Later-Round Fantasy Baseball Breakout Candidates - American League Edition (2026)

March 16, 2026

Marty's later-round fantasy baseball breakout candidates and sleepers to target in 2026 drafts. His top AL value breakouts for the 2026 fantasy baseball season.

Welcome to fantasy baseball draft season! Over the next few weeks, managers will put all their offseason prep to the test in hopes of dominating their drafts. Even though fantasy owners are smarter than ever and there aren’t many true sleepers left, there are still a few players going outside the top 150 who can make a meaningful impact on your team.

In this article, we’ll cover two American League hitters and two pitchers that are flying under the radar in most drafts. For Average Draft Position (ADP), we referenced Yahoo! ADP, but these players are going in the later rounds across nearly all draft platforms. That said, ADPs can vary significantly across sites like CBS, NFBC, ESPN, Fantrax, and others.

Each platform uses its own default scoring settings, which can cause a player’s draft position to fluctuate considerably. Make sure you are using the correct ADP as you prepare for your draft. Now let's dive in.

Spencer Torkelson, 1B, Detroit Tigers 

Recent ADP: 186

Not too long ago, Spencer Torkelson was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft and drew comparisons to some of the game’s premier home run hitters. While he hasn’t fully lived up to that lofty prospect pedigree just yet, the arrow is quietly pointing up.

If you were paying close attention in 2025, you saw Torkelson put together the best season of his young career. The 26-year-old out of Arizona State launched 31 home runs while posting a career-best 11% walk rate (81st percentile) and 118 wRC+. Like his teammate Riley Greene, Torkelson has fully sold out for power.

Last season, Torkelson set career highs with a 51.9% fly-ball rate and 23.1 degree launch angle. If he maintains this approach, he has legitimate 35-home-run upside. Unfortunately, his power-first profile does come with some drawbacks.

Across 649 plate appearances, he posted a 26% strikeout (19th percentile) rate along with a below-average contact rate. Even so, the 6-foot-1 right-handed slugger still produced a career-best .240/.333/.456 slash line with an impressive 13.5% barrel rate (83rd percentile). As you can see from the chart below, when Torkelson does make contact, it is loud.

For 2026, he’s an established power bat with a relatively stable floor thanks to his playing time and walk rate. At his current ADP, he represents one of the last legitimate 30-home run threats, and if he builds off his 2025 campaign, he could finally live up to his high draft pick. You should expect around a .240 batting average with at least 30 homeruns and good counting stats as he is projected to hit fourth or fifth in the Tigers lineup.

Drew Rasmussen, SP, Tampa Bay Rays

Recent ADP: 189

Drew Rasmussen is an absolute gift at his current ADP. In a fantasy landscape full of ratio-killers, Rasmussen is a starting pitcher that can stabilize your ERA and WHIP without leaving you too far behind in strikeouts. Last season, Rasmussen threw a career-high 150 innings while posting a 2.76 ERA, 3.48 xERA (73rd percentile), 1.02 WHIP, and 127 strikeouts.

Perhaps most impressive is that the 30-year-old accomplished these numbers while pitching half of his home starts in the hitter-friendly confines of George M. Steinbrenner Field. However, for 2026, the Tampa Bay Rays are moving back to the notoriously pitcher-friendly Tropicana Field, so you don't have to squint too hard to see his potential upside. 

From 2022-2024, the Rays' stadium ranked as the third-worst hitter’s park because of a poor hitter's eye, coupled with the fact that pitchers' stuff plays up in a dome environment. Basically,  "The Trop" is a hitter's nightmare. For 2026, Rasmussen just needs to continue inducing ground balls, generating weak contact, and limiting free passes. 

Last year, he generated a 49.5% ground-ball rate (82nd percentile) while walking only 6.3% (79th percentile) of the batters he faced. When hitters did make contact, they only barreled the ball 6.3% (81st percentile) of the time.

When you combine Rasmussen's profile with a pitcher's park, it's not unreasonable to project him for a 3.20 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP with a strikeout rate closer to 25%. Even though Rasmussen isn’t a league-winner, he’s a stabilizer, and that’s exactly what you should be looking for when building out your pitching staff in the later rounds.

Jac Caglianone, OF, Kansas City Royals

Recent ADP: 199

Jac Caglianone disappointed many fantasy managers last year, but the expectations for him were just too high. I blame the Athletics' star prospect, Nick Kurtz. Kurtz and Caglianone were both called up around the same time, and because of their similar profiles, many expected them to have similar output. Both are left-handed-hitting first basemen with a ton of power.

Unfortunately for Caglianone owners, Kurtz clubbed 36 home runs while the official ambassador of the Italian American Baseball Foundation hit only seven across 232 plate appearances. However, before being called up, Caglianone crushed the minor leagues. He posted a .337/.408/.617 slashline with 20 homeruns, 72 RBI, 58 runs, 31 walks, across 304 plate appearances.

Although his skills didn't immediately translate into MLB success, he showed many encouraging signs under the hood. The 23-year-old posted an elite 12% barrel rate and a 77.4 mph bat speed. Coming into 2026, it appears the young outfielder is already starting to figure it out.

Earlier in spring training, Caglianone hit a 460-foot home run with a 115.2 mph exit velocity.

This Jac Caglianone home run...

460 Feet
115.2 mph EV

I'm buying Cags in 2026. Both in redraft and dynasty.pic.twitter.com/M65scLWShD

— Eric Cross (@EricCrossMLB) February 25, 2026

So what should we expect out of Caglianone in 2026? He has the power and batted-ball quality to hit more than 20 home runs, and he should be playing every day in right field unless he struggles significantly against left-handed pitchers. But even if he is eventually platonned, he should still collect over 500 plate appearances while hitting in a more hitter-friendly version of Kauffman Stadium.

If Caglianone is your OF4 or OF5 in a 15-team league, you should expect him to vastly outperform his ADP. In shallower leagues, he is worth a late-round pick because of his prospect pedigree and obvious upside.

Joey Cantillo, SP, Cleveland Guardians

Recent ADP: 206

Joey Cantillo is projected to open the season at the back end of the rotation for the Cleveland Guardians, but his underlying metrics suggest there may be more here than just a back-end arm. Across 95 1/3 innings in 2025, Cantillo posted a 3.71 xERA (64th percentile), along with a 29.7% whiff rate (80th percentile) and a 27% strikeout rate (79th percentile). He also did a solid job limiting hard contact.

The 26-year-old is a soft-tossing lefty who relies on two above-average secondary pitches to complement a serviceable fastball. His changeup was particularly dominant last summer, generating a 49.4% whiff rate, and even when hitters managed to make contact, they produced just a .170 expected batting average (xBA) against it.

His curveball was also highly effective, producing a 24.3% whiff rate while holding opponents to a .199 xBA. Here is a breakdown of his arsenal.

Although his fastball is nothing to write home about, there is about a 12 mph velocity gap between his heater and his offspeed pitches. This sizeable gap keeps hitters off balance.

Despite long-standing command issues, the 6-foot-4 Hawaiian showed encouraging progress in 2025. Cantillo posted a 104 Location+, hinting that his command may be trending in the right direction. If that improvement holds, it’s easy to imagine him trimming his 10.5% walk rate (16th percentile) going forward.

Another point working in his favor is the Cleveland Guardians’ pitching development program's track record, which has consistently maximized the potential of young arms over the past decade.

For 2026, Cantillo is the 97th starting pitcher off the board in Yahoo leagues, meaning you can draft him as one of your last picks while still getting a hurler who has the upside to finish as a top-50 starter. There is a world where Cantillo pitches to a 3.50 ERA, with a 26% strikeout rate across 140 innings. With that said, Cantillo's first start may be against the back-to-back World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, so you probably don't want to start him in that matchup. After that, though, he should be good to go.

As the weather warms up, use this article as a guide to help you navigate the backend of your drafts. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to reach out to me on X at @Marty_Tallman. Good luck this season!

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