Starting Pitcher Fantasy Baseball Breakouts or Fake Outs? Part 7

Dan analyzes 5 pitcher fantasy baseball breakouts, sleepers who are surging for Week 12. Are they breakouts or fake outs? Read his fantasy baseball outlooks for Framber Valdez, Jacob deGrom, Robbie Ray, Jack Flaherty and MacKenzie Gore.

Another week of baseball is behind us, and more pitchers have emerged as top fantasy options, while others are slowly starting to fade away.

This week, we will look at five pitchers who can be considered "aces" and have been trending up over the last month. I have yet to weigh in on these five pitchers this season. This week, it's not a matter of these pitchers "breaking out" as being reliable fantasy options; the focus is more on what their value might be for the rest of the season.

The same basic premise applies each week. I try to determine whether or not each pitcher from our group is set up for sustainable success or heading towards the inevitable regression monster.

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The Red Flag Statistics

I thought it might be helpful for us to look at this set of stats for the entire group of pitchers, all in one spot. I call these the "red flag stats" because they are some of the first ones I examine when figuring out why a pitcher's surface-level stats (such as ERA) may differ from their other ERA-indicators.

• BABIP: Batting Average on Balls in Play
• LOB%: Left On Base Percentage (also known as "strand rate.") This is a percentage of runners who got on base against a pitcher, but did not score.
• HR/FB: The percentage of fly balls that were also home runs given up by a pitcher
• K-BB%: A pitcher's strikeout rate minus their walk rate - the bigger the number, the better.
• Hard%: The percentage of batted balls hit "hard" by opposing hitters.

Lower BABIPs concern me less with elite pitchers, though there may be a disconnect with Valdez allowing an above-average hard contact rate and still having a low BABIP. His heavy ground ball rate might be the answer there, with opponents hitting the ball hard but right into the ground.

Jacob deGrom's BABIP is very low and probably not sustainable - more on that later.

The only other two stats that stand out here to me are Robbie Ray's HR/FB (his career average is 15%) and Jacob deGrom's LOB% (his career average is 79%).

Framber Valdez, Houston Astros

2025 Fantasy Stats: 85 IP, 6 W, 84 K, 3.07 ERA, 1.06 WHIP

2025 Advanced Stats: 3.24 SIERA, 3.62 xERA, 25.1% K%, 58.9% GB%, 107 Stuff+

After his seventh start of the season on May 2 (a loss to the lowly White Sox), Valdez was sitting at 1-4 with a 4.39 ERA and 1.27 WHIP.

Since then, the veteran left-hander has gone 5-0 with a 1.84 ERA and 47 strikeouts in 44 innings. He's gone at least six innings in those starts and allowed just two home runs.

Framber Valdez's 18 Swings & Misses on Curveball last night. 😳 pic.twitter.com/sc1qyWGVsr

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 6, 2025

In case we forgot how dominant Valdez can be, he's been reminding us with each start in May and June. His overall numbers align with what we've expected from Valdez over the last several seasons.

So what clicked for Valdez that has allowed him to go on this run? What stands out to me is that he's gone to heavy utilization of his curveball, while completely abandoning any attempt to throw a four-seamer or slider.

I'm not sure that he wants to keep leading with his curveball indefinitely, but it's the most straightforward explanation for his uptick in strikeouts. It's easily his best pitch, sporting a 46.8% whiff rate. His curve has above-average horizontal and vertical movement and pairs perfectly with his heavy sinker, which moves in the opposite direction.

Valdez has an outstanding velocity differential on the two pitches, too, as his sinker averages 94 mph on the gun and his curveball is just 79 mph.

I've often referred to Valdez as one of the tougher pitchers in baseball to figure out, because we have seen him go on stretches where he goes sinker-heavy and embraces pitching to contact to go deep into games, but then we've also seen him embrace his curveball and go after big strikeout totals, too. Right now, he's doing the latter and getting elite results.

Verdict: Valdez is trending up in a big way. He's now inside the top 90 on Yahoo in standard 5x5 leagues, but he's been a top-20 player over the last month. He will probably settle somewhere between those numbers and continue offering good value in strikeouts and ratios while eating innings. Anyone looking to sell high on Valdez now should target a top-50 player in return.

Robbie Ray, San Francisco Giants

2025 Fantasy Stats: 81.1 IP, 8 W, 92 K, 2.55 ERA, 1.12 WHIP

2025 Advanced Stats: 3.59 SIERA, 2.84 xERA, 28.1% K%, 40.2% GB%, 99 Stuff+

I will do my best not to let Ray's poor outing against Colorado on the road last night influence my breakdown. But at the same time, it was a good reminder that even with how good he's been this year, Ray is still a tier below the top pitchers in the game and is vulnerable to a short outing when he doesn't have his good control. He was expected to roll over the Rockies, but he went deep into counts early and often, walking two hitters and allowing four runs (two earned) before getting a quick hook after four innings (93 pitches).

But overall, this season has been a triumphant return for Ray, who made only seven starts last season for the Giants after missing all of the 2023 season in his final season in Seattle. Let's not forget that Ray was an AL Cy Young winner in Toronto back in 2021, which is where he finally started to perfect his craft after being a relatively wild, hard-throwing pitcher with a home run problem during his 20s in Arizona.

The last few years on this chart are all that matter for our discussion of the latest iteration of Ray's arsenal, but I included his entire career just because it's kind of cool to see how many different times he has tweaked his pitch mix in the search for a combination that best suited him. This is a true evolution of a pitcher as Ray hasn't been afraid to experiment with his third and fourth offerings, while the fastball and slider have been the two pitches that have made up the bulk of his arsenal throughout the years.

Ray's fastball averages 93 to 94 mph but plays up as he throws from a high arm slot and averages 18.5 inches of induced vertical break. He's still using his slider as his second pitch, but he's drastically reduced the usage to just 23% while adding a changeup back to his arsenal at 13% usage and throwing his knuckle curve around 10% of the time.

As you can see in the chart, he experimented with a sinker throughout his career, but it never got good results. The changeup this season is getting excellent results, however, eliciting a 46% whiff rate and a .193 xBA. Ray's top three pitches all have xBAs under .200, with the knuckle curve being the only pitch that's getting hit hard.

Ray's walk rate is still a tad higher than we'd like it to be, at 10.1%, but it's in line with his career average. When he was at his best in Toronto and Seattle, he posted 7% and 8% walk rates in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Verdict: Ray's value in leagues is a bit inflated due to his eight wins on the season, but he's providing value in strikeouts and ratios, too. There is a good chance he ends up with an ERA in the low threes by the end of the season, but he's getting elite results on batted balls and is far less volatile than he has been earlier in his career. He's found a pitch mix that suits him, and I think he can continue to pitch at a high level for the rest of this season.

MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals

2025 Fantasy Stats: 81.1 IP, 3 W, 114 K, 2.88 ERA, 1.12 WHIP

2025 Advanced Stats: 2.52 SIERA, 3.05 xERA, 34.8% K%, 36.4% GB%, 100 Stuff+

No pitcher in Major League Baseball has taken the leap in strikeout rate that Gore has this season. Gore's K% ranged from 23% to 26% during his first three seasons in the league, but is currently a lofty 34.8%, which is the best in MLB ahead of even Tarik Skubal by 1.5%.

What else can we say about MacKenzie Gore besides he's an ACE. Gore is leading the MLB in Ks with 114

Season ERA now 2.88

Today vs. Mets
6IP 5H 2ER 0BB 6K
23% Whiff Rate
28 CSW%pic.twitter.com/sb5KPaj0ZF

— Nicho Roessler (@NichoRoessler) June 11, 2025

It's up for debate as to whose curveball is nastier - Valdez's or Gore's, but Gore's improved movement on the pitch and increased usage this season have a lot to do with his massive jump in strikeouts.

Gore is still leading his four-seam fastball, but has cut his usage down to 50% from 55% in 2024. That's allowed him to raise his curveball usage from 19% to 24%.

The curve has been his best pitch to right-handers, eliciting a 46% whiff rate and a .173 xBA. He added two more inches of vertical break and another three inches of horizontal movement to the curveball. It drops off the table from his high arm slot but also breaks in on right-handed hitters, too.

The slider has been just as effective to lefties with a 47.3% whiff rate and .140 xBA. His changeup is something he shows hitters occasionally to keep their timing off from his fastball. It has a 50% whiff rate of its own, but has also been hit hard when batters do make contact.

He's improved his control in a big way, posting the lowest walk rate of his career (6.7%). Fewer baserunners is always a good thing, and fewer walks have also allowed him to pitch deeper into games. The only red flag from our chart that could signal regression is the high strand rate, but even some regression there isn't likely to have too big of an impact on his ERA.

Verdict: I think his K% will eventually settle into the 28 to 30% range, but that's still going to be an elite number, and he could contend for the strikeout title this season. His 5x5 value is just outside the top 100 mainly because of his lack of wins, but it's hard to view Gore as anything other than a pitcher on the rise. He's become the ace that he was drafted in the first round to be, and fantasy managers should sit back and reap the rewards of having drafted him.

Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers

2025 Fantasy Stats: 76.1 IP, 6 W, 74 K, 2.12 ERA, 0.92 WHIP

2025 Advanced Stats: 3.36 SIERA, 3.03 xERA, 25.3% K%, 43.2% GB%, 107 Stuff+

It's tough to find things to pick on for each of these pitchers, but I also don't want to just highlight how good they've been without critically analyzing each and focusing on what value they can provide going forward.

It's been great to see deGrom back and pitching at a high level. Undoubtedly, he was the unquestioned best pitcher in baseball for a three-year stretch while in New York. Injuries have robbed him (and us) of a large chunk of his career. With two more starts this season, he will tie his mark for the most starts he's made since his 2021 campaign with the Mets. He tossed 92 innings that year before getting shut down for the year and had a 45% K%. That could have been a magical season, but instead it was the beginning of his slide into relative obscurity.

Jacob deGrom has allowed 2 runs or fewer in each of his last 10 starts 🔥 pic.twitter.com/3AtTUHyPib

— MLB (@MLB) June 7, 2025

From 2022 to 2024, deGrom made just 20 starts spanning a total of 105 innings. So with 76 innings pitched already, he's closing in on a workload he hasn't experienced in five years. With a current rank of 34 in Yahoo 5x5 roto leagues, I think it might be time to sell high.

Now hear me out! I am not predicting that deGrom will get reinjured or start to fall apart down the stretch, and I am certainly rooting for him to keep it up. Outside of the workload concerns, I think that you might be able to cash in deGrom for another elite player based on his name recognition and current stats.

I think he has at least a full run of regression coming to his ERA, which is backed up by his current SIERA (3.36), xERA (3.03), and FIP (3.42). The BABIP of .230 is 53 points higher than his career average of .283, and the strand rate of 90% is also not sustainable.

While deGrom is getting excellent results in ratios, he's striking out just 25.3% of hitters. He has some potential room for improvement there based on a strong 14.1% SwStr%, but I think he tops out somewhere in the 27% to 28% range. He's not the elite strikeout pitcher that he was at his peak with the Mets, which is fine, but we should also evaluate him with that in mind, too.

Verdict: There are a few red flags here that point to regression with deGrom's ratios, and he's no longer one of the top strikeout pitchers in the game. He's having a great year and could continue to provide value, but this also might be the best time to shop him in a trade with some workload concerns, as he closes in on the most innings he has thrown in a season, which is over half a decade.

Jack Flaherty, Detroit Tigers

2025 Fantasy Stats: 71.1 IP, 5 W, 85 K, 3.41 ERA, 1.07 WHIP

2025 Advanced Stats: 3.20 SIERA, 3.70 xERA, 29.7% K%, 34.3% GB%, 99 Stuff+

For the second season in a row, Jack Flaherty is pitching like one of the best right-handers in the game. He's been able to duplicate his stats from his 2024 breakout campaign for the most part up to this point.

Jack Flaherty has been AMAZING over his last 4 starts

4 quality starts
3 wins
24.2 IP
29K’s
4 ER
1.46 ERA pic.twitter.com/VRkLYOPNaH

— T’s Tigers (@TannersTigers) June 9, 2025

Flaherty's ERA is holding him back in terms of his overall ranking (121), but he's lowered it a full run over his last six starts and was at his most impressive perhaps in his last start against the Cubs (who have scored the second-most runs in MLB) when he struck out nine over six scoreless frames.

Flaherty gets it done without an overpowering fastball, too, as he averages just 92 to 93 mph on his four-seamer.

He has two plus breaking balls and throws them both around 25% of the time. His slider comes in at 84 mph and the curveball at 77 mph, creating a very nice distribution of velocities across his top three pitches.

The only semi-red flag for Flaherty (should we call it a "pink flag"?) is the low .255 BABIP when his career average is .280. But I think what he's done lately is quite sustainable, and his trajectory is more likely to continue upward than regress.

Flaherty has a 5-6 record that is not indicative of the way he's pitched at all (he should call Paul Skenes for some counseling). After starting 1-5, though, he's now won four of his last five decisions and could continue to improve his fantasy value by stacking up wins in the second half of the season for a Detroit team that looks like a legit contender in the American League.

Verdict: Flaherty is an underrated pitcher in real life, and his fantasy ranking is not indicative of how well he has pitched for most of the season. I'm buying Flaherty for the rest of the season and actively trying to acquire him in the trade market. His advanced stats check out, and he's due for some positive regression in the win column.

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