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Kevin looks at 3 starting pitcher fantasy baseball breakouts, sleepers off to hot starts in 2025. Are JP Sears, Colin Rea and Tommy Kahnle for real?
Just over a month and a half into the fantasy baseball season, we've seen quite a few surprising hot starts from pitchers exceeding expectations. However, fantasy managers need to do their due diligence to figure out who's for real and who has negative regression heading their way, which will impact their fantasy value.
In this piece, we will do a deep dive on three pitchers who have surprised many through the early part of the campaign: Athletics' lefty JP Sears, Cubs' starter Colin Rea, and Tigers' reliever Tommy Kahnle.
Should fantasy managers run to the waiver wire to add these breakout pitchers? Or are they fool's gold? Let's dive in!
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JP Sears, Athletics
2025 Stats: 40 IP, 2.93 ERA, 4.09 xFIP, 1.00 WHIP, 19.9% K%
55% Rostered
Coming in with the best ERA of any A's starter, Sears has gotten fantastic results to start the season and has helped bring the A's to second place in the AL West. The southpaw has traditionally had an ERA that hovers above 4.00, so a full run improvement must mean he's getting significantly different results from batters, right?
That's where this becomes a bit puzzling. From a batted ball profile, hitters are getting nearly the same exact results against him as they did last season. His groundball and flyball percentages are both within two percent of last season's results. But he's been much better at limiting how often hitters barrel the ball, seeing a drop from 10.2 percent to 6.6 percent.
JP Sears, Dirty 81mph Slider. 😨 pic.twitter.com/JOF2yliKrD
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 24, 2025
Regarding his arsenal, Sears has made two significant changes. The first is that he's almost entirely removed his sinker from his repertoire. He threw it 10.7 percent of the time last season and just seven times this season. It wasn't a terrible pitch for him in 2024, but it wasn't a strong pitch. Much of that drop has resulted in an increased use of his four-seamer.
The second change he's made is throwing his sweeper significantly more. Last season, he threw it 24.9 percent of the time; this season, it's up to 31.1 percent. This has been a very solid change for him, as the pitch is yielding phenomenal results. It has a .179 wOBA to go along with a .175 xwOBA. It's easily his most dominant pitch.
🧵JP Sears: Quiet Adjustments, Real Impact
Sears is off to a tremendous start in 2025
BB% is in the (90th) percentile, K% is back up from last year, and most importantly he's managing the long ball
Let's see how he can maintain the hot start 👇 pic.twitter.com/l6BZlsWUxv
— Maddux Minton (@MadduxMinton) May 5, 2025
Sears has also been controlling his pitches better, seeing his walk rate drop to 3.7 percent. That puts him in the 94th percentile and helps him get better results, especially since he is reliant on soft contact.
With a strikeout percentage below 20 percent, the biggest question regarding Sears' fantasy value is just how much soft contact he can continue to get and how long it will take hitters to start to figure him out. He's not getting many whiffs, and both his fastball and changeup are due for negative regression.
Verdict:
Sears will see some negative regression, but it likely won't hit him hard enough to drastically reduce his fantasy value. With his strikeout, groundball, and flyball percentages all very similar to the prior season, we're simply getting some positive variance from the 29-year-old. His ERA is likely to creep up to 3.50 soon, but if he keeps limiting damage by not walking batters, then he should have some staying power on your roster.
Colin Rea, Chicago Cubs
2025 Stats: 24.2 IP, 1.46 ERA, 3.77 xFIP, 1.054 WHIP, 21.2% K%
26% Rostered
Thrust into the starting rotation after Justin Steele went down with an elbow injury, Rea returned to familiar territory after starting 49 games for the Brewers over the last two seasons. The Cubs started him in the bullpen, but he's hit a groove in the rotation and has only given up multiple runs in one of his four starts.
Simply by looking at his 1.46 ERA and his 3.77 xFIP we can expect some negative regression to come his way, but his xFIP is still impressive on its own. Similar to Sears, the righty is seeing a similar batted ball profile against him with not much change happening in groundball or flyball percentage.
Colin Rea was sharp vs. the Phillies:⁰
5 IP | 3 H | 0 R | 2 BB | 7 K
84.6 mph Avg EVHe kept hitters off balance all day and trimmed his ERA to 0.96. Strong start to the season.
— The Wrigley Wire (@TheWrigleyWire) April 26, 2025
Also following in Sears' footsteps, he's seeing a decrease in walks this season, though not as sharp of an increase from season to season. His 5.1 percent walk percentage puts him in the 84th percentile. Any time you're not putting runners on for free means better things are likely to happen for you.
There is a huge change in his pitch usage, though, as he's definitely attacking hitters different as a Cub. When he was with the Brewers in 2024 his dominant pitch was the sinker (30.9 percent usage) with his four-seamer right behind it (19.5 percent). Now the sinker has dropped to just 6.2 percent usage while his four-seamer is up to 52.6 percent of his pitches.
That's a massive change in his arsenal. He's still throwing six other pitches with no pitch being thrown more than 10 percent of the time and no less than six percent. It makes him that much harder to predict as a hitter and gives him weapons against almost anyone he may face.
Colin Rea, Nasty 94mph Front Door Two Seamer. 😨 pic.twitter.com/TpFdHvYrMm
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 18, 2025
The biggest issue is that Rea looks at negative regression from six of his seven pitches. In total it's a .256 wOBA looking at a .307 xwOBA, which is still a very respectable number that pairs him with other respectable starters like Bailey Ober and Jordan Hicks.
Verdict:
In a very similar result to Sears, Rea should also expect some negative regression to come his way as hitters are likely to capitalize on his fastball more often, given its high usage. However, the damage likely won't be all that detrimental. At 26% rostered, he's worth an add at the very least.
Tommy Kahnle, Detroit Tigers
2025 Stats: 12.2 IP, 0.71 ERA, 3.03 xFIP, 0.553 WHIP, 26.1% K%
33% Rostered
Last week, we featured Will Vest in this piece and called out how crowded Detroit's bullpen was. Well, we have another strong target we're focusing on today with Tommy Kahnle coming in hot as both he and Vest come in as Detroit's main closers.
When you're a hitter facing Kahnle, it's no secret what you'd likely be seeing, and that hasn't changed since he moved on from the Yankees to the Tigers. He's still incredibly dominant with his changeup, throwing it 83.6 percent of the time. His four-seamer is his only other pitch he relies on, throwing it 14.7 percent of the time.
When looking at the results off the bat, one may wonder if it's even possible for Kahnle to throw his changeup more, given how dominant it's been. It's getting a ridiculously low wOBA of .094, paired with a .180 xwOBA. On the other hand, his four-seamer has a .298 wOBA with a .332 xwOBA.
Tommy Kahnle changeup pic.twitter.com/lJRtZI3zcL
— Bobby (@welcomeMLB) May 2, 2025
From a batted ball perspective, though a small sample size, Kahnle is getting more grounders than in prior seasons. It's coming in at 63.3 percent, his lowest rate since 2022 when he only pitched in 12.2 innings as a Dodger. That's helping to translate to a 23.3 percent hard hit percentage, ranking in the 99th percentile.
Regarding strikeouts, we're not seeing much change from year to year, but we are seeing a similar trend that we already discussed with Rea and Sears. That would be a decrease in walks as Kahnle's only walking 6.5 percent of batters this season after sitting at 10.6 percent last season. Lessening damage as a closer by not allowing freebies always means better things are likely to come.
The biggest detriment to Kahnle may be that he's in a bit of a competition with Vest for closing opportunities. The 35-year-old vet has five saves on the season and has yet to record a save in May, though much of that concerns the Tigers' offense pummeling its opponents.
Verdict:
As long as Kahnle continues to keep his walk rate low, we should see very solid results from him. The changeup is clearly his strongest pitch that drives his success, and hitters simply can't get to it. With that strong of a pitch, a solid ability to limit hard contact, plenty of future opportunities for saves (even with competition from Vest), and a very high floor, there's not much reason for Kahnle to be sitting on the waiver wire. If he's available, go grab him now.
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