Fantasy Baseball Today: Why Chris Towers is out on Spencer Strider in 2026 drafts

In order to buy into Spencer Strider this offseason, I needed to see some tangible evidence that he could be the pitcher he used to be. 

You remember that, right? Strider was, at his best, one of the most fun pitchers to watch in baseball, with an all-world fastball/slider combo that, frankly, didn't require much more to make him an ace. He'd just pump those massive quads and tell the hitter, "You've got one of two choices coming toward you, and neither is going to go well for you." And for two years, he was right. 

For two years, he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball. He struck out 37.4% of opposing batters between 2022 and 2023. The slider did a lot of the heavy lifting, but it was the combination of the two pitches that really made Strider so dominant – in fact, more than half of his strikeouts (244 out of 483) came on just his four-seamer across those two seasons, and he put up a whiff rate north of 26% with the pitch in both seasons. 

Unfortunately, I just don't think he's that guy anymore. In 2024, he made it through all of two starts before dealing with elbow pain that ultimately required an internal brace added to his UCL. That procedure is less intensive than a full ligament reconstruction (Tommy John surgery), and Strider entered 2025 with high hopes and a timetable that had him on the mound for Spring Training. His velocity wasn't all the way back, but surely, that would come, right?

Not so much. There were some flashes of his former self, but Strider ultimately settled in nearly 2 mph down from 2023 and closer to 3 down from 2022. His slider was still a weapon, and his rarely-used changeup and curveball both showed upside, but his fastball was a shell of itself, and it led to a 4.45 ERA, 4.93 xERA, and 24.3% strikeout rate – significantly worse numbers than we've ever seen before from Strider. And things didn't get better as the season went on – he had just a 18.3% strikeout rate in August and September, in fact. 

And after his first start of the spring this weekend, I don't see much reason to think Strider rediscovered his form this offseason.

Yes, I'm aware that Strider is intentionally throwing at less than full effort early in the spring, focusing on maintaining his form for the full season and prioritizing pitch shapes and mechanics rather than velocity. Still … 93.1 mph? That's down 2.4 mph from last year, when he was, again, already down near 3 mph from his 2023 peak. The last time we saw a Strider worth getting excited about, he was throwing 4 mph harder than we saw in Strider's start this weekend. Even his slider, which remained a dominant pitch in 2025, rated out as right around average by various Stuff+ metrics.  Do we think all of that can be explained away by lower intensity throwing?

Maybe. But here's where I'm at: After seeing the post-injury version of Strider we got last season, I need affirmative reasons to believe he can still be a difference maker for Fantasy. We tried giving him the benefit of the doubt in 2025, when one spring showing (with his velocity down significantly) was enough to push Strider into the top-20 range among SPs in many drafts. I'm past giving him the benefit of the doubt. I need to see it before I buy in.

And on Saturday, we definitely didn't see it. He'll likely look better than that the next time he pitches, but is he likely to look anything like he did the last time he was a great pitcher? I'm pretty skeptical about that at this point. And anyway, his price – SP26, according to FantasyPros.com's averages, though that number almost certainly has to fall, right? – is already high enough that he's being drafted with the expectation that he can still be an impactful pitcher. We're three years removed from actually seeing much of that from Strider. 

If he was going off the board as the 50th SP off the board, it'd be a lot easier to see the positives. I'd be a lot more open to the idea that he's just working on arm strength or mechanics or any other possible excuse or explanation for what we just saw. Because I can see a path to real upside for Strider if he can regain at least some of that former fastball velocity. Heck, he probably doesn't even have to get back to averaging 96-97 to get there – velocity matters a lot, but Strider was showcasing a better movement profile on the four-seamer in his spring start, so even 95 might be enough to still unlock some upside. 

But there are plenty of pitchers I can squint and make out the case for upside with. Even pitchers I don't really like much, like Gavin Williams (SP43 in ADP), Cade Horton (SP58), or Edward Cabrera (SP61), have obvious bull cases in their profiles. Are any of those best-case scenarios quite as impressive as the best we've seen from Strider? Probably not, but we're also an elbow surgery and several ticks on the radar gun removed from seeing that upside from Strider, so I'm just not sure he actually has that upside anymore. Realistically. 

Maybe this spring outing will cause some of the Strider drafters to reconsider their optimism and cause that price to come down. But it would need to come down a lot for me to realistically consider drafting Strider at this point. And I just don't see that price ever falling far enough for me to be able to justify the price. Not when there are still so many out there willing to overlook the obvious shortcomings in his game.