2025 Sleeper: Nick Pivetta

Dart throws in the later rounds of drafts are one of the best ways to get a jump on breakout players that contribute meaningfully throughout the fantasy baseball season. Instead of fawning over prospects or otherwise unproven players, one often overlooked and undervalued source of production lies in the old-guard. In some of the more familiar players, who people might disregard, but have made under-the-radar adjustments that differentiate them from the player people think they know.

One such player to target in 2025 is Nick Pivetta.

Going into free agency for his age 32 season, Pivetta has been a relatively known commodity throughout his career, consistently showing signs of promise while continually returning a 4.00+ ERA in each of his eight seasons. While these subpar ERA results might make one turn a blind eye to Pivetta, he’s made drastic improvements to his arsenal since the start of the 2023 season. Since then, Pivetta has quietly been striking batters out at a 11.1 K/9 clip, the eighth highest rate in the league among starters within that same timeframe.

Per Ian Browne’s newsletter in the Red Sox Beat (2), in early June 2023 Pivetta discovered the key to his revitalization: an adjustment to his slider, turning it into a sweeper with drastically more horizontal break. Since this discovery, Pivetta gradually tinkered with and worked this sweeper into his repertoire, using it in 2023 but leaning on it much more heavily in 2024 to a tune of 23% of his pitches thrown. Even while serving as a large slice of his pitch-mix pie, hitters still struggled in hitting this elite 1.85 PLA frisbee, delivering a quality of pitch equivalent to that of a 1.85 ERA.

Nick pivetta's sweeper (3)

While this sweeper might be the shiny new toy, Pivetta’s four-seamer is no slouch either. Though roughly league-average velocity, an elite 19.9 iVB alongside an 82nd percentile extension lead to a fastball that he can rely on to drive the foundation of his approach on the rubber. With a shiny new sweeper, his strong fastball, and his old reliable curveball, Pivetta is able to keep hitters on their toes with three pitches all over 100 stuff+ and location+. But with this quality 3-pitch repertoire, how did Pivetta still turn in his 2024 season with a mediocre 4.14 ERA, potentially keeping him in fantasy baseball purgatory?

Pivetta has underperformed his expected ERA metrics his entire career, and with 8 seasons now under his belt, it’s certainly hard to find optimism for better results within his margins. That said, these past two years he has still shown notable improvement within these metrics, delivering career-best SIERAs hovering in the 3.35 range. Some additional upside could come from his free agency decision, where he has potential to leave Boston and Fenway’s second-worst Park Factor in the league, where over his two years of improvement has yielded a 4.21 ERA at home and 3.99 ERA away. While escaping Fenway may not do much to remedy his career 15.5% HR/FB, there’s reason to be optimistic as he continues to improve his arsenal into some potentially friendlier environments.

Even if Pivetta stays the course and retains a near a 4.00 ERA in 2025, he has continually delivered fantasy value through his elite strikeout numbers blended with strong WHIPs and win chances. I wouldn't be surprised to see 2025 Nick Pivetta's final stat line look eerily similar to that of Pablo Lopez, a top-25 fantasy pitcher. With his likelihood to go past pick 200 in redraft fantasy baseball leagues next year, Pivetta has the triple-20 upside you look for in a late-draft dart-throw.

Sources:

1. Image: What Does Nick Pivetta’s Red Sox Turnaround Mean For 2024?, Link:https://nesn.com/2024/01/what-does-nick-pivettas-red-sox-turnaround-mean-for-2024/

2. Pivetta's tinkering paying off in spades for Sox, Link: https://www.mlb.com/news/nick-pivetta-tweaks-slider-sees-improved-results

3. Video: Nick Pivetta, Link: https://pitcherlist.com/player/nick-pivetta/

Nick pivetta (1)