With the 2024 regular season wrapping up, writers and fans across the country will argue about who had the best seasons. While the MVP and Rookie of the Year discussions will certainly be engaging, I want to focus on those who we only caught brief glimpses of this year, but who impressed in their small samples. Small sample sizes can be extremely deceptive, yet even a small sample can reveal much about a player, and going into 2025, it will serve fantasy managers well to examine these small sample standouts.
This article covers three pitchers who all threw fewer than 50 innings in 2024.
If Brant Hurter wasn’t on your radar coming into this season, I don’t blame you. Hurter was a 25-year-old, former seventh-round pick who looked like not much more than organizational depth. However, following a stint in AAA, Hurter was called up to aid an ailing and Jack Flaherty-less Tigers’ pitching staff. While the southpaw technically only started one game for the Tigers, he was most commonly used as a follower to an opener, as Hurter routinely threw 5+ innings, usually entering in the second inning.
Despite mediocre numbers in AAA, Hurter was excellent in the big leagues, posting a 2.58 ERA and 0.88 WHIP. He did so with a simple but effective repertoire consisting of a sinker and sweeper mix, with a changeup thrown to righties. Hurter’s sinker has a lot of sink, and plentiful horizontal movement to go with it. Stuff+ is not particularly fond of it, but Hurter uses his sinker strategically to maximize his effectiveness.
Hurter pounds the strike zone with his sinker – to a frankly astonishing degree. His sinker was thrown in the zone 68.6% of the time, the most of any single pitch in MLB. Even more incredible, Hurter’s sinker carried a strike rate of 82.3%, by far the highest of any pitch in MLB. Despite this, and despite opponents swinging at his sinker nearly 54% of the time, damage done against Hurter’s sinker was minimal:
| Stat | Result | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Barrel% | 3.90% | 80th |
| ICR% | 28.6 | 80th |
| GB% | 67.50% | 86th |
| xwOBA | 0.266 | 95th |
| PLUS% | 75.30% | 100th |
For pounding the zone as much as Hurter does, batters have been pretty much unable to do serious damage against it. With such an effective main pitch, Hurter is able to consistently get ahead in counts and coax ground balls – consistently putting Hurter in strong positions.
Hurter also features a pretty solid changeup, which greatly reduces his susceptibility towards platooning. Hurter’s sinker has fared very well in his brief MLB stint, but his sinker – while more than capable against righties – is devastating toward lefties. His sinker carries a 40.4 CSW% against lefties, while against righties it falls to a more pedestrian 28.1%. This drastic split necessitated the development of his changeup, which has so far been effective. It’s not particularly impressive in a vacuum, but in the context of an at-bat, Hurter’s changeup has been excellent at mitigating damage and being an effective secondary pitch. Opposing batters have hit just .200 against it, with an average exit velocity of a measly 80.8 mph.
He also has a four-seamer, although the less said about it, the better.
All together, Hurter’s brief MLB stint has certainly caught my attention. He’s managed to pound the zone while being extremely effective at mitigating damage. Hurter is 26 years old, so he likely doesn’t have as high of a ceiling as some other prospects. However, Hurter’s ground-ball-heavy brand of pitching gives him a very high floor, and in quality start leagues he should be more than capable of racking them up if given the chance. With a rotation spot very likely open for 2025 and the Tigers on the upswing, Hurter could play a key role in their rotation next year.
Matthews had a 1.65 WHIP and 6.69 ERA last year for the Twins in eight starts. He was – by almost every metric – bad. But here at Pitcher List, we are Zebby fans. ZebHeads, if you will. Allow me to explain.
Zebby Matthews had a meteoric rise in 2024, starting the season in high-A before climbing the ladder to make the Twins rotation late in the second half. Matthews’ major league struggles would normally keep him off this list – except for the fact that Matthews greatly impressed with his K-BB rate. For the uninitiated, K-BB rate is just about the best metric for predicting future success, and Matthews was sensational at this in the minors – keeping his K-BB rate above 27% in all three levels he played in. Across 97 MiLB innings, Matthews walked just seven batters – which sounds very promising – but he walked 11 batters in 37.2 innings in the Show this year. There are plenty of possible reasons for this uptick, but even so, his 18.1% K-BB rate puts him around the likes of Aaron Nola and Freddy Peralta, which has to mean something.
Matthews has solid stuff – Stuff+ grades his arsenal as exactly average and PLV agrees – but his mistake rate runs very high at 7.7%, and it seems like he really got punished. Despite this, 2.63 home runs per nine innings is just not sustainable, and thus maybe peripherals may offer a better look into Matthews’ talent level. xFIP and xFIP- are controversial in the advanced stats community but normalizing the home run rate gives him a 4.05 xFIP and 99 xFIP-. SIERA agrees, giving him a rating of 3.78. How much you want to believe in those numbers is up to you but there are clearly reasons to believe in Matthews.
Furthermore, a deeper analysis of Matthew’s struggles reveals some bizarre figures. His BABIP against was .364, and his ICR against was extremely high at 46%, but perhaps the most bizarre is his swing/take profile:
Source: Baseball Savant
One would think Matthews got trounced in the heart of the zone, but it seems like he struggled the most at getting batters out on the fringes of the zone. -5 runs in the shadow of the zone is absurdly low. Just two pitchers – Roddery Muñoz and Tim Mayza – performed worse in the shadow of the zone in 2024, and both were just generally atrocious in all aspects. Matthews has the stuff to make his pitches work when challenging hitters, yet it seems like he still got damaged when hitting his spots. It doesn’t feel sustainable.
Matthews will likely not open the season in the Twins rotation next year and he’s currently SP7 on the depth chart. How valuable he is in fantasy will depend on your league type. Very deep traditional 5×5 leagues? Matthews does get plenty of strikeouts and plays for a winning team, making him nice for strikeouts and wins. Dynasty? Might be able to buy him lower now than say, a month ago. Buy the dip and be patient. Small to medium leagues on the other hand could comfortably file Matthews away as a streaming option and not much more. His lack of volume raises question marks in points leagues as well.
Regardless, I’m willing the bet that Matthews is a far better pitcher than his 6.69 ERA would indicate. Tempering expectations may prove fruitful here – remember that Matthews was pitching in high A at the start of ’24. I’m nervous about peripherals and pitch modeling pulling another Louie Varland on us – but if Matthews can make the adjustment he could play a key role in the Twins rotation one day.
Here’s a fun fact: Sean Burke, in 19 innings, had just one fewer win than Chris Flexen, who threw 160 innings. The White Sox were a comedy of errors this year, yet despite a truly catastrophic season, Burke emerged as a bright spot. The former third-round pick back in 2021 was called up in September and was very good! Incredibly good even, just a 1.42 ERA with a 29% strikeout rate.
Those numbers obviously aren’t sustainable – his BABIP was .222 and LOB% 92.6 – but the fastball certainly was! Take a look at this PLV chart:
7 feet of extension and nearly 18 inches of induced vertical break (iVB) is a mouthwatering combination, especially when paired with above-average raw velocity. Just for reference, that’s the same extension and nearly the same iVB as Spencer Strider’s fastball in 2023, albeit a couple ticks slower. It’s a really effective main weapon, and Burke pairs it with solid secondaries. Stuff+ gave Burke a rating of 106 for his major league stint, more than enough to hold a rotation spot.
The question with Burke is going to be control. His walk rate in the minors was consistently flirting with 15%, and while his walk rate was 9.3% in his outings in the majors, even that would be among the highest walk rates for a starter. A high walk rate creates a boatload of problems for pitchers, but it may be particularly alarming for Burke, who already has a lengthy injury history, and thus the question of volume is very relevant. Getting through innings efficiently is a big struggle for pitchers that carry high walk rates, and in quality start leagues that can be problematic.
Also problematic is the fact that Burke plays for the White Sox, so it goes without saying that he will not rack up wins. That being said, there will certainly be opportunities for Burke to join a shallow White Sox rotation in 2025, and he has the stuff to make it work. Burke will likely be more valuable in points leagues than traditional 5×5 leagues, but regardless, Burke showed in his 19 innings that he can be a big league pitcher – so keep an eye out late in your drafts for this 6’6″ righty.