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John Laghezza's 2025 fantasy baseball breakout pitchers. His 3 biggest surprises and breakouts at starting pitcher in Fantasy Baseball last season. 2026 season outlooks for Bryan Woo, Garrett Crochet and Cristopher Sanchez.
RotoBaller die-hards know wild horses couldn't drag me away from fantasy baseball for more than a month or two. Yes, that all too familiar itch already started its head — and it's high time for a good old-fashioned scratching. Football's great, but c'mon, nothing beats the diamond...
Remember, starting preparation with months to go has its advantages. Patience is a virtue, and it's important not to miss a step. For me, that means always making sure to kick off my research by looking at the year prior before I turn my focus forward for the year ahead.
I can openly admit my first instincts to hunt for deep sleepers or the next big league-winner. Doesn't make me a bad guy. Those are fine and all, but it shouldn't come at the expense of doing due diligence atop the board. It's so easy to take the elite performers for granted. I wanted not only to highlight a few career years but also to see whether we're buying back in for 2026.
Bryan Woo, Seattle Mariners
186.2 IP, 15 Wins, 2.94 ERA, 0.93 WHIP, 198 K — Early ADP: 51
Can't mention Seattle's Bryan Woo's monster season (SP4 on the Fangraphs Player Rater) without taking a giant, capital L on my oversized forehead. For the record, as a dedicated pitching wonk, I take these massive whiffs to heart. Bottom line is this — we simply cannot effectively predict injuries anywhere near our initial perception.
Seattle's 25-year-old righty missed the first six weeks of the 2024 season with inflammation in his throwing arm, but that's not all. Woo exited another start in June with right forearm tightness. Can you blame me for being terrified at the draft table?
Well, precisely none of that mattered for 2025. Bryan Woo didn't just go nuclear on a per-inning basis, but lasted 186.2 IP over 30 starts in the process. Needless to say, the phony baloney social media doctors are down bad. To put a bow on the health stuff for the time being, if you finish an MLB season with your arm attached, you're healthy enough to roster in fantasy the next year. Someone please remind me when high-stakes season begins.
Stylistically, Woo's always relied on a very four-seam-heavy approach, deploying the heater on +45% of career offerings. While that single data point's not determinative on its face, I believe a deliberate attempt to work the fastball progressively higher in the zone aided Woo in leveling up again. Tacking on an extra mile-per-hour over the offseason doesn't hurt either — although to me that's not the singular answer when Stuff+ and swinging strike rates remain mostly unchanged.
The adjustment is slight, but you can see the steepness of the heat map below increase over time.
Given Woo's already stellar command, working the upper-third of the zone effectively drove contact quality against his fastball down to career lows (.180 xBA, .345 xSLG). Think about it... a sub .190 xBA on roughly half your pitches — and it's the "most hittable" one he throws!
Bring back this iteration of Woo's four-seamer to complement a devastating slider/changeup combo — each with a minimum 36% whiff rate to either-handed hitters, and there's another high-end SP1 season on deck. Bryan Woo's current ADP is going to rise into the springtime if I have anything to say about it.
Early #FantasyBaseball reminder: Try as we might, we cannot predict injuries with any real degree of certainty
Avoided Seattle's Bryan Woo despite skills I loved because of the track record for throwing arm injuries -- +186 IP later, that was a huge miss#TridentsUp pic.twitter.com/ou6HeAaiLF
— John Laghezza MLB / NFL Moving Averages (@JohnLaghezza) November 20, 2025
Cristopher Sanchez, Philadelphia Phillies
202.0 IP, 13 Wins, 2.50 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 212 K — Early ADP: 34
When you can take a stab at one of only three starting pitchers to rack up both 200 innings and 200 strikeouts in the same season, who's also on a winning team outside the top 30 ADP — you do it. Coming out of relatively nowhere just a few seasons ago, Philadelphia's now 28-year-old southpaws entered the conversation for most dominant pitchers in the game.
Cristopher Sánchez already checks every box a fantasy manager could ask for across the statistical spectrum — combining an elite disciplinary approach (33.0% Ball, 5.5% BB, 1.06 WHIP), with top-flight swing-and-miss ability (28.0% K-BB, 31.4% CSW, 13.9% Swinging Strike, 35.4% Chase), 96th-percentile elevation metrics (58.3% GB, 17.7% LD), and contact suppression (31.6% Hard Hit, 5.7% Barrel, 0.5 HR/9). Wow.
Oh, he also finished third among all SPs with +100 IP in innings per start (6.3)—total machine.
An obvious question for fantasy drafters going forward is whether or not we think the strikeout bump sustains into the future. Easy answer's a resounding yes from me, as it resulted mainly from throwing fewer sinkers. Attacking earlier in the count with secondaries that he's able to consistently throw for strikes either gets Sánchez ahead or induces early weak contact.
If and when he ever falls behind, bet your bottom dollar the lower third of the zone's going to get hammered into oblivion, a time-tested winning strategy in effect.
So, despite sounding too obvious to be the case, if we continue seeing a willingness to throw breaking stuff in roughly half of all neutral or pitcher counts, there's no reason not to think Sánchez finishes high in the National League's Cy Young voting once again. Wheels up.
Cristopher Sánchez was a workhorse for the @Phillies in 2025:
One of three starting pitchers to reach 200+ IP
One of twelve pitchers to surpass 200+ strikeoutsHe finished 2nd in NL Cy Young voting! pic.twitter.com/XkFNrR74g0
— MLB (@MLB) November 13, 2025
Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox
205.1 IP, 18 Wins, 2.59 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 255 K — Early ADP: 11
If I hadn't already mentioned misplaced confidence in forecasting injuries, it would've fit in perfectly again here. Not only did Garrett Crochet miss the entire 2022 campaign recovering from Tommy John surgery, but he also wound up right back on the injured list less than 20 innings after returning with shoulder inflammation.
That second throwing arm injury shelved him until late September, allowing time for just a handful of relief appearances. Chicago tried to tell us their goal was a front-line starter for 2024 and beyond — but we didn't listen.
Fast forward to the present day, and Crochet has since dispelled any doubts in his 2024 breakout as arguably the single best pitcher in MLB. Going back two seasons on the ledger now reads like that of a legitimate ace, worthy of a first-round fantasy pick in 2026: 351.1 IP, 2.72 SIERA, 1.04 WHIP, 27.3% K-BB, 47.0% GB, 1.08 HR/9. Truly dominant stretch from someone widely written off two years earlier.
Clearly committed to fine-tuning his craft, Crochet overhauled his approach last season despite strong results. The more sophisticated arsenal is tailored by handedness at the expense of more four-seamers — a new power sinker in on the hands of lefties and paralyzing sweeper diving in on the toes of righties. The GIFs coming to social media this winter are going to be insane.
Defining the attack plans helped Crochet add an element of depth to his game, completing more than seven innings 12 different times last year alone. I can't remember ever being so excited over adding a sinker, yet here we are. If anyone's going to be an exception, I guess Crochet's one name worth making room for. Boston's returning healthy with big aspirations for 2026, projecting among the highest win totals.
At just 26 years old, there's a case we've yet to see the very best of Crochet. The mere fact that it's possible to imagine him out-pitching Tarik Skubal over the course of a season says it all.
Garrett Crochet 2025 sweeper stats w/ MLB ranks 🤢
.126 Opp. AVG - 1st
.207 Opp. SLG - 1st
50.3 K% - 2nd pic.twitter.com/bhP83lzi9D— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) November 16, 2025
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