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Fantasy Baseball Out% Standouts from Week 4

Here are the best pitchers at getting batters out from Week 4.

Taylor Tarter
Fantasy 4/28/2025

This is our fantasy baseball Week Four Out% update, looking at the best pitchers and pitches at getting batters out. You can use our Streamlit app, developed by Brett Hammit, to help track pitcher performance: https://pitcherlistoutpercentage.streamlit.app

You can use our Out% data to help get a deeper look into a pitcher’s performance. It can help determine whether you can reasonably expect them to do well or not, and identify sell high and buy low candidates, or trade targets in general. Combining Out% with pitch level data like whiff% and putaway%, as well as advanced ERA metrics, and PLV data will help paint a fuller picture of a pitcher’s performance.

You can read more of the intricacies of the stat here, where I reflect on what we learned from Out% last season.

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 this season.

Here is where league-average Out% stands on each type of pitch as of writing on Friday, April 25 (they will fluctuate as the season goes on):

  • Fastball – 16.4%
  • Cutter – 16.8%
  • Sinker – 17.4%
  • Splitter – 21.1%
  • Slider – 18%
  • Sweeper – 18.9%
  • Curveball – 17.6%
  • Changeup – 19.2%

A few notable pitchers sit atop the leaderboards for each pitch, including

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

Bryan Woo – SP SEA

Bryan Woo ranks atop the starting pitcher leaderboard for Fastball Out%, when filtering for the league average amount of fastballs thrown. Max Fried, Bailey Ober, Trevor Williams, Bailey Falter, Nick Pivetta, Michael Lorenzen, Ryan Gusto, Hayden Wesneski, and Tyler Anderson round out the top-10.

Woo’s fastball has been spectacular this season, tossing it overwhelmingly to lefties. This is interesting because of its arm side break.

That horizontal movement, along with above average location, and top-end velocity make this one of the best fastballs in the game.

Among pitchers who have thrown a fastball in at least 50 plate appearances, Woo’s 32% whiff rate, 30% K rate, and 28% putaway rate rank seventh, 11th, and 5th best respectively.

This is important to note because for many pitchers, fastballs are set up pitches. The fact that Woo can rely on his fastball as another out pitch helps legitimize his 3.09 ERA and the improved K/9 rate for last season.

Even more important is that our Out% data, PLV data, and Statcast data all line up to show how good Woo has been this season.

Woo also has an above average Out Rate on his sinker and changeup too.

He is a player to target in trades in fantasy, and should continue to see success this season.

Out% Pitchers To Target

Garrett Crochet – SP BOS

Garrett Crochet’s sweeper ranks second best in Out Rate, at 34.2%, just behind Walker Buehler’s. He only throws the pitch about 6% of the time, but should be throwing it much more, considering how effective it is at getting batters out.

Surprisingly, he tosses it against righty batters about two-thirds of the time he throws it, so it is not just a pitch he uses to get lefties out:

Crochet also has a filthy changeup that he has thrown exclusively against righties. His sweeper and changeup have 42% and 44% whiff rates, as well as 26% and 28% putaway rates respectively. Crochet’s cutter also ranks as an above average out pitch:

It would be great if Crochet could establish his fastball as a top out pitch, but he does not need it to be considering he has so many other ways to get batters out. He should be a major target for fantasy managers looking to improve their pitching via the trade market.

Merrill Kelly – SP ARI

Merrill Kelly should be on fantasy managers’ radars going forward. He possesses a six-pitch arsenal, with four of his pitches rating as above league average in Out%:

            

It is also worth noting that the four pitches most effective at getting batters out make up about 81% of his pitches thrown. Also important is that his fastball owns an above average Out%. He has induced a 21% whiff rate with it, and it has a 28% putaway rate.

Arguably his best pitch of the bunch has been his cutter, which has a .063 batting average against, a 17% whiff rate, and a 40% putaway rate. Kelly’s cutter has been so good thanks to some ridiculous movement and above average velocity.

Even though Kelly’s ERA is an ugly 4.73, he has pitches to get both lefties and righties out, and should start seeing that ERA drop some. Kelly has allowed more walks than usual, and his LOB% is worse than usual, so hopefully some better control and a little more defensive help will get him on the right track.

Kelly makes for a great buy low arm in fantasy.

Out% Pitchers to Avoid

Aaron Nola – SP PHI

Aaron Nola has suffered from some bad luck this season. He has a crazy high 24% HR/FB rate. His BABIP is nearly 100 points higher than his career norm. And his LOB% is the third lowest of his career. All of that points toward some positive regression to his 6.43 ERA. How much better will the ERA get, though? Out% can help figure that out.

Nola’s changeup and Knuckle Curve are the only pitches among his five offerings that have an Out Rate above league average:

Moreover, his fastball Out% ranks below league average. This would not be as big of an issue if he had another fastball-adjacent pitch that was more effective, but his cutter and sinker both rank below average at getting batters out too.

Since he either cannot or does not use these pitches effectively in situations where he can get outs with them, batters can target them early in counts and lock in on them.

Seemingly, what is happening is he is using his cutter and fastball to set up other pitches, and because of that, batters either get to them early in counts, or wait for him to make a mistake with them. That has led to Nola having five of his six pitches with a .300 BAA or higher.

Nola’s big issue to fix is his pitch sequencing. He should consider dropping his cutter altogether, and rely more on his fastball, curveball, changeup combination. Those were his best pitches last season and could be more effective if he used them in better situations.

Bryce Miller – SP SEA

This is a different Bryce Miller than 2024. Last season, Miller’s splitter was one of the best out pitches in the league. He also threw a fastball and sinker that both ranked better than league average.

This season, his fastball and sinker effectiveness have declined dramatically, while his splitter remains an elite out pitch:

Miller faces a similar problem to Nola in that it is not enough just to have a good curve and splitter. Because he could use his fastball as a weapon to get batters out last season, he could keep batters on their toes. Part of the reason his fastball is less effective this season is simply its quality has dropped off a cliff.

Here is a look at his 2024 fastball PLV compared to its PLV this season:

His arm slot change and worsening location location have led to a decline in quality on his fastball. Without the threat of his fastball as an out pitch, the rest of his arsenal has been less effective.

Miller is looking more like the 2023 version of himself than the 2024 version, so if you roster him, you should look for a trade partner after his next good start.

Out% Pitchers to Buy

 

Out% Pitchers To Sell

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Taylor Tarter

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Taylor is an FSWA finalist, and a fantasy baseball champ that has been playing for well over a decade. Taylor is co-creator of Out%, a stat that measures how good pitches are at getting outs. You can find him @TaylorTarter on Twitter.

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