Champ or Chump: Cam Schlittler and Ronny Henriquez Fantasy Baseball Outlooks

Are Cam Schlittler and Ronny Henriquez fantasy baseball sleepers, busts, or neither? Rick takes a deep dive into their 2025 fantasy baseball value.

You never have enough pitching. It's one of the greatest truisms of fantasy baseball, and the game has a habit of hitting you hardest when you least expect it. The Rays are already limiting Drew Rasmussen by using him as an opener a couple times through the rotation, with other names like Kris Bubic and Clay Holmes likely to be limited soon as well.

Of course, there are also injuries. Clarke Schmidt was the latest Yankee to go down with presumptive Tommy John surgery, creating an opportunity for Cam Schlittler to start either tonight or tomorrow. Will he be good? Ineffectiveness leads to role shuffling, too, and Ronny Henriquez appears to be the closer in Miami. His service stats are attractive, but can he deliver fantasy value?

Here is a closer look at Schlittler and Henriquez for 2025 fantasy baseball.

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Cam Schlittler (SP, New York Yankees)

7% Rostered

Schlittler doesn't have much prospect hype as a seventh-rounder in the 2022 Draft who failed to crack the top-100 prospects list at either FanGraphs or MiLB.com, but scouts have been wrong before. The 24-year-old flashed the ability to dominate on the farm, and the Yankees should provide the run support needed for a fantasy impact.

Let's start with the scouting report, which reads better than the typical non-prospect. FanGraphs sees two pitches as MLB average or better, with two additional passable offerings:

Touching 98 mph is great for a starter, and his write-up notes that Schlittler's curve plays off his heater well. His slider and cutter are works-in-progress, but there's hope both can develop into something beyond show-me pitches.

MiLB.com has a more positive scouting report despite a lower organizational ranking (fifth at FanGraphs, 10th at MLB Pipeline):

We see three pitches as MLB-average or better, plus a change to help keep opposing hitters off-balance. The write-up notes that Schlittler's fastball is "high-spin" with "cutting action that makes it difficult to lift or pull," allowing him to live up in the zone without allowing too many homers. High-spin also translates to strikeout upside, which we always love to see.

Both scouting reports note Schlittler's subpar command and control, but the FanGraphs report expects him to improve with time. At the same time, the MiLB.com write-up says he's "gotten better at repeating his delivery," often one of the biggest obstacles to throwing strikes.

If Schlittler's scouting report is decent, his MiLB performance has been nothing short of fantastic. He first reached the upper minor leagues with Double-A (Somerset) in 2024, posting a 4.45 ERA in 32 1/3 innings pitched (IP). His 3.30 expected fielding independent pitching (xFIP) was much better than his ERA.

Batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is higher in the minors, but Schlittler was still unlucky to post a .395 mark. Homers didn't hurt him with a 9.7 percent HR/FB, so gopheritis can't be blamed for the difference between his ERA and xFIP. It seems that Schlittler just experienced bad luck in a relatively small sample size.

If we assume the BABIP will normalize, Schlittler was dominant. His 29.3 percent K% was outstanding, while his 8.8 percent BB% was just good enough to keep his K-BB% above 20 percent. The performance earned Schlittler a brief stay at Triple-A (Scranton/Wilkes-Barre), though he wasn't very effective in 1 2/3 IP.

Schlittler returned to Somerset to begin 2025 and fared even better, posting a 2.38 ERA largely supported by his 2.57 xFIP in 53 IP. His .354 BABIP was still insane, but the things Schlittler could control all improved.

Opposing hitters struggled to slug with a 3.1 percent HR/FB. They also struggled to make contact as Schlittler's K% jumped to 30.2 percent. He even improved his BB% slightly to 8 percent. Schlittler was ready for a bigger challenge, and the Yankees obliged with a promotion to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

His ERA ballooned to 3.80 in 23 2/3 IP against more advanced competition, but his 2.95 xFIP suggests he pitched better than that. A .340 BABIP and 18.8 percent HR/FB are responsible for the discrepancy, the latter likely more a product of the environment than anything Schlittler did.

More importantly, Schlittler improved his K% to 35.7 percent with only a modest BB% uptick to 9.2 percent. It's a great sign that his stuff played better against better hitters in predominantly hitter-friendly environments, creating hope for immediate success at the highest level.

The Yankees haven't announced any post-All-Star Break pitching plans yet, but the team currently has only four starters listed on Roster Resource, and one of them is the struggling Marcus Stroman. Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, Schmidt, and Ryan Yarbrough aren't expected to return any time soon, so Schlittler should get an extended opportunity to show what he can do.

Recent struggles aside, the Yankees are a contending team with a strong offense. Schlittler averaged over five innings per start on the farm, so he should earn wins. He should also get strikeouts if his MiLB numbers are any indication, and he flashed the ability to limit long balls with Somerset.

Schlittler's first opponent will be the Mariners, a team that's been up and down all season. There's no guarantee of success, but Schlittler has the skills and opportunity to be a worthwhile fantasy option in the second half. This Champ should be rostered in more leagues.

Ronny Henriquez (RP, Miami Marlins)

33% Rostered

Henriquez is 5-1 with five saves and a 2.72 ERA in 43 IP, and recent usage suggests he's become the guy in Miami's bullpen. The 25-year-old is in his third big league season, though you probably didn't notice his brief stretches of ineffectiveness for Minnesota in 2022 and 2024.

On the surface, Henriquez appears to have staying power. His 33.1 percent K% is outstanding, while his 8.8 percent BB% is workable, and there are two clear reasons why his performance is better than the 18.3 percent K% and 6.1 percent BB% he posted last season.

First, Henriquez had a slight velocity uptick from 95.7 mph to 96.4 mph. It's not huge, but even a small increase can make a huge difference on the field.

Second, Henriquez made a pitch mix change to throw more sliders (33.3 percent to 51.5 percent) at the expense of changeups (34 percent to 16.3 percent). Henriquez's change is just a show-me pitch with a 12.3 percent SwStr%, 37.7 percent Zone%, and 22.5 percent chase rate, so it won't be missed.

Meanwhile, his slider has been outstanding, with a 23.6 percent SwStr%, a 44.1 percent chase rate, and a 43.3 percent Zone% rate. Combined with his heater (9.4 percent SwStr%, 54 percent Zone%), the 25-year-old found a path to being a dominant reliever. We can trust him now, right? Nope!

Henriquez's primary pitch is his slider, a pitch that usually lands outside the zone. Henriquez doesn't have the best fastball command either, creating situations where the opposition gets free baserunners in the ninth. That's a risky attack plan.

Furthermore, Henriquez's slider is hittable. Batters have a 53.7 percent fly-ball rate (FB%) against it, with a HR/FB of 13.8 percent. That's a lot of airborne contact for a double-digit HR/FB, so it's not quite the put-away pitch you expect closers to have.

Sliders also tend to have significant platoon splits, and Henriquez is no exception. Five of the seven homers he's allowed this season were hit by lefties, and LHB have a .326 on-base percentage (OBP) against him compared to .264 for RHB.

Likewise, Henriquez benefits from his pitcher-friendly home park. loanDepot Park has an 89 HR factor from 2023-2025 per Statcast, contributing to his 0.39 ERA at home. His 5.49 ERA on the road is ugly, indicative of what happens when his environment isn't as favorable.

Henriquez probably holds on to ninth-inning duties as long as he's a Marlin. Calvin Faucher has eight saves but a 4.05 ERA and 22.1 percent K% that don't scream closer, while Anthony Bender has a 2.13 ERA masking a 4.55 xFIP and 18.2 percent K%.

Of course, the Marlins aren't a good team. How many save opportunities will they give Henriquez, especially after the trade deadline, when some of their players have moved to contenders? Henriquez himself could even be traded, and it's tough to see a playoff team trusting the ninth to someone with little experience and troubling splits.

Henriquez's slider-heavy approach made him a legitimate MLB reliever, but he struggles with control, against lefties, and outside his pitcher-friendly park. Closers need to be good in all situations, and Henriquez has weaknesses that opposing managers can exploit. Throw in Miami's team quality, and this Chump is a short-term saves play at best.

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