As we continue to look ahead to the 2025 season, today, I'm taking a look at six pitchers we're hoping for bounceback seasons from next time out. Three, I'm willing to buy the bounceback for, and three, I'm not so optimistic about.
Three bouncebacks to buy
Carlos Rodon, Yankees
I'm gonna be honest: I'm kind of surprised that I find myself optimistic about Rodon's bounceback chances. This has been a frustrating season for Rodon, who has a 3.98 ERA entering his final start of the regular season, with peripherals that mostly match that. And I'm typically inclined to just take the full-season numbers as indicative of a player's talent level. But Rodon has been significantly better over the second half of the season, with a 2.87 ERA and 30.5% strikeout rate. And the biggest thing here is probably that Rodon ditched his largely ineffective cutter at the end of June, which seems to have helped both his slider and four-seamer play better
- Four-seamer through June: .401 xwOBA, 19% whiff rate
- Slider through June: .241 xwOBA, 38.3% whiff rate
- Four-seamer since July: .370 xwOBA, 23.9% whiff rate
- Slider since July: .181 xwOBA, 40.3% whiff rate
The four-seamer and slider have always been Rodon's bread-and-butter pitches, and I genuinely didn't understand why he even bothered adding a cutter this spring. With his changeup also looking better than ever, I think Rodon's second half might actually be more like what we should expect from him moving forward, and I like him as a high-strikeout target who will likely go outside of the top 30 among SPs in 2025.
Bobby Miller, Dodgers
I don't have any "since X date" stats to paint a positive picture of Miller. There's absolutely nothing positive to take away from his 2024 season. This is solely a bet on an extremely talented pitcher who we all thought was a sure-fire ace last season and who was probably just never healthy this year. Well, not "never" – he struck out 11 and walked one in his very first start of the season, after all. But he developed shoulder issues shortly after that and ended up making just two more starts before going on the IL for two months. He was clearly never right after that, and I'm willing to make a low-cost bet that a healthy offseason can get him back on track. If he doesn't? Well, at least it'll cost a lot less than a top-75 pick to make the bet on him in 2025.
Sandy Alcantara, Marlins
I'm not 100% sure if this one counts since Alcantara obviously didn't pitch this season, but I'm throwing him in here to make sure you haven't forgotten about him. The last time we saw Alcantara, he was a pretty big disappointment, finishing 2023 with a 4.14 ERA before suffering an elbow injury that ultimately led to Tommy John surgery. But he was significantly better in the second half of that season, putting up a 3.20 ERA and 1.15 WHIP, and is already far enough along in his recovery from surgery that he has thrown simulated games and should have no limitations by Spring Training. This is kind of a double bounceback because I'm betting on Alcantara being significantly better than he was in 2023, and I might just rank him as a top-30 starting pitcher for 2025.
Three bouncebacks to fade
Tyler Glasnow, Dodgers
Alright, so here's the thing with Glasnow: If you drafted him in 2024, even as a top-12 SP, it was a pretty good pick! You got 134 innings, 168 strikeouts, a 0.948 WHIP, and a 3.49 ERA from him, plus wherever you got from your replacements once he was ruled out for the season. Despite the season-ending elbow injury, you did a good job rolling the dice on Glasnow.
Can you trust it a second year in a row? It worked out this time because the injury came in late August after he basically stayed healthy for the first four months of the season. It ended up being a career-high in innings, but his season also ended decisively with a sprained elbow. And, while Glasnow is "confident" he won't need surgery … a "sprain" is just another word for a "tear" in one (or more) of the ligaments in his elbow. If this injury happened in May, it very well may have ended Glasnow's season, and you'd feel very differently about how this all went down.
That doesn't mean Glasnow necessarily will get hurt earlier on next season or even at all. But he's never made it through a full season in the majors healthy, and it just doesn't make much sense to bet on him doing so coming off a season-ending elbow surgery. There's still plenty of upside, even with the injury risk, but this injury just reminds us that the floor is the basement for Glasnow, unfortunately.
Kevin Gausman, Blue Jays
The wheels never quite come off for Gausman, who is going to end up with 180-plus innings for the third time in four seasons despite a shoulder injury in Spring Training that scared many off him in drafts. But if you did draft him, are you actually happy about it? I mean, he wasn't a disaster, but he was decidedly mediocre, with a 3.83 ERA and 1.22 WHIP. And even though he stayed healthy, his 162 strikeouts were a significant disappointment. If you just left Gausman in your lineup, you were fine, but he just wasn't a difference-maker, and I just don't think it makes a ton of sense to bet on a 34-year-old to stay healthy and bounce back from a disappointing season. It's not impossible, but it generally doesn't work that way. I probably won't rank Gausman inside of my top-40 SPs for 2025.
Jesus Luzardo, Marlins
Luzardo figures to be healthy for the start of 2025, as he was about six weeks away from being able to throw after his lumbar stress reaction back in early August. But that wasn't the only injury he dealt with this season, as he also missed time earlier in the season with a flexor strain in his left elbow. Given Luzardo's injury history, that's a major concern, and he has now thrown more than 100.1 innings in a season just once in the majors – and even if you count the minors, he's topped 100 four times, but has only reached even 130 once. It might be easier to talk myself into taking the chance on Luzardo if he pitched better this season, but he really struggled amid an understandable drop in velocity, and it really seems like there's a very narrow margin for error here – when he averages 96 mph-plus on his four-seamer, he's a pretty effective pitcher; anything below that, and he tends to get crushed. Given how unlikely it is you get a ton of volume from Luzardo, it just doesn't seem like the upside is there to overcome the obvious risks and limitations.
