Fantasy Baseball Breakouts or Fake Outs? Hitters Delivering Elite Results For Week 24

September 8, 2026

Kevin analyzes hitter fantasy baseball sleepers, breakouts surging for Week 24 of 2026. Are they true breakouts, or fake outs? Read his fantasy baseball outlooks and buys/sells.

It's now Week 24! The fantasy baseball playoffs are rolling, so it's ever so important that you're adding the right players off the waiver wire. You don't want someone who looks like a breakout only to be a fakeout the second you insert him in your lineup.

Our goal with this series is to help you avoid the fakeouts. So let's help you find some gems in this week's edition of Hitter Breakouts or Fake Outs for Week 24 of the fantasy baseball season. We'll use the advanced stats to help us decide whether or not these gems are diamonds in the rough or fool's gold. We'll also advise whether they have staying power or if they're simply a one-week streamer.

Today, we've got four hitters to evaluate -- Mickey Gasper, Thomas Saggese, Javier Sanoja, and Jonah Cox. All statistics in this article reflect games played through Sunday, September 6th.

Mickey Gasper, 1B/C, Boston Red Sox

2026 Stats: .887 OPS, 149 OPS+, 8 HR, 22 RBI, 23 R, 0 SB, 30% Rostered (Yahoo!)

If you're a Red Sox fan, then you absolutely love what Gasper has brought to the team. If you're chronically online like I am, then you know he made it into one of the greatest graphics ever created, which compared him to Ted Williams and Barry Bonds.

That's because his 1.671 OPS in August was absolutely insane. With that kind of month, you'd assume that he'd be on more than just 30% of rosters for the fantasy playoffs. So are people assuming he's a fakeout? Or do we have a breakout on our hands? Let's dig in.

MICKEY GASPER HAS HOMERED AGAIN! THIS MAN IS REACHING NEW LEVELS OF HOT EVERY DAY! pic.twitter.com/wUkOH2gug9

— Tyler Milliken (@tylermilliken_) September 1, 2026

To start, we're going to focus on August's stats for every hitter and try to translate that to September's success. For Gasper, it's impossible not to like what he did in August. For his plate approach, he posted a minuscule 4.8% strikeout rate to go along with a 23.8% walk rate.

Is that going to be sustainable through the fantasy playoffs? More than likely not. I would probably expect his rest-of-season outlook to be something more along the lines of his June rates. Those sat at a 12.7% strikeout rate and an 11.1% walk rate. Expect the strikeout rate to be higher, but I love the plate approach.

His batted ball profile in August was a result of a 39.3% ground-ball rate, 42.9% fly-ball rate, and a 17.9% line drive rate. Most impressively, the HR/FB rate was at 50.0%, resulting in six homers.

I'd say that he needs to try to get more line drives, which hopefully takes away from his grounders, but if half the balls you hit in the air are leaving the yard, then you're doing something right.

This batted ball profile honestly isn't too far off from who he traditionally is, so I think there's some staying power here.

Moving on to BABIP, he posted a .273 BABIP in August. He was at .299 in the first half of the season in 107 ABs. That could indicate that there's some positive regression coming his way, but part of the reason his BABIP is lower now is that more of his balls are leaving the yard.

In my eyes, only positive things can come from this. Now, let's move on to the advanced and expected stats.

His wOBA in August was .648 to go along with a .589 xwOBA. Obviously incredible numbers, obviously not sustainable going forward. But what fueled all of that, so we can determine how far he'll drop?

Contact helps us here. His hard-hit rate was 42.9% while the barrel rate was 25.0%. The big reason he had so much success was that barrel rate. The hard-hit rate would be in the 62nd percentile, while the barrel rate would be the best in the league.

His September numbers are a little more human, posting a 35.7% hard-hit rate and a 14.3% barrel rate in 26 PAs. These numbers are still well above what he's done in his career, but I also think he's much closer to this new version of himself than the old version of himself.

Verdict: I recommended Gasper as a waiver wire pickup a couple of weeks ago and, in this format, I think he clearly identifies as a breakout. I'm not expecting another 330 wRC+ type of month, but something around the 150 wRC+ is still a very solid target, especially because he's going to continue to walk at a high clip.

He's more than just a one-week streamer. Gasper has staying power with positional versatility. Whether he's at DH or 1B, Boston will find a way to keep him in the lineup. The remaining schedule isn't terribly tough, so ride the hot streak for the rest of the season.

Thomas Saggese, 2B/3B/SS/OF, St. Louis Cardinals

2026 Stats: .790 OPS, 125 OPS+, 4 HR, 12 RBI, 20 R, 3 SB, 36% Rostered (Yahoo!)

It hasn't been pretty in St. Louis with injuries down the stretch, but those injuries opened the door for new opportunities. Saggese has had time up in the pros before, but he hasn't quite had the type of impact he's had in recent weeks.

He's been filling in at shortstop and is doing a fine job of it, hitting for a 1.608 OPS in the eight games he's been back up for. It's a small sample size, but we've got to figure out if he's a breakout or a fakeout.

Thomas Saggese played in his first game back with the Cardinals on August 29th

Since then, his 314 wRC+ is the highest of any qualified hitter in baseball pic.twitter.com/yQLNsaNETS

— Adam Akbani (@AdamAkbani) September 6, 2026

For Saggese's stats, I'll be comparing them to his April and May numbers since he's had limited playing time in June, July, and August. In this eight-game stint, he's posted a 16.7% strikeout rate to go along with a 13.3% walk rate.

In April and May, he had a strikeout rate of 31.7% and a walk rate of 7.3%. A big reason we're seeing improvement is that his swing rate is down from 54.0% to 46.5%. That's resulted in a 7% drop in his chase rate.

If he keeps these numbers up, they'd be the lowest chase rate and swing rate of his career. It may be too early to tell with just eight games in this stint, but it does feel like there's a concerted effort here to lower his swing rate.

For his batted ball profile, this stint has featured a 38.1% ground-ball rate, 42.9% fly-ball rate, and a 19.0% line drive rate. There's an improvement in the ground-ball rate and fly-ball rate from his career norms, but nothing terribly drastic.

A nice addition to the batted ball profile here is the 33.3% HR/FB rate. That's clearly an awesome number, but he's definitely overachieving.

Where we can start to really identify luck is with BABIP. He's posted a .556 BABIP in the second half compared to a .265 BABIP in April and May. The number is obviously high, but I'm also a bit worried since the line drive rate isn't in the high-20s. That could be an element of luck we need to consider.

Now to the expected stats. His wOBA in this eight-game stint is at .632, which is paired with a .421 wOBA. That's fueled by a 38.1% hard-hit rate and a 14.3% barrel rate.

Most of his ABs happened in April of this year, when he posted a 35.3% hard-hit rate and a 2.9% barrel rate. In Triple-A Memphis this year, he posted a 6.7% barrel rate. I'll side with some overachieving here.

Verdict: It's certainly hard to determine who Saggese actually is right now as a hitter, but he's got a few things going against him. The first is a high BABIP without a high line drive rate. The second is the fact that Masyn Winn could be returning from an injury very shortly.

The best strategy here is to view Saggese as a streamer. I can't confidently say he'll be good through September; rather, he has some promise once you look beyond that exaggerated BABIP. His next three series are against the Giants, White Sox, and then the Giants again. See how he does this week and then how the Cardinals play it once Winn returns to action.

As long as you take the mentality that he's a streamer, then that will help if he happens to fall off or loses playing time.

Javier Sanoja, 2B/3B/SS/OF, Miami Marlins

2026 Stats: .763 OPS, 115 OPS+, 8 HR, 55 RBI, 40 R, 9 SB, 30% Rostered (Yahoo!)

Now let's talk about a player who has the most playing time in 2026 of any player on this list. Sanoja has been a pretty solid piece of Miami's lineup while going relatively unnoticed.

He posted an .867 OPS in August, the best he had posted in any month. September's been even better as he's racked up a 1.148 OPS in six September games. So is this recent hot streak a breakout? Or is Sanoja a fakeout? Let's find out.

Javier Sanoja makes it a 10-run day for the @Marlins! pic.twitter.com/wMxEZXt28I

— MLB (@MLB) September 6, 2026

In August, Sanoja posted a 9.2% strikeout rate to go along with a 6.1% walk rate. Both of these are in line with his season-long numbers, making him a hitter who prioritizes contact.

His batted ball profile in August featured a 39.0% ground-ball rate, 36.6% fly-ball rate, and a 24.4% line drive rate. These are mostly in line with his season-long numbers, though the ground-ball rate is slightly lower while his August rate increased a couple of ticks.

That's generally a good thing to see improvement in productivity without much of a change in batted ball profile or his plate approach.

He posted a .338 BABIP in August, which certainly helped his productivity. His season-long number is at .299, so I'm going to view this as him getting positive regression in August to get him to a neutral spot.

But now we need to consider the expected stats. His wOBA in August was .377, which was paired with a .320 xwOBA. That's quite a drop that needs to be evaluated. Every other month this season, he didn't have an xwOBA that was higher than .274, so it does feel like a surprising jump.

Contact is going to help explain this. His hard-hit rate in August was 27.7% while his barrel rate was 3.6%. Neither of those is overly impressive, but it should be noted that the 3.6% barrel rate is well above the rate he's typically produced, which hadn't exceeded 1.8% in any prior month.

The contact stats in August translate pretty closely to Richie Palacios, whose xwOBA of .304 ranks in the 25th percentile. Sanoja has a .288 xwOBA for the full season, so maybe viewing a .304 number is more applicable than the .320 xwOBA he posted in August.

Verdict: This call is a little easier for me to make, given that we have a lot more data from this season compared to our first two hitters. To me, Sanoja is a fakeout. The gap between wOBA and xwOBA is too big for me to ignore. And given the fact that the majority of this season he's posted a sub-.300 xwOBA each month, I can't buy into him producing at an upper-echelon level.

Avoid picking up Sanoja. He's set to return closer to his norms in September. Also, Miami's finishing schedule is not exactly hitter-friendly. You'll likely be making a mistake if you make a desperate move to capitalize on Sanoja's recent streak.

Jonah Cox, OF, San Francisco Giants

2026 Stats: .836 OPS, 134 OPS+, 4 HR, 10 RBI, 18 R, 9 SB, 10% Rostered (Yahoo!)

In what's been a rather terrible season for the Giants, they've at least been able to showcase quite a bit of young talent in their lineup. Casey Schmitt and Bryce Eldridge have been fantastic young bats for them. We've also reviewed Osleivis Basabe in this series, so another Giant isn't a surprise to see.

But Cox has been pretty stellar. He posted a .945 OPS in August, one of the best on the Giants. At just 10% rostered, he looks like he could be a perfect complementary piece. But we've got to evaluate as we always do. So is he a breakout, or a fakeout? Let's dig in.

Jonah Cox crushes one 💥 pic.twitter.com/dx6i6vTffp

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) September 1, 2026

For his plate approach, he posted a 40.0% strikeout rate and a 7.5% walk rate in August. I'll attribute some of this to a smaller sample size, since it happened over 40 PAs. But it also could be somewhat of an adjustment to the big leagues. It's actually better than his stint in June, in which he struck out at a 51.9% clip.

In Double-A Richmond this season, his plate approach looked much different. He posted an 8.7% walk rate and a 16.9% strikeout rate. There's clearly a level of comfort that he hasn't reached yet in the majors, even though the current approach worked in August.

For his batted ball profile, he certainly prioritized keeping balls off the ground in August. He posted a 36.8% ground-ball rate, a 57.9% fly-ball rate, and a 5.3% line drive rate. While it's great that he kept the ball off the ground, I'd have preferred to see that line drive rate higher to ensure a higher likelihood of hits.

In September's short stint, he's actually seen his ground-ball rate skyrocket to 57.1%. So what's the real rate we should be buying into? I'd point toward his numbers in Double-A Richmond this season, since he played 44 games there compared to 11 in Triple-A Sacramento.

In Richmond, the batted ball profile looked like this: 46.5% ground-ball rate, 34.1% fly-ball rate, and a 19.4% line drive rate. So his real ground-ball rate should actually be somewhere in the middle, with a higher rate of line drives.

Now let's move on to BABIP, and man, do we have a bit to consider here. He's currently posting a .465 BABIP this season. In August, it was a .444 BABIP, so we can see he's finding a ton of holes here. But is it luck?

His BABIP was at .464 in Double-A Richmond this season, and it was at .568 in Triple-A Sacramento. Last season it was at .326 in Single-A Eugene. That may be our best mark to consider realistic here, even though at most every other level he's been around .400 or so. Regardless, the .465 mark is higher than his norms.

As we move on to the advanced and expected stats, Cox posted a .402 wOBA that was paired with a .298 xwOBA in August. In September, he dropped to a .323 wOBA to go with a .239 xwOBA. That gap was also evident in his 11 games in Triple-A Sacramento, though at a much higher level (.523 wOBA, .408 xwOBA).

If he's got great contact stats, then that can help balance out some of what we're seeing. In August, he had a 52.4% hard-hit rate to go along with a 19.0% barrel rate. That clearly reads pretty great! In September, he's got a 46.7% hard-hit rate but has yet to barrel a ball.

Minor league stats for these rates are harder to compare outside of Triple-A, so we can't pull data from Richmond. In Sacramento this year, he posted a 36.8% hard-hit rate to go with a 5.3% barrel rate.

I can at least get behind his hard-hit rate being higher in the majors, but I don't think his barrel rate of 19.0% is anywhere near realistic. I'd project a rate of 10% or lower for September.

Verdict: Cox feels like a contact hitter who is simply striking out way too high right now. That is clearly affecting his value since a smaller number of balls are being put in play. Additionally, the BABIP itself brings up way too many questions without having a high line drive rate to support it.

I'm considering Cox a fakeout. There are way too many signs pointing towards negative regression. And even though Cox has beaten what the numbers said he should do at multiple levels, it's much too risky to take a gamble on a rookie where the numbers are pointing so clearly against him. Avoid him and focus your efforts elsewhere on the waiver wire.

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