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Nick looks at 10 potential fantasy baseball breakouts, sleepers for closers and saves for Week 2 of 2026. His top relief pitcher waiver wire and trade targets for saves.
Some part of us surely knew that 2026 would bring a healthy dose of bullpen madness, but many were not prepared to tangle with this degree of chaos. Where there is ambiguity, there is opportunity. Let's run through another week's worth of risers and potential reliever breakouts.
This column aims to sift through the ol' "small sample" sandbox to pluck out rising relievers and closer candidates to target. We'll be discussing players who have risen due to the team circumstances and early results, focusing more on controllable outcomes like strikeouts, walks, and pitch usage/velocity. You can't stack the deck with everyone listed here, but we hope you can stash some fliers.
With many teams not simply deploying the "best" arm in the ninth inning, we have to accept a degree of uncertainty. However, being a trusted leverage arm used in tight spots can be where sneaky 10-win reliever campaigns are born! Let's dig into bullpens across the league, with options both shallow and deep, heading into Week 2 of the 2026 fantasy baseball season.
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Riley O'Brien, St. Louis Cardinals
There’s plenty to love about O’Brien’s early momentum in St. Louis. We were bearish on Ryne Stanek’s form, and while STL may still play some musical chairs with roles, O’Brien is the one with the two most recent saves. He also took the ninth in a tie game, while Stanek appeared in the seventh.
The 31-year-old had shown promise as a groundball arm in 2025, but a 45:22 K:BB in 48 IP wasn’t outstanding. His 2.06 ERA/1.15 WHIP carried most of the fantasy value, except his 3.61 FIP and 3.82 SIERA pointed to regression. Was the spring calf injury enough reason to slow-roll his closer ascension to start the year?
He still won’t generate massive whiffs, earning a modest 9.1% swinging-strike rate with five strikeouts in 5 ⅓ IP. But we’re okay with that, as he’s yet to walk a batter following the 11.1% clip last year. More sinkers have also resulted in an early 64% ground-ball rate (54% in ‘25). Great preliminary signals here!
A sad theme across many mediocre or outright poor MLB bullpens is that many risers are labeled such because so many others around them are faltering. You'll find a few later on, but we'll take what we can get.
Bryan Baker & Hunter Bigge, Tampa Bay Rays
Baker got the win on Sunday with a scoreless ninth in a tie ballgame before notching his first save of the young season on Monday. He did give up a line-drive homer to Matt Shaw (it barely cleared the wall and was simply good hitting on an inside/low slider), but that’s his first baserunner allowed!
If you want some fun-with-small-samples info, Baker entered the week with the second-lowest zone-contact rate of all relievers (54.5%). Only Kenley Jansen and Andres Munoz were also below 60%. The Rays are having him rely more on the changeup, which has been successful.
Bigge was called up with Garrett Cleavinger (calf) out, and he got five straight outs to lead to Baker. It’s encouraging to see that kind of leverage work so swiftly. Kevin Kelly had notched Sunday’s extra-inning save, but took the fifth inning against Chicago’s 9-1-2 pocket.
Fun (?) fact: Ian Seymour has a .533 BABIP and a 1.95 FIP behind the 13.50 ERA. We love highlighting hot starts, but some cold openings are truly just largely undeserved trainwrecks. And throwing too many strikes can be a problem! How does Tampa have the worst bullpen ERA (7.98) in the league?? Come back, Edwin Uceta!
Bryan King, Houston Astros
It’s A Tale of Two Bryans in Houston. King has been a steady force, allowing one run alongside an 8:2 K:BB across 5 1/3 IP (4:1 against lefties and righties alike). Abreu has posted gaudy numbers in recent years, but King has a career 2.62 ERA with a 26.8% K rate and 2.99 SIERA over roughly 100 MLB IP.
And then there’s Abreu, who has given up at least one run in all four appearances, including three homers and a 6:5 K:BB in just 2 2/3 IP. His stuff gets players who are gearing up to swing, but many sit back and let the closer fall behind. You can’t battle velocity and command woes without inviting several questions.
The Athletic's Astros beat, Chandler Rome, is already wondering aloud when Joe Espada will let Abreu "work some things out in lower leverage spots," while proceeding to acknowledge that no one else has that closer profile. It's complicated!
*Enyel De Los Santos was just activated on Monday. Will he be thrown into the late frames? They are desperate.
Astros bullpen combined ERA is 6.97.
The bullpen has allowed 34 runs in 11 games.
34!
They’ve given up a league leading 13 home runs.
— Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) April 7, 2026
Cole Winn & Jakob Junis, Texas Rangers
Texas entered Monday with the third-best bullpen ERA in MLB. The 2.04 figure does little to soothe those who have watched Robert Garcia and Chris Martin sandbag their ratios and take two losses in the last three days. Tyler Alexander snagged a pair of circumstantial saves (one was rest, the other was in extras).
Therefore, by process of elimination, Winn is a…winner. Did you know he was taken 15th overall in the 2018 Draft? But starting didn’t pan out, and we saw him produce a 1.51 ERA in 41 2/3 IP of relief last year, albeit with a 4.13 SIERA.
And now, he’s begun ‘26 with 5 1/3 scoreless innings (5:2 K:BB). His four-seamer was sitting below 94 mph in the first three games, but that has risen to 94.7 and 94.9 recently, maxing at 95.9 on Sunday. He only threw two splitters and a slider on Monday.
Junis secured Monday’s save, following Garcia in the eighth as Texas avoided using Martin, who turns 40 in June, for a third time in four days. Oh, and Junis’s only blemish in six innings is one hit (4:0 K:BB). It’s a messy bullpen, but we prefer this mess to the Athletics, for instance.
Tony Santillan & Graham Ashcraft, Cincinnati Reds
Emilio Pagan has allowed multiple baserunners in four of his six appearances thus far, including that nasty four-run waterfall on April 1. We know that trust has been established with him, but he needed a .200 BABIP (career .253) to mitigate last year’s 1.31 HR/9 (10 total).
Well, Pagan has already given up two longballs. Both Santillan and Ashcraft have amassed three holds apiece, with Ashcraft’s 11:3 K:BB holding a clear edge over 8:5 for TS. But the latter had seven saves last year, and Ashcraft has zero career saves.
Of course, we can't overlook the power of preparation for the bullpen role, both physically and mentally.
It’s Graham Ashcraft’s first spring as a reliever. His velocity is in midseason form, and he overpowered the top of the Mariners lineup with his fastball. He’s likely heading back into a high leverage role in 2026.
He said last week, “I’ve got to keep pounding the zone like I…
— Charlie Goldsmith (@CharlieG__) February 22, 2026
Caleb Kilian, San Francisco Giants
I’m not “out” on Keaton Winn, but it’s hard to call him a riser when he gives up runs on back-to-back days. So now we’re eyeing Kilian, who has remade himself as a reliever after hitting a wall as a starter in the Cubs system. He then tore his shoulder muscle up and spent much of 2024-25 rehabbing.
The current result of that is a guy with four added ticks of velo on his four-seamer (97.4 mph) who had thrown four perfect innings for SF ahead of Monday. He has a knuckle curve, sinker, and slider behind that. Ryan Walker is not inspiring confidence. Will Kilian walk in the footsteps of so many converted SP prospects before him?
Gregory Soto, Pittsburgh Pirates
Dennis Santana is 81% rostered on Yahoo, while Soto’s at 25%. That’s not right! I won’t re-hash everything in last week’s Soto spiel, but the southpaw has 12 Ks in 6 1/3 IP of one-run ball. We can live with a ~10% walk rate with these whiffs, though we’d prefer 8%.
He’s a FrankenAce dreamboat. I hope that many of you faithful readers pounced on him already, but we'll tack him on the end here, just in case.
Quick Holds Risers:
-Rico Garcia is rising in Baltimore, though Andrew Kittredge is on rehab assignment.
-Fernando Cruz remains overlooked, and both David Bednar and Camilo Doval look off.
-Grant Taylor being an opener is annoying, I know. Weigh long-term talent vs. immediate need.
-Chase Silseth is a key setup man now. Kirby Yates’ form upon returning will determine his role.
-Calvin Faucher and Andrew Nardi are bringing the whiffs to open 2026.
-Brooks Raley is running back his 2023 form (25 holds with over a strikeout per inning).
-Angel Zerpa got Monday’s save and will clean up as the clear top southpaw.
-Tanner Scott looks like his stellar 2024 self after a turbulent ‘25.
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