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Ben looks at 3 starting pitcher fantasy baseball breakouts, sleepers off to hot starts in 2025. Are Griffin Canning, Ryan Gusto, and Emilio Pagan for real?
Finding value at both the starting pitcher and relief pitcher positions is a key predictor of fantasy playoff contention, whether it be in points leagues, rotisserie, or categories-based scoring. This becomes particularly important as injuries start to accumulate and some high-profile names, such as Logan Gilbert, might find themselves sidelined for weeks or longer.
As the calendar turns to May, managers can begin to conclude a relatively decent sample size of outings. While there is still plenty of "noise" to sift through in terms of peripheral statistics, looking at "under the hood" changes can help predict which pitchers with early success can continue performing through the rest of the season.
Below are three arms, two starters and one reliever, who have shown promise in the early going of the 2025 MLB season. This article will take a deep dive into each pitcher to better examine their reasons for success and predict who is worth rostering or targeting, and who might be just a flash in the pan.
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Griffin Canning, New York Mets
2025 Stats: 31 IP, 2.61 ERA, 3.93 SIERA, 1.39 WHIP, 23.5% K%
38% Rostered
Canning is no stranger to lists like these. Having spent the first five years of his MLB career with the middling Los Angeles Angels, Canning floated somewhere between their second and fourth rotation arm during that time. Names like Reid Detmers and Andrew Heaney continually garnered more hype than Canning.
With the change in scenery to Queens via a move to the Mets in 2025, Canning continued to fly under the radar coming into the 2025 season. The Clay Holmes cross-town move brought much more excitement, while Kodai Senga's ghost ball (and health) continues to be a focal point for Mets reporters.
Meanwhile, Canning has quietly amassed a rotation-leading four Wins across 31 IP in 2025, punctuated by an impressive 2.31 ERA. Has the change in scenery come with a shift in approach to support Canning turning the proverbial corner to a consistent fantasy contributor?
As peripheral statistics are starting to stabilize from a sufficient sample size, Canning's are a bit mixed. His .318 BABIP is promising, indicating that if anything, hitters are getting relatively "lucky" compared to his career .291 mark. On the other hand, an unsustainable 84.6 LOB percentage could portend a rising ERA over the next month or two, as inevitably a larger proportion of those base runners will start to get home.
But there is promise here, for sure. So far in 2025, Canning is featuring his slider significantly more than in previous years. His slider accounts for 34.2 percent of his pitches in 2025, up from 24.1 percent in 2024. This pitch has always worked for Canning, consistently producing the highest Whiff percentage of any pitch in his arsenal year after year. However, perhaps the change to a new pitching coach has prompted him to make this adjustment, so far yielding great results.
His slider runs away from right-handed batters much more than his changeup, the pitch he threw second most after his fastball in 2024. This has led to more groundballs as evidenced by a 51.2 GB percentage so far in 2025 compared to a 40.7 percent mark in 2024.
Griffin Canning, Wicked 86mph Slider. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/LPXD55Mpu6
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 23, 2025
Interestingly, this has predominantly been due to an increase in groundballs via his fastball, rather than the slider itself. In 2025, he holds a 53.3 percent GB percentage on his fastball compared to a 30.1 percent mark in 2024, despite his fastball moving through the zone at roughly the same height as it has in prior years. This suggests that the one-two punch of his fastball-slider is working much better to induce soft, groundball contact compared to his changeup.
Verdict: Canning will continue to provide modest strikeout numbers, with improved Win upside compared to prior years, thanks to a strong Mets lineup. His move to his slider as his go-to second pitch is significantly improving his groundball numbers, suggesting he has made an actual change in repertoire to support his strong start to the 2025 season. He has the potential to contribute in all categories on a competitive team. Canning should be rostered in all formats as a strong SP4 with SP2 upside through 2025.
Ryan Gusto, Houston Astros
2025 Stats: 27 IP, 3.00 ERA, 3.14 SIERA, 1.15 WHIP, 26.4% K%
17% Rostered
This is not the Astros rotation that anyone was expecting. Spencer Arrighetti is on the shelf after a freak thumb fracture. Luis Garcia is out for an undetermined amount of time due to inflammation in his throwing elbow, a concerning injury. While Framber Valdez, Ronel Blanco, and Hunter Brown have held things together, opportunity has arisen for the likes of Hayden Wesneski and, more recently, Gusto.
Ryan Gusto's 3Ks in the 4th. pic.twitter.com/uyVkDzTEUc
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 30, 2025
Gusto has been in the Astros' system since 2019, slowly rising level by level, including spending the 2024 season in Triple-A Sugar Land, where he started 26 games with a 3.70 ERA across 148.1 innings. He is a fastball pitcher, throwing his four-seam fastball 50 percent of the time and averaging 94 mph, with occasional velocities reaching 96 mph. He lacks a clear second pitch, mixing in a sweeper, curveball, cutter, and changeup in relatively even proportion.
While Gusto has had a promising start to 2025, it remains a challenge to identify a specific reason why he will continue to produce at a high level. His 3.70 ERA last season in the minor leagues masked a frightening 5.00 xFIP. He holds a 26.4 K percentage in 2025 and has never held a K percentage higher than 25 percent at any stop in the minors.
The most likely scenario after just four major league starts is a lack of familiarity from opposing hitters, a common phenomenon with newly promoted pitchers, both great ones and not-so-great ones. As opposing hitters learn his tendencies and repertoire, the hits are likely to follow, with his ERA moving towards that minor league xFIP of 5.00, not the sub-4.00 ERA he has posted so far.
Finally, considering his limited MLB experience so far, it is worth noting that he has allowed at least two earned runs in three of his four outings. Perhaps more importantly, he has yet to pitch past the sixth inning, including two outings in which he has been pulled during the fifth inning. This presents a problem for win potential, on top of the concerns above.
Verdict: Even if he had a guaranteed rotation spot, Gusto presents significant risk with limited upside based on his middling minor league track record. He lacks a dominant one-two punch in his repertoire. Even more concerning, with Lance McCullers Jr. returning, Gusto is likely to find himself either in the bullpen or back in the minor leagues. Enjoy one or two more streaming opportunities, but be prepared for Gusto to lose his fantasy value in the next couple of weeks.
Emilio Pagan, Cincinnati Reds
2025 Stats: 2.51 ERA, 3.66 SIERA, 0.49 WHIP, 28.0% K%, 8 SV
53% Rostered
While the Reds' bullpen may have been slightly unpredictable coming into the 2025 season, no one could have predicted Alexis Diaz's demotion to the minor leagues so early in the season after numerous multi-run blowups. It is hard to imagine Diaz returning to the closer role at any point in 2025, leaving the door open for another reliever to secure the coveted closer role and potential for Saves.
Enter Pagan, who has secured eight of the Reds' 10 Saves, making him the clear-cut closer for a competitive NL Central team. They are loving this guy in Cincinnati.
Emilio Pagán appreciation post pic.twitter.com/ZK00xLaIL4
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 16, 2025
Pagan, a bit of a journeyman, is in his second season with the Reds after a couple of years in Minnesota and, before that, San Diego. He has frequently flirted with the closer role over the years, but has not amassed double-digit Saves since he was in Tampa Bay in 2019, when he logged 20 Saves.
A key feature of any closer, especially one that closes for Terry Francona, is limiting walks. Pagan has done that throughout his career with a career 6.9 BB percentage. In 2025, he has been even more impressive with a 4.0 BB percentage.
While guys like Mason Miller have to blow it by hitters, Pagan can induce different forms of strikes and strikeouts. He holds a solid 29.0 CSW percentage, split evenly between called and swinging strikes. He achieves this primarily with a rising fastball, very much "high heat" at the top of the strike zone, frequently jamming hitters who get behind the pitch, averaging 95mph. Coupling that with an 86 mph cutter from the same release point adds up to an impressive 40.0 percent PutAway percentage for his cutter.
With the upside of limited walks, the only point for concern with Pagan is a .065 BABIP. While flamethrowers can maintain a BABIP at that level, Pagan does not have that type of dominance. Furthermore, his career BABIP sits at .255, so some amount of regression is coming in terms of hits and ratios.
Regardless, Pagan has a clear grip on the closer role for a competitive, playoff-bound team in Cincinnati. His ownership is shockingly low for such an established role. With Diaz now in the minors, Tony Santillan and Graham Ashcraft are unlikely to challenge Pagan for the role. He is the guy in the ninth.
Verdict: Pagan will continue to produce Saves with a fair amount of strikeouts and an impressively low walk rate. He has a stranglehold on the closer role for the Reds, who will continue to compete and provide Save opportunities for Pagan. He should be rostered in all formats to provide Saves and ratio stabilization in the ninth inning for Cincinnati.
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