Well, it’s that time of the year again. The time when we make our bold claims as to which pitchers are going to be the dark horse candidates for the Cy Young award. It is also the time when many of us are starting up our fantasy drafts and are looking to build out our rotations (and bullpens). There are many ways to evaluate a pitcher’s success and determine who will succeed in the coming year. One of those that we love here at Pitcher List is our in-house stat, PLV!
So what is PLV?
PLV is essentially an all-encompassing stat that measures individual pitches and rates them on a 0-10 scale. The elements that factor into PLV include velocity, movement, release point, location, count, and handedness of the batter. We have an excellent primer on this by the one and only Nick Pollack that you can find right here!
Additionally, I will mention PLA, which takes this 0-10 score and translates it to an estimated ERA, which makes it easier to understand and more useful for those looking for help with their fantasy teams.
These stats aren’t catch-all necessary, but they do tell us a lot about the quality and properties of the individual pitches, which differentiates the stat from results-based estimators like FIP and SIERA.
Some days are Sonny, some are Gray.
However, I think you can expect a lot more Sonny days this year with Gray joining a new squad in Boston. His past couple of years in St. Louis haven’t been the best from a basic stats perspective, though when you look a bit deeper, you will notice that his walk rate is down and his strikeout rate is up from his time in Minnesota. Once you look at PLV, you will realize there is a potentially really great pitcher here, and a competitive situation might be perfect for getting the most out of him (even in a tough ballpark like Fenway).
The most impressive pitch that Gray has is his sweeper. He uses it for batters on both sides of the plate and gets a surprising amount of swings-and-misses with it. If you’re wondering why Gray has had a bit of a post-prime resurgence, you can thank this pitch for that, as he developed it in his Cy Young runner-up campaign in Minnesota and has ridden it to the aforementioned higher K rates, using it in conjunction with his curveball to put batters away.
Gray throws all three fastball types fairly frequently. His four-seamer is his most used pitch, and while it doesn’t necessarily have the out-of-this-world shape that lower velocity pitchers often have to leverage to succeed, he commands it well, which ups his PLV on the offering. The cutter is also another pitch PLV likes, a good addition to his arsenal to get strikes against righties. His sinker isn’t as liked by PLV as the rest of his main offerings, though it does get lots of strikes, which makes it a valuable addition to the arsenal.
Gray is now in a new situation where he will likely get more wins. While he’s no longer in a pitcher-friendly park and the Red Sox defense isn’t always the best, a bit of positive regression combined with a rejuvenated mental state playing for a contender could easily make Gray one of the best middle-of-the-rotation options for 2026.
There’s a lot to love about Ryan Pepiot, who is coming off a season where he emerged as a solid rotation option, logging more innings than ever before for a Rays team that didn’t have its usual great pitching. Plenty of that can and should be attributed to the environment Pepiot and co. pitched at: Steinbrenner Field, a minor league park with a short porch and strong winds. It was tough for any of the Rays to get comfortable, but Pepiot still flashed some great stuff and had good underlying pitch-modeling numbers.
Pepiot is known for his fastball and changeup, which are both absurdly good pitches. The fastball has an excellent shape, with great vertical movement, a flat approach angle, and solid velocity/extension. It’s important to note that at Tropicana Field, oftentimes vertical movement on pitches can be enhanced by an inch, which could be a game-breaker for an already great fastball. His other excellent pitch is the changeup, which we have seen him dominate with. It was viewed as an 80-grade change piece while he was a prospect, and some would say it is one of the most potent righty changeups. The key to future success with the pitch is greater consistency, which could help a 5.3 PLV pitch earn an even higher score.
Where Pepiot really will need to step it up will be with his third pitch. Now, the slider grades out well, but he has lacked consistency with it, similar to the rest of his arsenal. He has used the slider as more of a cutter at points, an adjustment he made halfway through last season. He does throw a cutter as well, though at much lower frequency. Sometimes Pepiot will throw a curveball, literally, by bringing out the curve he barely uses. He has also experimented with sinkers as well, but with limited success.
Pepiot + The Trop for a full season might be a lethal combination, especially with pitch modeling metrics loving what he showed us last year, where he played in what was a house of horrors for any pitcher on the mound.
So, who saw last year’s Bryan Woo coming?
Well, probably a lot of people, considering how often it feels like a Seattle pitcher breaks out. Add the fact that he had a great prior season ERA, and yeah, people were really high on him. Still, I’m not sure if anybody expected him to take the reins as the ace of Seattle’s aces, or expected him to be able to eat innings with excellent results as he did in 2025.
Woo really is a bit of a PLV dream, as he has some of the best command of any pitcher out there. He also has great pitch shape metrics and solid velocity. He’s a fastball thrower, with over 70% of his pitches being either the four-seamer or the sinker. These pitches are outstanding, as he locates them with precision for tons of strikes. The four-seamer in particular is a fun pitch, as it comes in at a flat attack angle and often sits high in the zone. This makes it a difficult pitch for bats to make contact with, and thus, it has one of the best whiff rates of any four-seamer. The sinker serves the opposite purpose, diving down into the lower parts of the zone and earning copious amounts of groundballs.
The concern with Woo has always been his offspeed pitches, which combine for only 27% of what he throws. He has a standard bullet slider that comes in at a pretty hard velocity that is fairly similar to the other slide pieces you have seen from similar Mariners pitchers. It grades out decently well, though again, he doesn’t throw it too often. He also has a sweeper that grades out below-average, though it has potential. Lastly, he sometimes brings out a hard changeup that could probably score better if he worked on it a bit more and found more consistency.
Overall, Bryan Woo is poised for another great year and is a pitcher that PLV loves for 2026.
There are plenty of big-name relievers who fantasy managers are going to target to get saves, strikeouts, and good ratios. You already know who they are: Edwin Diaz, Mason Miller, Devin Williams, Jhoan Duran, etc. Yet, it feels like Trevor Megill should really be up there with them.
Megill is a two-pitch guy, and boy, are those two pitches deadly. It starts with his four-seamer, which, like with a lot of shutdown relievers, is straight heat. He regularly hits triple digits and does so with solid extension (though maybe not quite as good as you’d expect with his height) and excellent vertical movement. It surprisingly doesn’t get the volume of whiffs you’d expect, but he saves those for his excellent curveball. Megill’s curveball is a buzzsaw. It has excellent velocity and dives like crazy, confounding batters and leading to some brutal swings-and-misses. These two amazing pitches build off each other, as their movement profiles are so distinct that they achieve excellent separation, allowing Megill to make the most out of his limited arsenal.
It’s pretty crazy how the Brewers can constantly keep pumping out elite closers, from Josh Hader to the aforementioned Williams, and now with Megill. We also saw excellent performance from Abner Uribe last season, showcasing that it seems that no matter what trades are made, there will always be a high-leverage reliever with wipeout stuff in Milwaukee.
So the title of this article is pitchers that PLV “loves,” but honestly, that term might be an understatement for Griffin Jax.
Traded to the Rays last season, he had a bit of a tough year in terms of basic statistics. However, anybody who knows pitching knows the talent Jax has, as he is one of the best combinations of nasty stuff and pinpoint command in the bullpen.
Jax’s main pitches are his sweeper and changeup, which combine for almost 70% of what he throws. They both come in at eye-popping velocity marks, especially the sweeper, which comes in just under 90mph. The changeup is also bonkers, as it features an intense diving motion at over 92mph. Every good changeup needs some heat to play off of, which Jax also brings. His four-seamer is an underrated pitch, as while he doesn’t use it often, it comes in at an ultra-flat attack angle, which can make it tough to make contact with. Although not as frequently thrown, his sinker and cutter can be factors in at-bats as well, as both have a higher velocity than the average of their pitch types.
Jax looks to be the closer for the Rays, who do have a few options, though none with the experience or excellent arsenal that Jax has. If he’s getting looks as the closer, he could prove to be one of the best.