Pitcher Prevalence in First Round Picks
Anyone who pays more than passing attention to baseball knows that pitcher injuries are a serious problem. As pitchers have thrown harder in recent years, arm injuries in turn have risen. It should go without saying that this is bad for baseball and bad for pitchers. There is a cruel irony to the fact that, in an effort to boost their performance (and earn life-changing contracts), pitchers are throwing ever-harder, only to inevitably get hurt and undermine that value they were hoping to generate.
For their part, teams have tried to adapt to preserve the health of pitchers, though those efforts are obviously falling short. As part of those efforts, pitchers are throwing less during the regular season (just three pitchers surpassed 200 IP in 2025, for instance); pitchers are also throwing less in the lead up to the regular season.
Still, optimizing for value on a per inning basis has failed to stem the rise in injuries and has come at a cost to high-end value too. Per-inning value is absolutely important, but the relative dip in volume has impacted pitcher value. By FanGraphs fWAR, just 29 pitchers from 2021 to 2025 reached 5+ wins above replacement whereas 43 pitchers reached or surpassed that threshold from 2015-2019 and 44 did so from 2010-2014.
These dynamics have fundamentally changed how teams approach roster construction and player acquisition. One particular aspect of that change is the decline in first round pitcher draft prevalence. The chart below illustrates that decline in first round pitcher draft picks relative to position players.
From 2000 to 2010, 271 pitchers were taken in the first round versus 233 position players, or 53.8% of all first round picks. From 2011 to 2020, 46.5% of players taken in the first round were pitchers. From 2021 through 2025, that fraction has plummeted to 30.7%. Some pitchers’ talent is too obvious to pass up —think Paul Skenes— but for the most part, teams are recognizing the additional risk that comes with pitchers and are adjusting their drafting habits in light of that risk.
The changing nature of perceived pitcher value is evident elsewhere too. Relief pitchers seem to increasingly be treated merely as interchangeable assets when there is always another hard-throwing pitcher in waiting. It took 11 years for Tarik Skubal to surpass David Price‘s arbitration record for a pitcher.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of good pitching to baseball (without pitching, there is no baseball). Good pitching is incredibly fun to watch and has infused baseball with unique strategy. Of course, first round pick prevalence alone is not the be-all and end-all for this discussion, but it is yet another canary in the coal mine warning us of the impact of injuries on the sport and its players.
