Starting Pitcher Fantasy Baseball Breakouts or Fake Outs? Pitchers On The Rise (Week 15)

July 9, 2026

Are these pitchers fantasy baseball breakouts or fake outs? Dan analyzes advanced pitcher statistics and surging fantasy baseball SPs for Week 15 of 2026, including Taj Bradley, Jared Jones, and Dean Kremer.

You know, it gets tougher every week to find three compelling pitchers to discuss that I haven't already investigated in previous weeks. It was a challenge this week, but I decided that I needed to do three different types of pitchers for the column. Taj Bradley is widely rostered, but is he finally ready to settle in as a pitcher with elite upside? Jared Jones is coming off six perfect innings against the Braves last night, but is still lightly rostered since he's been underperforming. And to finish things off, I'll discuss Dean Kremer, who is putting up the best stats of his career through four starts, but ran into a buzzsaw against the Cubs last night.

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 Wednesday, July 8.

Taj Bradley, Minnesota Twins

• 68% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 142.2 IP, 5.05 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 21% K%, 9.3% BB%
• 2026 stats: 95.2 IP, 3.67 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 27.8% K%, 9.4% BB%

Taj Bradley is still just 25 years old. I did a double-take when I saw his age today because it feels like he's been in the big leagues for a long time. He's made 90 career starts already, and I feel like we have been waiting for this version of him for some time, as he's teased us with strikeout upside but failed to deliver the type of ratios that would make him a fantasy baseball stalwart.

This most recent stretch of starts warrants a closer inspection of Bradley's approach, especially the 0.88 WHIP over his last five starts, as that is still the one weaker area of his stat profile.

Taj Bradley over his last five starts

30.2 IP
2.93 ERA
0.88 WHIP
39 K

pic.twitter.com/iGlPC9fBJZ

— Kirk Snyder (@dynastyinfo411) July 8, 2026

Bradley has always been a Stuff+ champ with a career average rating of 107. He's sitting at 109 this season, with his curveball (113) and cutter (112) leading the way in his arsenal. His splitter checks in with a 108 Stuff+ rating as well, which ranks third behind only Logan Gilbert and Foster Griffin among qualified starters.

The recent increase in cutter usage looks to be the biggest difference in Bradley's approach. He's struck out double-digit hitters in back-to-back starts this month, and the cutter has been filthy lately (and really all year long). Bradley's cutter has elicited a 40.6% Whiff% and a .150 xBA, and it ranks behind only Jacob Misorowski in terms of Stuff+ rating.

Even while Bradley's four-seamer sits at 97 mph and can touch 100 mph, I like seeing him lean into more cutters and splitters. His overall four-seamer usage is still up this year (47%) compared to last (38%), but mainly because he ditched his two-seamer altogether. His fastball still gets the hardest of any of his pitches, so fewer four-seamers are probably a good thing.

The 1.22 WHIP is a bit high for a pitcher whom we want to see take the next step towards being a top-tier starter, but it's also tied for his career-best mark. Ultimately, he's going to have to cut down on the walks to lower that number. But the batted ball results (3.79 xERA) back up his career-best 3.67 ERA.

Verdict: We've seen Bradley run hot and cold before during the course of a season; however, he's looked as good lately as he ever has, and a legit breakout could be in process. We'll need to see him dominate over a larger sample before we know for sure, but perhaps he's finally ready to ascend the upper echelon of starters.

Jared Jones, Pittsburgh Pirates

• 24% Rostered
• 2024 stats (did not pitch in 2025): 121.2 IP, 4.14 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 26.2% K%, 7.7% BB%
• 2026 stats: 35 IP, 4.37 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 27.1% K%, 7.6% BB%

So what the heck do we make of Jared Jones's six innings of no-hit baseball last night? I'm not here to debate whether or not he should have been pulled, just to try to figure out what went right for him when he entered the game with an ERA over 5.00 through his first seven starts.

Jared Jones, 2Ks in the 5th.

8Ks thru 5...and 🤫 pic.twitter.com/N4H6FzQDkh

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 8, 2026

Jones racked up eight strikeouts and was perfect through six innings. He went exclusively with his four-seamer and slider, ditching the curveball and changeup that together usually make up around 30% of his pitch mix.

The slider was responsible for most of the damage, eliciting a 62% Whiff% as he used it to punch out six Braves. He was locked in from a location standpoint from the first pitch, working ahead of hitters and pounding the zone with both pitches. The 61% first-pitch strike rate was good to see since Jones is just at 52% on the season.

I'll be honest, I was surprised to see this result as Jones has been rather disappointing in limited action so far. He's throwing his four-seamer harder than before his injury, averaging 98.6 mph on his heater; however, he has lost some iVB on the pitch when compared to 2024, and it's resulted in more hard contact on the pitch.

His Stuff+ (101) and Location+ (103) are both down when compared to 2024, too. Though those are still very solid numbers. His SwStr% now sits at 14.2% on the season and is right in line with where he was in his rookie campaign (14.2%).

The Pirates lifted him at 77 pitches last night, and the six innings were a season-high for him. In fact, he had only finished five innings in one other start. So until the kid gloves come off, it's hard to trust Jones to pitch deep into games, especially as a strikeout pitcher who can run up his pitch count quickly.

As a Pirates fan, I want to buy into this performance signaling that Jones is locking in his control and making progress towards fulfilling the lofty expectations that have been thrust upon him. But as an analyst, I am also willing to acknowledge that it could have just been an outlier result, too.

Verdict: Jones has tremendous stuff, and the strikeout potential is enough to warrant rostership in all formats. But I'm not ready to declare that "he's back" just yet as he had not shown this level of dominance across the larger sample of innings, and he didn't do anything all that different or special from an approach standpoint in last night's game. Cautious optimism can best describe my feelings at the time!

Dean Kremer, Baltimore Orioles

• 23% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 171.2 IP, 4.19 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 20.1% K%, 6.4% BB%
• 2026 stats: 22 IP, 4.09 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 27.9% K%, 4.7% BB%

So I was excited to dig into Dean Kremer for this piece. He was spectacular in two April starts for Baltimore before hitting the shelf with a quad injury that forced him to miss all of May and June. He came back with a strong performance against the White Sox, going six frames while allowing only one earned run on four hits.

Then last night the long ball caught up with him. He allowed four solo home runs to the Cubs over five innings, walking one and striking out four.

Michael Conforto and Carson Kelly homer on back-to-back pitches to tie it for the Cubs! pic.twitter.com/9b4WDmJBVT

— MLB (@MLB) July 8, 2026

The home run is still a big problem for Kremer as he's now allowed nine of them in only 22 innings this season. He blamed the ballpark last night for at least two of them in a post-game interview, and we know that the right field short porch at Camden is a major boon to left-handed hitters. But he gave up one to left-field against a righty (Carson Kelly, too). Two of them were to the red-hot Pete Crow-Armstrong, so maybe we cut him some slack there. And his 33% HR/FB is a number that is ripe for regression with a larger sample size of innings.

Kremer is really leaning into the splitter, as he's now leading with the pitch at 35% usage. This is good news for the strikeout potential, as the pitch carries a 45% Whiff% this season and had a strong 29% Whiff% last year.

A 13% SwStr% is not something we have ever seen from Kremer before, as he's been in the 10% range for much of his career. Let's not forget we are dealing with a super small sample size, but if he's going to try to be the next Kevin Gausman, we should see an uptick in strikeouts going forward.

However, I don't typically trust pitchers who are so reliant on a pitch as volatile as the splitter, either. They are typically only as effective as their splitter is on any given day, and usually need a decent fastball that they can use up in the zone to change hitters' eye level. Otherwise, hitters are going to do what PCA did yesterday and sit on the splitter down in the zone and smash it into the right field seats.

Kremer's fastball is not a very good pitch, and his cutter has been crushed this year (which is why it makes sense that he's trying to get away from it). There's no other pitch in his arsenal that really stands out, which certainly makes me nervous.

We are in year seven of Kremer's career, and while I will never write off a pitcher at any age stage of their career, I do think that is probably pretty unlikely that we are going to see a massively different version of Kremer going forward. The extra strikeouts are nice, but he's still a pitcher who can get hit hard, and the bad home ballpark is likely going to be an issue going forward (1.6 HR/9 against lefties in his career).

Verdict: Kremer is a watch list candidate for me, not a pitcher whom I am actively adding. I have my doubts as to whether he can keep it up, and last night's subpar performance was a good reminder of his weaknesses as a pitcher.

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