Starting Pitcher Fantasy Baseball Breakouts or Fake Outs? Pitchers On The Rise (Week 13)

June 26, 2026

Are these pitchers fantasy baseball breakouts or fake outs? Dan analyzes advanced pitcher statistics and surging fantasy baseball SPs for Week 13 of 2026, including Eduardo Rodriguez, Sean Burke, and Brady Singer.

The best part of fantasy baseball, in my opinion, is that the season is long and we get to evaluate (and re-evaluate) players at various stages of the season. Players who are consistently good throughout the year are rostered all year, but there are always others who emerge to provide fantasy value after slow starts. This week, I look at three pitchers who are all pitching at the highest level that they have this season right now to see which of them might have a chance at continuing that recent success.

If you are new to this column, remember that the goal is to look at several pitchers each week who are showing signs of "breaking out." That term gets thrown around a lot in our industry, but to me, it means they're flirting with the possibility of improving their baseline performance across a larger sample.

So, while we typically look at younger pitchers as potential "breakouts," I won't limit myself to only youngsters. The concept of the breakout can be applied to pitchers of all experience levels, as we have seen numerous examples of pitchers improving significantly from season to season, even into their 30s. All roster percentages are courtesy of Yahoo! Let's see which of these arms we can trust going forward and where we can expect regression! All statistics were current through Thursday, June 25.

Eduardo Rodriguez, Arizona Diamondbacks

• 59% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 154.1 IP, 5.02 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 20.6% K%, 8.6% BB%
• 2026 stats: 95 IP, 2.27 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 18.0% K%, 9.8% BB%

It's the year 2026, and E-Rod, in his 11th MLB season, has the sixth-best ERA among qualified starters through 16 starts and 95 innings pitched. He's done this after posting an ERA of 5.02 and 5.04 in his first two seasons in Arizona, while striking out fewer hitters and walking more of them.

I think you know where I am going with this...but we are going to go through all the stats that back up the "fake out diagnosis," don't worry.

Let's start with the 86.1% strand rate, which is 15% higher than the league average and 13% higher than E-Rod's career average. A 1.21 WHIP doesn't match up with an ERA in the low two range, as pitchers who allow that many baserunners ultimately don't get away with that level of run prevention for long.

Eduardo Rodriguez came into Tuesday with an absurd 86.1% strand rate, second among qualified MLB pitchers.

Strand rates that high are tough to sustain, but Rodriguez escapes another jam in the sixth, leaving the bases loaded. pic.twitter.com/DlvUg8LJSS

— George Lund (@GLundMedia) June 24, 2026

Then there's the .251 BABIP allowed, 50 points lower than the league average and E-Rod's career BABIP of .303. I'm not sure how a pitcher with a 4.79 xERA (7th-highest among qualified starters) has such a low BABIP. Batters have to be hitting the ball hard right at defenders.

E-Rod is missing bats at the lowest rate of his career (7.6% SwStr%, 89.9% Z-Contact%), and eventually the loud contact is going to catch up with him. It's not a matter of if, but when.

Right now, he's eating innings and providing some help in ERA, but there's absolutely no upside here in strikeouts, and he's still barely useful in WHIP.

Rodriguez's rostership in leagues is further proof that managers are usually willing to chase players who are putting up good surface stats, even if they know (and many of them DO know) that those stats are not sustainable.

Verdict: Let others invest in E-Rod's resurgence; it's quite obvious that it's a fake out! His days of being a fantasy-relevant pitcher are well behind him. You'd be wise to avoid him before he blows up again, and any value that he's contributed in ERA evaporates entirely.

Sean Burke, Chicago White Sox

• 36% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 134.1 IP, 4.22 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 22.3% K%, 10.6% BB%
• 2026 stats: 87.1 IP, 3.71 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 23.9% K%, 8.2% BB%

The White Sox have turned Davis Martin into a really good starting pitcher, and now it's starting to look like they're on the verge of doing the same thing with Sean Burke. The 26-year-old righty is having a strong sophomore season through his first 12 starts, trimming a half run off his ERA from last year and getting his WHIP down to a much more useful 1.21.

The 1.6% increase in strikeouts might seem marginal, but Burke has gone from league-average (22%) last year to nearly 24% this year, putting him inside the top 30 among qualified starters and in the same neighborhood as pitchers like Shota Imanaga, Foster Griffin, and Cade Cavalli.

He's also cut down his walk rate by 2.4%, a decrease that seems quite sustainable based on his 34.2% Ball%.

Sean Burke in his last 2 games:

13.2 IP
11 H
2 ER
2 BB
14 K

He's pitched 6+ innings in back-to-back outings for the first time all season! pic.twitter.com/cP6EJHz3rz

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) June 24, 2026

Burke's arsenal hasn't changed much in terms of his pitches or movement, but he has increased his sinker usage significantly, allowing him to throw fewer four-seam fastballs. His fastball is just average in velocity (94-95 mph), but it has very good induced vertical break, averaging 18.8 inches, which allows it to play up a bit.

The increased sinker usage reminds me a bit of what Ben Brown, another righty with a great knuckle-curve, did this year to prevent hitters from sitting on his four-seamer.

He complements the sinker/fastball with a strong slider to righties and a big 12-6 curveball to lefties. His velocity on his pitches hasn't changed, but he's getting superior results this season in terms of balls that have been put into play as he's lowered his xERA a full run from 4.93 to 3.95. He's dropped his Barrel% by How do we explain that?

My theory is that it's likely a product of the increased sinker usage in addition to improved control and better sequencing. In terms of control, he's improved his Location+ rating from 101 to 103 this year, which suggests that he's hitting his spots with all of his pitches more often.

He's getting out in front of hitters more often, too, as he's improved his F-Strike% from 56.7% to 64% this year. While his SwStr% is about the same as last season, his called strike rate (CStr%) has increased by 3%, which tells me that he's likely sequencing his pitches better and keeping hitters guessing on pitch type and location.

Verdict: While we don't have any major changes to point to with Burke in terms of his velocity or pitch mix, we do have a half-season of data that suggests that he's evolving as a pitcher and has made significant improvements in his control.

He was a marginal fantasy contributor last year, but now looks like a strong option for fantasy leagues with his solid ratios and above-average strikeout stuff. I'd much rather have him on my roster than someone like E-Rod!

Brady Singer, Cincinnati Reds

• 16% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 169.2 IP, 4.03 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 22.8% K%, 8.4% BB%
• 2026 stats: 73 IP, 4.81 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 17.9% K%, 7.6% BB%

Are we really about to talk about a pitcher with an ERA close to five and a 1.5 WHIP? Yeah, I think Brady Singer's recent run and track record of being an innings-eater with a moderate level of success make him worth further investigation.

After a first solid season in Cincinnati last year, Singer's first two months of the 2026 were an abject disaster. He had a 4.97 in April and followed that up with a 7.77 ERA across 22 innings in May, and then, all of a sudden, he's looked like a pretty good pitcher in June with a 1.64 ERA and 1.09 WHIP across 22 innings.

Brady Singer has been fantastic in June.

Should the Reds trade him at the deadline? #Reds pic.twitter.com/HFPyjJsNTQ

— Chatterbox Sports (@CBoxSports) June 23, 2026

So what happened with Singer that caused him to do a complete 180 and look like a pitcher who could be worth rostering in fantasy? I dug into his pitch mix, velocity, and spin rates, and couldn't really find any major differences over these last four starts from what he was doing all year.

It could be that he faced inferior competition, right? Two of those starts did come against the offensively-challenged Mets and Padres; however, his most recent seven-strikeout performance came against the division-leading Brewers, a team with a formidable lineup that doesn't strike out all that much.

I really thought I would be able to point to at least one thing that Singer has improved that has led to these better results, but I think it's far more likely that it's been a good stretch of luck and maybe some positive regression, too.

Verdict: Singer's underlying numbers don't point to any major improvement recently, though he is probably a better pitcher than he showed earlier this year. The most likely outcome is that he settles into similar production as last season over the larger sample, which isn't really enough to warrant adding him in fantasy leagues.

Add him to your watch list if you want, but there's no sense of urgency for adding Singer based on a handful of good starts.

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