Fantasy Baseball League Winners: Unlikely Aces Worth A Roster Spot? (Week 19)

August 5, 2026

Jeremy's deep dive into starting pitcher fantasy baseball breakouts, waiver wire adds for Week 19 of 2026. Are these unlikely aces potential league winners?

It's time for the Week 19 edition of our Unlikely Aces column for the 2026 fantasy baseball season. In this piece, we discuss surprising pitchers who are going above and beyond expectations, providing your team with unlikely ace production that not many were expecting. Some performances are more sustainable than others, so we'll dive into each pitcher to see how likely it is for them to maintain their recent form.

Starting pitching is by far the most volatile and risky position in fantasy, as every year plenty of top arms are sidelined with injuries. Luckily, there are also plenty of waiver wire gems and post-draft breakouts that allow fantasy managers to fill the gaps and hopefully bring home a championship trophy.

This week, we're focusing on Brandon Pfaadt, Griffin Jax, and Ryan Weathers. One of these pitchers is widely available, while the other two could still be available in shallower formats. Without further ado, let's get into whether these pitchers can keep up their recent form. For reference, all roster percentages listed are taken from Yahoo leagues.

Brandon Pfaadt, Arizona Diamondbacks

33% Rostered

Brandon Pfaadt was nothing short of a disaster to start the season, allowing 16 runs through his first five appearances before losing his spot in the rotation entirely. Things weren’t much better out of the bullpen, and he was eventually sent to Triple-A to stretch back out as a starter. He rejoined the major league rotation on June 30th, and has looked like a completely different pitcher since.

The 27-year-old has made seven starts in that time frame, most recently allowing one unearned run over 6 ⅔ innings against the Padres. It was his second straight start of allowing no earned runs, and he's yet to allow more than two runs in any start during his recent stint in the rotation. That works out to an elite 1.55 ERA and 1.03 WHIP over that span, making him a true unlikely ace.

The righty has earned the win in six of those seven games too, making him even more of a standout fantasy asset. The one area he still doesn't excel at is strikeouts, as he's tallied only 21 punchouts over his past 40 ⅔ innings. While that does dampen his fantasy upside a good bit, he's still managed to be successful mainly by limiting free passes, as he's walked only five total batters in that span. 

That is a significant improvement from earlier in the year, when he walked 11 batters in his first 26 innings. On the season, Pfaadt's ratios are down to a more respectable 3.66 ERA and 1.26 WHIP, while he has a 55:22 K:BB ratio in 78 ⅔ frames. I'm buying this improved version of him to some degree, as the better control is a clear indicator of why he's taken a step forward. 

Verdict: Pfaadt is certainly worth adding at this point, as he deserves to be more than 33% rostered. However, it's still tough to succeed with a strikeout rate as low as his, so I do expect some regression to hit soon. I'm not expecting him to be an ace for the rest of the year, but he's clearly better than the waiver wire fodder we were regarding him as earlier in the season. 

Griffin Jax, Tampa Bay Rays

62% Rostered

Griffin Jax has enjoyed a solid first season as a starting pitcher, holding a 3.63 ERA and 1.21 WHIP with 100 strikeouts and 30 walks in 91 ⅔ innings. Not all of those stats have come as a starter, but he left the bullpen all the way back on April 26th, so those season-long stats are a good indication of his success as a starter.

He settled in as a guy who would frequently toss five to six innings with about a strikeout per inning, which isn't ace-like, but is still valuable from a fantasy perspective. However, that has started to change more recently, as he's struck out 18 batters in 10 ⅔ innings over his past two starts. One was a one-earned run, eight-strikeout performance against the White Sox, and the other was a one-earned run, 10-strikeout gem against the Rangers. 

Griffin Jax continues to be extremely efficient for the Rays.

5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K
13 whiffs
34% CSW

He continues to be a "five and dive" kind of guy, but continues to provide excellent ratios as a starter.

3.63 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 100 K in 91.2 IP. pic.twitter.com/hMpYh4cBPc

— Nicho Roessler (@NichoRoessler) August 3, 2026

It may just have been a matter of time for some positive regression to hit the 31-year-old, whose 31.2% whiff rate (88th percentile) grades out as a much better metric than his 26.4% strikeout rate (74th percentile). It's only natural for some more strikeouts to start popping up if he maintains a whiff rate like that, leading to these recent eye-popping outings.

While the recent bump in performance has been nice, there are still downsides with Jax, too, particularly in the context of fantasy. For one, the Rays typically pull him before he finishes six full frames, no matter how low his pitch count is. There have been several starts this year where he's been extremely efficient, tossing less than 70 pitches over five innings, but they still pulled the plug.

That's just something you have to get used to when rostering most of Tampa Bay's pitchers, and it hurts his value the most in leagues where quality starts matter. Additionally, as we head into the final two months of the season, an innings limit is a legitimate concern.

He's typically thrown around 70 innings as a reliever every season of his professional career, and he's already up to 91 ⅔ frames this year. It wouldn't be shocking to see the Rays limit his outings even more to some extent to keep that number down, especially as we grow closer to the end of the regular season. The Rays have the best record in the American League and will want his arm to be as fresh as possible for the playoffs. 

Verdict: It's hard to expect true ace-like production from Jax with his limited innings, but I do like that we are finally seeing an increase in strikeouts. He's obviously not much of a waiver wire candidate at 62% rostered, but that number should still be much closer to 100% for a must-start pitcher down the stretch. 

Ryan Weathers, New York Yankees

53% Rostered

Ryan Weathers delivered a strong performance on Tuesday against the Yankees, striking out six batters over six shutout innings while allowing four hits and one walk. This was his second consecutive scoreless outing, as he also tossed seven shutout innings against the White Sox on July 30th. 

Ryan Weathers, 2Ks in the 6th

6Ks thru 6 pic.twitter.com/WFxhE3y3uX

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 5, 2026

If you take a look at his stats over his past three outings, he's allowed just one run on 13 hits and five walks with 17 strikeouts over 18 ⅔ innings, which has been a great rebound after he got hit around for five runs on July 20th against the Pirates. A couple of bad starts in July combined with a horrible three-start stretch from late May to early June really hurt his season-long ratios and dampened the excitement that the fantasy community had for him. 

The 26-year-old entered the season as a very popular breakout candidate and allowed three runs or fewer in seven of his first eight starts, with six of them being two runs or fewer. Even in one start where he did give up five earned runs, Weathers still struck out 10 batters, consistently showing his upside at every turn.

He was shaping up to be a budding star before the regression set in, and he now possesses a 3.79 ERA and 1.22 WHIP for the year. You'd almost expect those numbers to be even worse considering he's allowed five or more runs six separate times this season, but that shows just how dominant he's been outside of his worst outings.

One big theme of those bad starts was allowing too many home runs, as he's allowed multiple homers in a game five times, but that is a problem that the lefty has fixed as of late. He's allowed only one home run in his past eight starts, turning one of his biggest weaknesses into a strength.

Verdict: Weathers is looking like a volatile pitcher who can be frustrating to roster in fantasy at times, but you can't let his bad starts keep you from taking advantage of his stretches of greatness. He's definitely running hot right now and is allowing less hard contact, and he should be considered a must-start pitcher until he cools off. If this streak is anything like the one early in the year, it may be a while before that happens. 

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