Curious about which pitchers are the best at getting outs? Want to know how that can impact your fantasy baseball team? Take a look below at our Out% weekly review.
Out% or Out Rate is a tool we can use to determine pitchers to target in fantasy baseball, especially when analyzing Out% alongside other stats like whiff%, putaway%, advanced ERA metrics, and PLV data.
Check out our app to help track Out%: https://pl-out-percentage.streamlit.app/
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.
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 Friday, May 2 (they will fluctuate as the season goes on):
- Fastball – 16.4%
- Cutter – 16.4%
- Sinker – 17.5%
- Splitter – 20.9%
- Slider – 18.2%
- Sweeper – 18%
- Curveball – 16.2%
- Changeup – 19.4%
A few notable pitchers sit atop the leaderboards for each pitch, including
- Max Fried – Fastball 22.1%
- Chris Bassitt – Cutter 23%
- Bryan Woo – Sinker 23.7%
- Zack Wheeler – Splitter 27.2%
- David Peterson – Slider 26.6%
- Chase Dollander – Curveball 23.6%
- Garrett Crochet – Sweeper 32.2%
- Andrew Heaney – Changeup 26%
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
Mitchell Parker – SP WAS
The top-10 fastballs, in terms of Out%, unsurprisingly feature absolute studs. That leaderboard includes the likes of Fried, Bryan Woo, Joe Ryan, Drew Rasmussen, Robbie Ray, and Jacob deGrom—all performing exceedingly well this season. Other top-10 Out% fastballs include Bailey Ober, Bailey Falter, and Washington’s Mitchell Parker. What makes Parker’s fastball so good, though?
An important key to Parker’s fastball is its induced vertical break, or iVB. He has 18.3 inches of vert on his fastball, which makes it deceptive to opposing hitters. That mark is the 18th best out of pitchers who have thrown at least 300 fastballs. This is important for Parker, whose fastball velocity is below league average. Another key to success for Parker is his near elite extension, which gives batters less time to pick up on the fastball’s movement. This all has led to Parker’s fastball possessing a .194 BAA, and the seventh highest run value (ties included) among the 111 pitchers who have thrown a fastball in at least 100 PAs.
Parker also features a slider that ranks above league average in Out%, and a splitter that is 1.7% away from being above league average. Both of those pitches have whiff rates of 30% or better, and his slider also has a putaway rate of 33%.
Unfortunately for Parker, those whiffs have not turned into strikeouts like they did for him in the minors, and in turn, those whiffs have not turned into enough outs. Now, that could change with improved location and sequencing. This is worth noting since he already has a good fastball. That is extra important because fastballs are not typically used to get batters out, so if he can use that as a weapon and develop one more out pitch, he could start breaking out.
So while fantasy managers should not go out and add Parker immediately, he should be on every manager’s watchlist.
Out% Pitchers To Buy
Tarik Skubal – SP DET
I usually try to highlight some off-the-radar, or less-rostered pitchers for this column, but Tarik Skubal has been so insanely good and needs to be mentioned here.
Skubal ranks among the top-10 pitchers in fastball and changeup Out%, while also possessing an elite sinker Out%. That combo has led Skubal to a 1.99 ERA, seventh best among qualified pitchers. He throws those three pitches a combined 88% of the time, and they have some pretty insane stats.
Skubal’s changeup, fastball, and sinker have BAAs of .230 or better and xBAAs of .239 or better. He has posted a 29% whiff rate, 31% K rate, and 21% putaway rate with his fastball. His sinker features a 22% whiff rate and a 31% putaway rate. But his best pitch overall is his changeup.
Skubal’s changeup is absolute filth:
Tarik Skubal, Nasty 88mph Changeup. 👌
8th K thru 5….and 🤫 pic.twitter.com/03uTBp1mmx
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 9, 2025
It has a .156 BAA, a 47% whiff rate, a 46% K rate, and a 32% putaway rate. It is the fifth-best pitch according to Baseball Savant’s run value. PLV loves his changeup too:
He throws it faster than average, with above average iVB, arm side break, and plvLoc+. Its PLV grade ranks near to a quality pitch.
The lesson here about Skubal is that everything you see is legit. All of the data, from Out%, to statcast metrics, to PLV backs up the fact that he can get batters out extremely effectively multiple ways, which makes him one of the best pitchers in baseball.
Patrick Corbin – SP TEX
As a pitcher who has had his fair share of struggles the last few years, Patrick Corbin is having a bit of a resurgence. It appears that this is the real deal.
Usually, the first thing I look at with Out% is a pitcher’s fastball. If a pitcher has a high fastball Out Rate, that usually leads to success, since fastballs are not typical out pitches. Corbin, though, barely throws a fastball, relying more on his sinker and cutter – fastball adjacent pitches. And those have performed well according to Out%:
He uses his sinker and cutter, along with a slider, 95% of the time, and all rank above league average in Out%. Corbin has made some adjustments since last season, which have resulted in success. Despite losing velocity on the sinker and slider, he has gained velo on his cutter, while also adding spin to all three pitches. He has added some vertical break to his slider and sinker from last season. He also added horizontal break to his cutter and has located it better than last season, resulting in PLV grading it a quality pitch:
Despite posting low strikeout totals—his 6.6 K/9 rate is the second lowest of his career—he has found other ways to get batters out, and has maintained a career best 80% LOB rate. That is not a fluke either, as Texas has the second-highest fielding percentage in the league.
Corbin will not blow anything by batters, but a combination of solid breaking pitches, deceptive movement, and an elite defense should keep him on track for his best season since 2019. That is also the last year he finished with an ERA better than 4.66.
Corbin should be on your radar in most 10-team leagues and should be rostered in any 12-teamers or larger.
Out% Pitchers to Sell
Chad Patrick – SP MIL
Similar to Corbin, Chad Patrick features a cutter and sinker more than his fastball, though those three pitches make up 91% of his overall usage. Also, he uses his fastball 19% of the time, whereas Corbin uses it about 1% of the time. The difference lies in the details, because while Patrick’s cutter and sinker rank above league average in Out Rate, none of his other pitches do, including his fastball.
Patrick’s cutter has performed well according to most statcast metrics. It has a .234 BAA, a 24% whiff rate, a 24% K rate, and a 20% putaway rate. It may be overperforming, though, with a 4.81 PLV grade thanks to below average velocity, extension, and location.
Patrick’s sinker grades out similarly according to PLV, with below-average velocity and extension. However, it has just a 16% K rate and a 9% whiff rate, suggesting he may be out over his skis a bit. The saving grace for this pitch is that it has a 49% GB rate. There are issues with that as well, as Patrick has a 27% GB rate overall, but an 80% LOB rate. He seems to be getting a bit lucky with keeping runners from scoring, especially considering Milwaukee’s defense ranks among the worst 10 in fielding percentage. If he had a high GB% and a better defense behind him, I would ignore the low whiffs and buy the LOB% and ERA a bit more. But that is not the case.
Patrick owns a 3.15 ERA at the moment, but his xFIP and SIERA both sit above 4.00, and suggest that things could start going downhill. Out% and PLV both guide us to the same conclusion – it is time to sell Patrick now.
Bryce Elder – SP ATL
Fantasy managers may also want to hop off the Bryce Elder train, despite the 4.08 ERA and the gem he just pitched against San Francisco. All he really has is a slider, and it is a matter of time before batters catch on to it.
It would be one thing if Elder had a weak fastball, but his sinker Out% was high, and both have Out Rates below league average. His changeup also does not give him a reliable out pitch against lefty batters. His best weapon is an admittedly wicked slider, though he uses it 48% of the time.
PLV loves this pitch, grading it a quality pitch. Elder relies on elite location, absolutely pinpointing this pitch. It’s 37.6 inches of vertical drop rank 13th among pitchers who have thrown a slider at least 250 times. This is why it has a .184 BAA, a 28% whiff rate, a 25% K rate, and a 22% putaway rate. Unfortunately for Elder, this is his only reliable out pitch.
The argument for Elder is that three of his pitches have groundball rates over 50%, and his 53% GB rate would put him ninth among pitchers if he qualified. He also has a 75% LOB rate and has improved his BB/9 rate to a career best. He has also benefited from an elite defense helping him stay afloat, and legitimizing a somewhat low .266 BABIP.
On the other hand, Elder has thrown the ball in the zone 50% of the time this season—a career high—without possessing much swing-and-miss stuff. All of his other pitches have whiff rates under 13%, while his fastball and changeup have putaway rates and K rates under 10%. Throwing pitches like those in the zone half the time is a dangerous game, and Elder is tempting fate.
His SIERA and xFIP are both better than his ERA, but do not factor in things like Out%, PLV, and Zone%. Considering those metrics, fantasy managers should sell Elder to anyone buying in on the advanced ERA data, while missing the deeper flaws.
More Out% Pitchers to Buy
- Drew Rasmussen
- Bailey Falter
- Mitchell Parker
- Andrew Heaney
- Davis Martin
- Michael Wacha
- Jose Berrios
- Nick Martinez
- Merrill Kelly
- Jameson Taillon
- Grant Holmes
- Tomoyuki Sugano
- Taj Bradley
- Zack Littell
- David Peterson
- Matthew Liberatore
- Andrew Abbott
More Out% Pitchers To Sell
- Bailey Ober
- Jeffrey Springs
- Matthew Boyd
- Dean Kremer
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto
- Brandon Pfaadt
- Quinn Priester
