5 Fantasy Baseball Pitching Prospect Sleepers - Breakout Candidates to Target in Drafts (2026)

January 12, 2026

Jeremy's top 5 fantasy baseball pitching prospects sleepers for 2026 drafts. His top pitching breakout candidates to target in drafts include Trey Yesavage, Nolan McLean, Bubba Chandler, more

As the fantasy football season is coming to a close and the MLB offseason is heating up, it's time to look towards the 2026 fantasy baseball season. Drafting for a season months away may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the best time to find draft values is before spring training begins.

That's especially true for up-and-coming prospects and rookies, who may fly under the radar now before rising up draft boards once they impress during the spring. Identifying these players early in the offseason should give you a leg up on your competition.

This is especially true for pitching prospects. They are generally much more volatile than their hitting counterparts, but there are a handful of rookie pitchers who look to be set to make big contributions in 2026. These particular pitchers need to be on the radar for fantasy leagues of all sizes, as they are all either already going within the top 200 picks or will likely breach that milestone by the time draft season really kicks into gear.

* ADP referenced is the NFBC ADP for Draft Champions drafts as of December 19, 2025. 

Trey Yesavage, SP, Toronto Blue Jays

Current ADP: 139

2025 MLB stats (including playoffs): 8 GS, 41 2/3 IP, 3.46 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 32.2% K%, 10.5% BB%

Trey Yesavage is a name that many fantasy baseball managers may not be aware of if they tuned out towards the end of the season. He was called up on September 15 and made three starts to close out the regular season, allowing five runs and striking out 16 over 14 innings. While that was a respectable enough start to his career, the youngster took things to another level in the playoffs.

He posted an insane 35.8% strikeout rate in six playoff appearances, which peaked during a 12-strikeout masterpiece over seven innings against the Dodgers in the World Series.

All TWELVE of Trey Yesavage's strikeouts tonight 👀 pic.twitter.com/ZrHqxrgUkm

— MLB (@MLB) October 30, 2025

The 22-year-old was not on any redraft fantasy radars heading into 2025, as he was just recently selected as the 20th overall pick in the 2024 draft. In his first year of professional experience, he flew through every single level of the minor leagues with ease, striking out 160 batters in only 98 innings. To display that type of dominance in every challenge thrown at him, all the way up to the biggest stage against the best team in baseball in the World Series, suggests this wasn't some fluke.

Opposing hitters will obviously have more information on him to study and prepare for facing him in 2026, but Yesavage has a unique quirk that makes him especially hard to get adjusted to. He throws his pitches with an arm angle of 64 degrees and a release point over seven feet above the ground, making him one of the steepest throwers in the league.

That's something that hitters simply aren't used to seeing, which makes it even harder to distinguish between his fastball, split finger, and slider.

One of the riskier parts of drafting rookie pitchers in fantasy is having to deal with innings limits as the year progresses. However, between the minors, majors, and playoffs, Yesavage totaled 139 2/3 innings in 2025, which could easily put him on track for 160 frames in 2026, which would be more than enough to justify his current draft cost of 139th overall.

Bubba Chandler, SP, Pittsburgh Pirates

Current ADP: 152

2025 MLB stats: 4 GS, 31 1/3 IP, 4.02 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 25.0% K%, 3.2% BB%

Bubba Chandler has been close to the top of pitching prospect rankings for a long time now, as he was already a popular sleeper last year at this time. After a dominant 2024 in the minors, many expected him to be called up to Pittsburgh in May at the latest, much like what the Pirates did with Paul Skenes a year earlier.

Instead, May came and went, and Chandler entered a rough patch in the minors as he reportedly grew increasingly frustrated that he hadn’t been called up to the big leagues yet. 

He finally earned the promotion on August 22 and made four starts and seven total appearances before the season came to an end. While there were no double-digit strikeout masterpieces, he was effective overall. It was encouraging to see the 23-year-old walk only four batters in 31 ⅓ innings after struggling with control at times in Triple-A throughout the year. He features a fastball that ranks in the 98th percentile with a 98.9 mph average velocity and two other plus-offerings in his slider and changeup. 

Bubba Chandler turns in a dominant start for the @Pirates 🔥

MLB's top pitching prospect allows just one hit while striking out six across five innings: pic.twitter.com/TvTcTNyqss

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) September 21, 2025

While most young pitchers are typically unproven or have injury histories, Chandler is about as steady a prospect as you can find. He logged 131 ⅓ innings last year, 119 ⅔ in 2024, and 111 in 2023. He should be a full go for 2026 and has the potential to join Skenes to create one of the best one-two punches in all of baseball at the top of Pittsburgh’s rotation. 

Nolan McLean, SP, New York Mets

Current ADP: 101

2025 MLB stats: 8 G, 48 IP, 2.06 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 30.3% K%, 8.5% BB%

Nolan McLean was the most successful of this bunch in the majors in 2025, tossing 48 dominant innings to stay just under that 50-frame mark to keep him rookie eligible for 2026. However, he surprisingly has an ADP of 101, which is almost five rounds higher than Yesavage and Chandler. That doesn’t make McLean a bad pick, but it does make me prefer those other two when factoring in draft cost. 

It’s also important to consider that this ADP is from 40 drafts by some of the most dedicated fantasy baseball players before the calendar even turned to 2026. It’s very likely that McLean, and everyone else on this list, will be drafted much later in the average home league with your friends who probably aren’t as up-to-date on all of these late-season phenoms. 

On paper, McLean’s stuff does not seem as dominant as the first two on this list, with a mid-90s fastball and a focus on getting ground ball outs. This can be seen with his 60.2% ground-ball rate in the majors last season, although he also posted an elite 30.3% strikeout rate. In 113 ⅔ innings in the minors last season, the 24-year-old posted a still great 27.2% mark, but it’s unusual to see a three percent jump upon promotion to tougher competition. 

While some strikeout regression may be on the horizon, which prevents him from having the same type of upside as Yesavage and Chandler, his ability to keep the ball on the ground still gives him a path to be a solid second or third pitcher in your fantasy rotation.

Tatsuya Imai, SP, Free Agent

Current ADP: 217

2025 NPB stats: 24 GS, 163 2/3 IP, 1.92 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 27.8% K%, 7.0% BB%

While not the typical "prospect", Tatsuya Imai will be considered a rookie as he headlines this year's class of international free agents. While he's not as much of a slam-dunk ace as Yoshinobu Yamamoto, he could very easily follow in the footsteps of Kodai Senga and Shota Imanaga, who both had very successful starts to their MLB careers.

His minuscule ERA and WHIP shouldn't be expected to transfer over to the states, as the NPB has a very lackluster offensive environment at the moment. However, Japanese hitters do have the tendency to strike out much less often compared to the major leagues, so Imai should have the chance to improve on his already good strikeout rate of 27.8% to get to a truly elite mark in MLB standards.

He also has an aspect of uniqueness about his arsenal and delivery that should make it hard for hitters to adjust to. He features a very low arm slot that could help the effectiveness of his fastball, and he also features a slider that breaks in the "wrong" direction, thanks to his delivery and ability to spin the baseball.

This means that the pitch actually has arm side movement, breaking away from left-handed batters and into right-handed batters, despite Imai being a right-handed pitcher.

This should make the 27-year-old especially tough to handle, especially for hitters seeing him for the very first time. While his ADP is currently all the way down at 217, that number is a bit misleading. The hype for him has been growing as the offseason progresses, and he is likely to sign with a team very soon. In the past week, his ADP has risen to 148, and I expect that number to keep going up once he's no longer a free agent.

Connelly Early, SP, Boston Red Sox

Current ADP: 194

2025 MLB stats: 4 GS, 19 1/3 IP, 2.33 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 36.7% K%, 5.1% BB%

Connelly Early doesn’t have the same prospect pedigree as the rest of the players on this list, as he was drafted in the fifth round of the 2023 draft and never cracked a top 100 prospect list. He’s even been overshadowed in Boston’s farm system by fellow lefty Payton Tolle. Yet here he is with an ADP of 211, while Tolle is outside of the top 300.

This is mainly due to a 19-inning stretch spanning four starts to close out the season after being called up on September 9. The 23-year-old struck out 11 batters against the A’s in his major league debut and went on to post an eye-popping 36.7% strikeout rate. This didn’t come out of nowhere, as Early put up a 2.60 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, and a 31.9% strikeout rate in 100 ⅓ innings between Double-A and Triple-A in 2025. 

Connelly Early's first 9 MLB innings:
0 R
16 K pic.twitter.com/p1IT03p1nZ

— MLB (@MLB) September 16, 2025

It looks like he was very underrated and overlooked throughout his time as a prospect, and he could be poised for a big season in 2026. He certainly proved himself capable of holding a rotation spot, but Boston’s starting pitcher depth makes it far from a guarantee. They have Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray, and Brayan Bello seemingly locked into the rotation, which leaves Early, Kutter Crawford (wrist), Patrick Sandoval (elbow), Johan Oviedo, and Tolle all vying for only two spots.

Early is definitely a name to keep tabs on as the season draws closer. There's some risk drafting him now, over three months before the season, which is why the ADP is settled close to 200. If it does become evident that he's in line for a starting rotation spot, he would become a slam dunk at this price.  

Deep League Pitching Prospects to Target

• Jonah Tong, NYM (283 ADP)
• Payton Tolle, BOS (315 ADP)
• Robby Snelling, MIA (355 ADP)
• Andrew Painter, PHI (357 ADP)
• Thomas White, MIA (366 ADP)

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