A Year to Forget: 5 Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Busts Who Will Rebound in 2026

Jeremy breaks down 5 fantasy baseball pitchers busts who had poor seasons in 2025. These rebound candidates will have a reversal of fortunes in 2026. Target these SPs in 2026 drafts, including Cole Ragans, Dylan Cease, more.

While many breakout pitchers burst onto the scene every year, there are an equal number of pitchers who don't live up to expectations. Fantasy baseball managers drafted them with high hopes, only to be left disappointed after they failed to deliver results that were worth their ADP.

However, not all busts are bound to stay that way forever. Down years do happen, and they create opportunities to find value in drafts by identifying which players are due for a bounce back.

Here are five pitchers who look especially likely to leave their poor 2025 performances behind them and rebound in 2026.

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Cole Ragans, SP, Kansas City Royals

Cole Ragans had lofty expectations coming into 2025, being drafted as the ninth pitcher off the board after posting a 3.14 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and 223 strikeouts in 186 1/3 innings in 2024. He successfully converted his small sample dominance into a full-season masterpiece, doing so with a workload that many worried he wouldn’t be able to handle. With no more apparent downsides, it was all systems go to draft the ace in the first four rounds of 2025 drafts. 

Unfortunately, the clean bill of health didn’t last, as Ragans missed most of the year with groin tightness and then a rotator cuff strain. In 13 starts, he posted an ugly 4.67 ERA with a 1.18 WHIP in 61 ⅔ innings. Looking back, there’s a case to be made to call him the biggest pitching bust of 2025. 

Despite that rather grim report, there are plenty of signs pointing towards a bounce-back for the 27-year-old in 2026. For one, he got plain unlucky. Not just a few bloop hits here and there, either, as his underlying metrics look like a completely different player than the standard stats.

His xFIP of 2.45 and SIERA of 2.52 would both suggest he’s still one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball, and it’s almost unfathomable that his ERA was as high as 4.67 with numbers like that. 

Cole Ragans is making his first start in over 3 months.

He struck out Randy Arozarena, Cal Raleigh, and Julio Rodríguez on just 11 pitches in the 1st inning! pic.twitter.com/62OzK4OYfE

— MLB (@MLB) September 17, 2025

Not only that, but he also became even more of a strikeout specialist than he already was. He increased his 29.3% strikeout rate in 2024 to a whopping 38.1% in 2025, leading to 98 strikeouts in his 61 ⅔ innings. That percentage ranked second in all of baseball among pitchers who tossed at least 60 frames, and that’s including relief pitchers. 

Of course, 38.1% is a completely unsustainable pace that Ragans pulled off only thanks to the small sample, but the point remains that he did not regress in skill. 

At least early in the offseason, fantasy managers are clearly wary of him, as he’s being drafted as the 15th starting pitcher off the board. There’s still some injury risk, of course, but the talent alone warrants Ragans to be taken in the top 10 at the position. Until his ADP rises, this presents one of the best opportunities to grab a starting pitcher at a discount. 

Dylan Cease, SP, Toronto Blue Jays

Dylan Cease was another high-end pitcher who fell short in 2025, delivering bad ratios after being drafted as the 10th starter off the board. His 4.55 ERA and 1.33 WHIP were a far cry from the 3.47 and 1.07 marks he posted in 2024, and it has sent him tumbling down the rankings as a result. 

The most bizarre part of this story is that his underlying metrics between the two seasons look nearly identical. From his strikeout and walk rates to his quality of contact metrics and ERA indicators, everything nearly matches up perfectly. So what happened? The most obvious answer is that he overperformed in his breakout 2024 season, which is something many people worried about before this season even started. 

While I agree that he likely overperformed and got lucky two years ago, who’s to say he didn’t get unlucky in 2025? There is a wide range of outcomes between his 2024 and 2025 results, and he can return value now that he’s being drafted outside the top 20 at the position. The 29-year-old is still one of the best strikeout arms in the game, punching out 215 in 168 innings last year.

His WHIP will most likely continue to run high thanks to his high walk rate, but the strikeouts are enough of a difference maker to offset that.

He will also be getting a change in scenery, as the Blue Jays recently signed him to a 7-year, $210 million contract. That’s the type of money you pay a bona fide ace, and he might just become a fantasy ace again with his new squad. 

Spencer Strider, SP, Atlanta Braves

Speaking of strikeout specialists who are in desperate need of bouncing back, remember Spencer Strider? Only two years ago, he looked like the biggest difference maker at the position in a long time, grading out so far ahead of even the second and third best pitchers for fantasy. He struck out 281 batters in 186 2/3 innings in 2023, which was the most in a single season since the height of spider tack usage pre-2020.

Unfortunately, after missing almost all of 2024 due to an elbow injury, he was massively disappointing in his return from his internal brace surgery. The flamethrower’s signature fastball velocity that averaged 97.2 mph before the injury dwindled to just 95.5 mph in 2025, and the difference was clear to hitters.

Strider ended up posting a 4.45 ERA and 1.40 WHIP with 131 strikeouts in 125 ⅓ innings. He was unstartable in fantasy, doing way more harm to your team than good. 

Unlike the first two pitchers mentioned in this article, there’s nothing under the hood that would suggest he’s going to turn it around in 2026, although he did finish on a positive note with a strong September. This is a bet on talent more than anything else. The 27-year-old essentially had to relearn on the fly how to pitch without the benefit of his usual unhittable fastball, which was the backbone of his arsenal for his entire career up to this point.

Maybe a full offseason will give him the time to do that. Another even better outcome would be that the healthy offseason allows him to regain some of that velocity. Either way, it’s not a bad idea to take a shot on the former best pitcher in baseball for a discounted price.

Devin Williams, RP, Free Agent

Devin Williams entered 2025 as one of the best closers in baseball, being drafted as the second-best relief pitcher according to ADP. His draft stock even got an additional boost when he was traded to the New York Yankees, who were expected to be much better than the Brewers at the time. However, his time in New York did not go well, as he posted a 4.79 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in 62 innings.

He even lost the closer job multiple times throughout the season, finishing with a total of 18.

The good news is that he can start fresh in 2026 thanks to his free agency, and there are certainly plenty of teams that would still love to sign him as their closer. Especially considering he didn’t look like that different of a pitcher last year compared to the rest of his career. His strikeout rate (34.7%) and whiff rate (37.7%) still ranked in the top three percent of the league, and his hard-hit rate graded out in the 85th percentile.

With an xFIP of 2.95 and a SIERA of 2.67, a bounce back seems evident. 

He currently has the 12th-highest ADP among relief pitchers for 2026, a number that will likely shoot up if he signs with a team where he’ll be a sure-fire closer. It’s fair to have some skepticism, but don’t let one bad year overshadow an entire career of dominance. 

Aaron Nola, SP, Philadelphia Phillies

Aaron Nola had the worst season of his career in 2025, posting a 6.01 ERA and 1.35 WHIP in 94 1/3 innings. The former Phillies’ ace went from once leading the rotation to looking like their fifth-best option, at best. It didn’t help that he suffered a fractured rib and sprained ankle in the middle of the season, but he looked equally bad before and after going down. 

While no one expected Nola to be this bad before the year, this continued to be one of the most bizarre trends in all of baseball. Dating all the way back to 2017, he has failed to meet expectations in every single odd-numbered year and has delivered strong seasons in every even-numbered year. 

So, I guess we can lock Nola in for a 2026 rebound, right? Of course, this coincidence isn’t a serious argument, but there are reasons with actual statistical backings that suggest the 32-year-old is due for a bounce back. He posted an xFIP of 3.71 and a SIERA of 3.81, numbers that aren’t too much worse than the 3.44 and 3.68 marks he put up in 2024.

He did show signs of his former self at the very end of the season, tossing a one-run gem with nine strikeouts over eight innings in his final start, and followed that up with two shutout innings against the Dodgers in the playoffs. 

His days of being an ace or even a near-ace are long gone, but with an ADP of SP 62, there is plenty of room for him to return value at that price. Nola is due for some positive regression in what will hopefully be a fully healthy season, and he’ll still get plenty of win opportunities on one of the best teams in baseball. 

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