are often won by the players picked in the middle of the draft that ascend to lofty levels. Below, behold four pitchers being drafted after pick no. 100 or later that may be very early-round choices in 2021 drafts.

Frankie Montas, Athletics (ADP: 123)

Montas, 26, was well on his way to a full scale breakout in 2019. Over 96 innings, Montas went 9-2 with a 2.63 ERA and 1.11 WHIP while whiffing nearly 10 batters per nine. Montas had been building considerably on a brief stint in 2018 in which he posted a solid 3.88 ERA, but was only striking out 5.95 per nine. All that good work was dashed by an 80-game steroid suspension, and now we’re left to wonder how chemically aided his success was.

Personally, I tend to view PED suspensions as value. No one likes having a known steroid user on their team, but we generally overstate the effect PEDs have on performance. We’ve seen lately tons of players come back from these suspensions and be right around their past performance; two notable, current examples are Robinson Cano and Starling Marte, although plenty more exist. Based on Montas’ minor league track record and prospect pedigree, his 2019 excellence made sense.

He throws incredibly hard, averaging 97 mph on his fastball. Interestingly enough, his usage of that heat dropped from 72.4% in 2018 to 56.8% in 2019. He supplemented that fastball with a new splitter, which he used 18.3% of the time and was his second-best offering. He also throws a killer slider, which he used 24.6% of the time and was worth more than 10 runs. The biggest concern that could hold Montas back is innings, as he’s never thrown more than 96 innings at the big league level and he’s maxed out at 112 innings (Double-A). But the talent is there, we’ve seen incredible results, and Oakland is a playoff contender, so there isn’t likely to be a hard innings cap in play. He has the stuff to be an early-round pitcher as soon as next year.

Jesus Luzardo, Athletics (ADP: 138)

Luzardo, going not long after his teammate Montas, is even more hyped up than the former. He was a major sleeper last season, but only threw 12 innings for the A’s thanks to injuries. In six games Luzardo notched 16 strikeouts against 3 walks, continuing the trend he’s established since entering the Oakland organization. In 2018, Luzardo rocketed through the ranks, striking out 129 batters against just 30 walks in 109.1 innings.

His fastball is vicious, topping out at about 97 mph, and it’s at best his third most utilized offering. Luzardo can also whip a 95-mph sinker, 87-mph changeup and an 82.9-mph curveball, which is utterly brutal to prepare for. There are basically no doubts about whether Luzardo is ready to get major league hitters out. Like Montas, the question is how many innings will he be able to throw?

Luzardo totaled 109.1 innings in 2018 across three levels of the minors, but was limited to just 43 total innings in 2019. Outside of 2018, Luzardo has failed to clear even 44 innings twice. At his current ADP, he’s 40th off the board among starting pitchers, so despite my major concerns about his durability, the upside he offers is worth the gamble at that point in the draft. He’s less proven than Montas, but likely has an even higher ceiling. If he can get to even 150 innings, this should be a huge breakout campaign that leads to him being inside the Top 20 SP this time next spring.

German Marquez, Rockies (ADP: 172)

Marquez was discussed here as the Rockies’ most interesting player, but we’ll go over it again here because he really does have the potential to be a high-impact player for fantasy owners, especially buried at this ADP. Marquez was generating a ton of excitement this time last season,  and he shouldn’t be discarded so easily just because he posted a terrible ERA in Coors Field. It certainly works against him that his home park is the worst in MLB for pitchers, and that he posted a 6.26 ERA and 1.55 WHIP at home.

But as I’ve previously stated, even if you simply used Marquez only in his road starts last season he would’ve provided a 3.67 ERA and 0.94 WHIP across 100.1 innings of work. Marquez is only 25 years old, but he’s consistently striking out 9-10 batters per nine, and in 2019 his walk rate dropped to 1.81 per nine. His xFIP came in at 3.54 and his SIERA 3.85, marks much more consistent with the skill he showed. There’s no doubting that his home park has a dramatic effect on his final numbers – which are what matters to fantasy owners – but pitchers have had strong seasons for the Rockies before. It takes an exceptional pitcher to overcome the disadvantages of the thin air there, but Marquez is one of the rare few with that level of talent. A bit of batted ball luck here and there can reveal what this guy truly is, which is an ace hiding in plain sight.

Luke Weaver, Diamondbacks (ADP: 189)

Weaver, a first round pick in 2014, was finally putting it together last season. He was striking out nearly 10 batters per nine over 64.1 innings, with a 2.94 ERA and sub-2.00 per nine walk rate. Weaver had also ramped up the use of his cutter from 4.8% to 14%, and it made a massive difference. Per Baseball Savant, despite the cutter being only his third-most used pitch, it was his primary choice to put hitters away (29.2% put away rate). Weaver’s stuff was vastly improved to begin last season, with his fastball, cutter and changeup all spiking in value, while even his curveball became an almost average offering.

Weaver’s ADP remains low because his success last season was in such a small sample size, and his 136.1 innings in 2018 left a whole lot to be desired. But he has good pedigree, and showed this kind of ability in a 60.2-inning stint with the Cardinals in 2017 where he posted similar strikeout and walk rates with a 3.88 ERA and a FIP (3.17) in line with what we saw in 2019. Strikeouts are easier to find these days than in the past, but finding them packaged with superior walk rates is difficult. Weaver has the skills to post big strikeout numbers while also keeping his WHIP down. At damn near pick No. 200, that’s hard to beat.