Landen Roupp: Up-And-Coming Dynasty Player

The goal in fantasy baseball is to collect as many of the best players as possible in order to dominate your league and win the title.

But guess what? That is the goal of probably every other player in your league, making it pretty much impossible to attain your goal. So the next best thing is to be quick on the draw and grab as many of the overlooked players that you can, as they are often the key to winning.

One such overlooked player is Landen Roupp of the San Francisco Giants. Roupp is 27 years old, so he is not some fresh-faced rookie suddenly making a name for himself. Instead, he is in his third season with the Giants and is suddenly making a name for himself.

Let’s dive in and examine the pride of Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

The Stats

Landen Roupp had a very successful college career at UNC Wilmington, winning the Colonial Athletic Association pitcher of the Year award in 2021 and finishing with a 2.99 ERA in 258.2 career innings. But Roupp does not throw the ball hard, leading him to drop in the draft before the Giants selected him in the 12th round.

The Giants didn’t care about how hard he threw the ball. They liked his ability to spin the ball and generate great movement on nearly every pitch, and that ability to spin the ball was on full display in the minors. In 53 career games and 33 starts, he compiled a 2.56 ERA and 1.019 WHIP with an eye-popping 13.0 K/9 rate.

Roupp first appeared with the Giants in 2024 and was used mostly as a reliever before starting full-time last year. For his MLB career, he has a 3.51 ERA and 1.381 WHIP with an 8.8 K/9 rate.

The Tools

• Sinker: 40% Usage, 93.3 mph

Loupp doesn’t have an overpowering fastball (as you can see by his average velo ranking in the 30th percentile), but that doesn’t prevent him from throwing his sinker as much as he does. The secret to this pitch is the movement he gets, as it has 4.5 more inches of drop vs. the average sinker and tails 17.7 inches. With right-handers getting busted inside and lefties reaching outside, Loupp has limited batters to a .152 batting average and .212 SLG through his first five starts.

• Curve: 28% Usage, 76.5 mph

This is the pitch that scouts loved while Landen Roupp was in college and has helped carry him to the majors. Thrown with more than 3,000 RPM, he throws the pitch in the strike zone only 38% of the time, thanks to the massive break he gets on this pitch (19.7 inches, which is 10.6 inches more break vs. the average right-handed pitcher). Opposing batters see the ball start in the zone, but by the time the ball arrives, it is out of the zone, leading hitters to have only .167 batting average with a .167 slug so far. In 36 at-bats they have six singles vs. 14 strikeouts.

• Change: 18% Usage, 87.2 mph

Roupp’s change is a pitch that scouts said he threw too hard coming out of college, as it was too close to his fastball speed. But since entering the Giants’ system, the sinker has added some velocity, allowing for a nice speed difference between the two pitches. The pitch doesn’t tail away from lefties any more than the average right-hander’s change, but he creates 6.8 inches more drop. As the old timers like me say, it just drops off the table.

How good has the pitch been so far? Well, opposing hitters are o-for-18 with six strikeouts.

• Cutter: 12% Usage, 88.5 mph

This is the one pitch that is currently not working for Roupp and one that wasn’t very effective last year. In 2025, opposing batters hit .333 with a .500 SLG. This year the BAA is .625 with an .875 as hitters are 5-for-8 with two doubles. It is more of a show pitch, so that is the good news. But it is something Roupp needs to work on to give him a solid fourth pitch.

The Results

When looking at the amount of pitches Landen Roupp throws in the strike zone, you would think he would be struggling on the mound. Only 42.4 of his pitches land in the strike zone, compared to the league average of 49.9%. But his ability to nibble at the corners (43.5% of pitches are at the edge of the zone compared to 39% of the league) and the movement he generates leads to tons of weak contact.

It is early, but through his first five starts, Roupp had a barrel percentage of 0% on 65 batted balls with a measly hard hit percentage of 23.1% (league average is 37%). In 2024, Roupp was used mostly as a reliever and struggled coming out of the pen. Turned into a full-time starter last year, he showed he could compete at this level. But since last season, he has hit a new level.

His hard hit percentage has fallen 13.4 points, while his strikeout rate has jumped from 21.4% to 28.2% while his ground ball percentage has gone from 46% to 52.3%. Fly balls were a problem for Roupp last year as he allowed 11 homers in his 106.2 innings of work. This year, he has yet to allow a long ball.

After struggling with command in 2024 and 2025, Roupp has a WHIP of 1.012, thanks in large part to a H/9 rate of 5.2. He could improve on his 3.9 BB/9 rate, but when so many pitches actually land outside the zone, you can live with that walk rate if the hit rate remains where it is.

The Verdict

All of this is the long way of saying Landen Roupp is a pitcher worth pursuing. Is he an ace? No. Is he better than many pitchers currently rostered? Without a doubt.

In his five starts this season, he has allowed one earned run or less four times. Against the New York Mets, he allowed seven runs (five earned) in 4.2 innings of work. In his four other starts – two earned runs in 23 innings for a 0.78 ERA.

How well the bargain players perform over their value is often the difference between winning and losing in fantasy baseball – or even real baseball. Roupp is the type of pitcher who is the difference between winning and losing for most teams. Right now, there are not a lot of people jumping onto the Roupp bandwagon. He is rostered in only 50% of Yahoo leagues and 35% of ESPN leagues, so now is the time to go get him.