Here we are, with the season winding down, and with fantasy championships on the line. Anyone looking for an edge in their playoffs can look toward Out% as a guide. It is a great stat to use to help cut through the noise and find pitchers who are simply good at getting batters out.
Out% can help your decision-making with whom to start or sit, or whom to drop and add. It is an essential and important tool in analyzing the effectiveness of a pitcher for fantasy baseball purposes.
For first-time readers, this article will provide some tips on how to analyze Out%, how you can use it to determine who the best pitchers are at inducing outs, what to look for, and how to make decisions based on Out%.
Check out our app to help track Out%: https://pl-out-percentage.streamlit.app/ – here you can search by pitcher and see leaderboards by pitch type.
You can read more of the intricacies of the stat here, where I reflect on what we learned from Out% last season, and how to use it in fantasy, as well as the real-life implications.
For the purposes of this article, we will focus more on how to use this stat for fantasy baseball and how it can help you make fantasy-relevant decisions in-season.
Here is where the league-average Out% stands on each type of pitch as of writing on Saturday, August 30:
- Fastball – 16.5%
- Cutter – 16%
- Sinker – 17.7%
- Splitter – 20.8%
- Slider – 18.3%
- Sweeper – 18%
- Curveball – 16.7%
- Changeup – 19.5%
A few notable pitchers sit atop the leaderboards for each pitch, including:
- Tarik Skubal – Fastball 20.3%
- Chris Bassitt – Cutter 20.9%
- Miles Mikolas – Sinker 24.9%
- Logan Gilbert – Splitter 28.5%
- David Peterson – Slider 25%
- Noah Cameron – Curveball 22.4%
- Sonny Gray – Sweeper 32.5%
- Ranger Suárez – Changeup 25.9%
For the sake of this article, my analysis will primarily focus on starting pitchers. Currently, the leaderboards (especially fastball and fastball adjacent pitches like cutters) are dominated by relievers because of their small sample size.
Fastball Out% Highlight
Luis Morales – SP ATH
Luis Morales has been on fire lately and has been a hot add in fantasy leagues. One of the keys to his success has been his fastball, which has an 18.8% Out Rate, well above league average.
Morales uses his fastball more than half the time, and that heavy usage goes along with a high out rate. This is an important key to success for pitchers, especially those who use a fastball this much. Because Morales can and does use his fastball to get outs, batters have to stay honest and keep an eye out for it in two-strike counts. Morales also pounds the strike zone, landing his pitches in the zone 54% of the time. That sort of aggression, especially with the fastball, has panned out well for the youngster.
In terms of pitch quality, PLV likes his fastball, which has an average velocity of 97.2 MPH. It also gets above-average rise, and is just above league average in terms of location. This has led to a .211 BAA and a 22% putaway rate on his fastball. It grades out at above average for PLV, which also likes a few of his other pitches.
Morales’ sweeper and slider each rank as near quality pitches according to PLV, while his changeup is just below average. His sweeper has a nice 32% whiff rate and .067 BAA, but the low 16% putaway rate and below average Out Rate seem to point towards a sequencing issue where he is using it to get whiffs, but not in out situations. His slider, though, should start creeping towards league average considering the PLA, .222 BAA, 55% whiff rate, and 28% putaway rate.
Out of all of his pitches, Morales’ fastball Out% and PLV point towards continued dominance. As long as his fastball is working, he should keep seeing success in the league. Home run regression could be on the way, but the strikeouts will mitigate whatever increase we see in his ERA. Ride Morales into and through your playoffs.
Out% Pitchers To Buy
Michael McGreevy – SP STL
I might be Michael McGreevy’s biggest fan, but his Out Rates point towards a talented pitcher whose ERA does not match what he should be doing.
McGreevy has a wide arsenal, with seven different pitches thrown, and all but his curveball either rank as league average or above in Out%. That means nearly every one of his pitches gets batters out more than league average. Some highlights for McGreevy include his sinker, sweeper, cutter, and changeup.
McGreevy’s cutter grades as a quality pitch, while his sinker is near quality pitch level. His Sweeper and changeup also grade as above league average. All in all, McGreevy’s 3.49 PLA is over a run better than his 4.68 ERA. But what makes his cutter and sinker so good?
McGreevy’s elite pitch placement allows him to work around the low velocity and low strikeout numbers. Being able to locate the ball well has been McGreevy’s bread and butter and has been a significant factor in his low walk rate. Aside from the top-notch location, McGreevy gets near elite extension, with solid break on both pitches.
McGreevy has an arsenal that should be turning in more strikeouts, considering he can get batters out with nearly any pitch. The ERA is ugly, but it should drop as he continues to figure it out in the majors.
Will Warren – SP NYY
Will Warren has had some clunkers this season, but has pitched well since the calendar turned to August. He had a 2.84 ERA in August, and has a 3.60 ERA in one September start. Overall, he owns a 4.28 ERA and an 8-6 record with five quality starts. He also features three of five pitches with Out Rates above league average.
Warren’s fastball has been central to his success this season, especially considering how frequently he uses it. He has thrown it over 1,000 times this season, and it has been hit just 42 times, for a .199 BAA. On top of that, it also has a 23% whiff rate and a 22% putaway rate. Batters have to be ready for it at any time, but also have to worry about his sinker, curveball, and a borderline quality changeup.
One common thread across all of his above-average out pitches is near elite extension. Warren is not a flamethrower, so his extension gives him a way to work around the lack of velocity.
Warren has a solid base of pitches, including his sinker and changeup, in addition to his fastball with BAAs under .260. His fastball, sweeper, curveball, and changeup all have whiff rates between 23% and 36%. In terms of PLV pitch quality, Warren’s best pitch is his sweeper, though Out% and some other metrics would say otherwise. For example, his sweeper’s whiff rate is 31%, the second best in his arsenal. But it has a .350 BAA and the lowest putaway rate of all his pitches at 17%. So what does that mean? Take a look at his PLV:
He has decent extension, average velocity, and average location, which could be issues holding this pitch back from being elite. If he can locate it slightly better or get a little better extension to make up for the velocity, it could change the results against this pitch. On the positive side, this pitch has elite horizontal movement. In fact, among pitchers who have thrown a sweeper at least 250 times this season, nobody gets more horizontal break than Warren.
The problem for him, and the reason the Out% is likely so low and the BAA is so high, is that he throws it nearly as much to lefties as righties, and lefties are crushing it. And they crush it because the location is just okay. He should be throwing this pitch nearly exclusively to righty batters as an out pitch – they hit .288 against it, while lefty hitters are batting .459 on his sweeper. This pitch should be so much better statistically, and should be another top out pitch for him, as could his changeup. If that were the case, he could be one of the more dominant pitchers in the league. Just take a look at this pitch:
Will Warren, Disgusting Sweeper. 🤮 pic.twitter.com/22f49RAylV
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 28, 2025
Warren has potential and some absurd stuff, and should be rostered in all leagues that reward wins. He is a strikeout machine, and once he figures out the sequencing and location, he will be extremely hard to hit against.
Out% Pitchers to Sell
Sandy Alcantara – SP MIA
Fantasy managers still seem to believe Sandy Alcantara can turn it around this season, considering he is still so widely rostered. That is despite a 5.67 ERA, 12 losses, the lowest K/9 rate of his career, his worst BB/9 rate since 2020, and his lowest GB% since 2019. He had a recent stretch of four quality starts, but has allowed four earned runs or more in 15 of his 28 starts, including his most recent outing. On top of that, he features just two of five pitches that have Out Rates above league average, and they make up less than 50% of his usage.
Alcantara’s return from an elbow injury has not gone well. Arguably, his best pitch is his sinker. This is reflected in its Out%, and in his PLA:
It grades as a near quality pitch, while his changeup and slider also come in just above league average. The problem for Alcantara this season is that his pitches have been hit a ton. Only his changeup has a batting average under .250, and none of his pitches have a putaway rate over 17%.
This is a bit out of character for Alcantara, who had chase rates of 30% or better every year from 2021 to 2023, as well as contact rates under 77%. This season, his contact rate is 81% – a career worst – and his defense has not helped. He has a 59% LOB rate, the worst among qualified starters.
Alcantara seemingly has had a hard time knocking off the rust this season, after missing all of 2024. He has the worst Location+ of his career, has allowed more barrels than any season outside of his rookie year, and has given up a career high 44% HardHit rate.
These are all issues that provide reasoning for why he has had so much trouble inducing outs. He is not locating it well, which has led to batters simply waiting for his lower-quality pitches in the zone. Batters have not been biting on the stuff outside of the zone, because they can sit on poorly located breaking and offspeed stuff in the zone and make good contact.
Until he can figure it out, Alcantara should only be rostered in the deepest of leagues where fantasy managers are desperate for arms. He should be a drop in most scenarios, even for fantasy managers looking for streamers.
Jose Quintana – SP MIL
Jose Quintana is a different case than Alcantara, who is over-rostered and should not be. While Alcantara’s surface stats reflect his poor underlying metrics, Quintana’s 3.72 ERA shows he is clearly outperforming the underlying data, and fantasy managers should beware.
Here is where context is important, because Quintana features three pitches with Out Rates above league average, including a fastball. Typically, this would be exciting to fantasy managers, until you realize they make up barely a third of his pitch usage. His most used pitches – a sinker and changeup – have Out Rates far below league average, and should worry fantasy managers. On top of that, his pitch quality outside of his slurve should be concerning too:
The high grade on his slurve likely comes thanks to a small sample size, though it has performed so much better than his other stuff, he probably should toss it more. Each of his other pitches are either below average or, like his curveball, are just above league average in pitch quality.
This shows in some of his expected stats. All five of his pitches have a higher xBAA than BAA, including a massive difference between the .219 BAA and .329 xBAA on his curveball. Clearly, Quintana has pitched into some good luck with that curveball, meaning the Out% could be distorted thanks to pitching for a top-10 defense. Plus, only his rarely used slurve has a putaway rate over 16%.
Some other concerns for Quintana include a 6.1 K/9 rate, which is his lowest since his rookie year in 2012. If he had low K totals, but had a low walk rate like McGreevy or a high GB% like Clay Holmes, there may be less cause for concern. Quintana has also allowed his highest barrel and HardHit rates since 2021, his lowest chase rate since 2019, and his highest contact rate of his career. These are significant problems and help to explain why his Out Rates are low on his most used pitches.
We have started to see cracks in recent games, and it is time for fantasy managers to let him loose before a bad game costs you your championship.
More Out% Pitchers to Buy
This will focus mostly on pitchers who may be on waivers in various league sizes, with trade deadlines likely over.
- Janson Junk
- Eric Lauer
- Matthew Liberatore
- Dustin May
- Adrian Houser
- Davis Martin
- Taj Bradley
- Colin Rea
- Brad Lord
- Michael Wacha
- Zack Littell
- Quinn Priester
- Hurston Waldrep
- Tomoyuki Sugano
- Clayton Kershaw
- Max Scherzer
- Andre Pallante
- Ryne Nelson
More Out% Pitchers To Sell
These are pitchers to consider dropping in exchange for players on the waiver wire.
