The Pros and Cons for George Kirby in 2024
George Kirby is coming off of a 2023 season where he went 13-10 with a 3.35 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, and 172 strikeouts in 190.2 innings pitched. It was a very successful sophomore season for the 26-year-old. However, he is one of the most polarizing pitchers going into the 2024 season. This can be seen by looking at FantasyPros consensus rankings, where some experts have him as high as SP5, and others as low as SP22. So is Kirby a surefire fantasy ace or does he leave something to be desired? I’ll be stating the cases both for and against him for this upcoming season.
FantasyPros Experts Rankings
The Case For George Kirby
Kirby provides a very safe floor, featuring the best control in the majors in only his second season. He had a microscopic walk rate of just 2.5%, the best among qualified pitchers. This led to a 3.35 ERA (13th best) and 1.04 WHIP (3rd best). 20 of his 31 starts were quality starts, and he allowed two earned runs or fewer in 16 of the 31. In a season where the best pitchers were suffering from blowup outings more than ever before, Kirby only allowed more than 5 earned runs in a start twice all season. The fact that he was only 25 years old makes it all that much more impressive since he still has his entire career ahead of him to further improve his skills. The only skill of his that needs improving at this point is getting more swings and misses since his 8.12 K/9 isn’t quite what you’d expect from an ace. If he can add more strikeouts to his elite control and ratios, it’s easy to see him as a top 5 fantasy starting pitcher, especially considering he was already SP7 last season. Any type of small step forward would solidify Kirby as a legit ace for many years to come.
The Case Against George Kirby
As I just mentioned, Kirby’s glaring flaw is his strikeouts. His 22.9% whiff rate only placed him in the 27th percentile, which led to an underwhelming 22.7% strikeout rate. Drafting Kirby as your ace would put you at an immediate disadvantage in strikeouts, competing with pitchers with similar ADPs such as Gausman, Lopez, Castillo, and Glasnow. The second concern is that there’s no certainty that he will provide ratios as elite as last year. His 3.90 xERA was significantly higher than his actual ERA, and he had a 25th percentile .262 xBA which makes you question if he can repeat his 1.04 WHIP. The pitch clock and shift ban in 2023 led to ratios as a whole getting worse among starters, and the categories felt pretty random at times. Sandy Alcantara, the most dominant pitcher of 2022, expressed his frustrations with the changes before his injury in 2023. There were many instances where he had one bad inning knock him out of the game due to a barrage of singles and not being able to regain momentum due to the pitch clock. The best way to avoid this is to not let the batter get the ball in play in the first place, which is why strikeouts are so important in this current environment. It’s also important to realize that your pitching staff will be filled with many much more volatile pitchers once the aces are all drafted. Occasional horrible 8+ run starts are bound to happen to every fantasy pitching staff, and they could easily wipe out all of the hard work a guy like Kirby does to keep your ERA and WHIP down. The best bet could be to target strikeout pitchers in drafts and trust the randomness of pitching to land you with a respectable ERA and WHIP by the end of the season. This mindset would make him closer to SP20 than SP10, jumped by guys such as Skubal, Yamamoto, Peralta, and Nola.
My Take
I think Kirby’s true value is between the two extremes. I would slot him at SP15, around other near-aces who have valid concerns of their own, such as Aaron Nola, Framber Valdez, Blake Snell, and Max Fried. These pitchers are low-end SP1 options if you focus on hitting early and elite SP2 options if you pair them with one of the top 10 at the position. I also think that in head-to-head leagues Kirby deserves a slight bump up the rankings for his consistency. His steadiness would mean that you wouldn’t have to worry about a blow-up start possibly costing you an entire weekly matchup, which has been the case in the past with guys such as Nola and Snell. Expect to draft Kirby in the late 4th round or early 5th round in standard 12-team leagues.
