Starting Pitcher Fantasy Baseball Breakouts or Fake Outs? Pitchers On The Rise (Week 7)

May 14, 2026

Are these pitchers fantasy baseball breakouts or fake outs? Dan analyzes advanced pitcher statistics and surging fantasy baseball SPs for Week 7 of 2026, including

This week, I'd like to switch things up and focus on pitchers already on your rosters. Instead of deciding if you should pick up an emerging pitcher off the wire (we already have a lot of content that is geared towards that), I'd like to drill down on three starters who are pitching well ahead of where they were drafted in fantasy baseball, to see if we have any "sell-high" opportunities. In this latest edition of breakout/fake out, I'll be digging into the strong starts of Shota Imanaga, Clay Holmes, and Shane McClanahan!

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 for 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 rostership percentages are courtesy of Yahoo! Let's see which of these arms we can trust going forward and where to expect regression!

Shota Imanaga, Chicago Cubs

• 95% Rostered, Yahoo Overall Rank: 38
• 2025 stats: 144.2 IP, 3.73 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 20.6% K%, 4.6% BB%
• 2026 stats: 54.1 IP, 2.32 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, 28% K%, 6.2% BB%

I am kicking myself right now because I was pretty convinced that Imanaga was set for a return to his 2024 form this year, and yet I didn't end up with him on any teams. He was being taken in the 170-range in drafts, yet has looked like a top-10 pitcher in baseball so far.

So can managers expect this type of return on investment from Imanaga going forward?

I think it's absolutely possible. Nothing really stands out in his underlying stats as a red flag. His 2.32 ERA is backed by a 3.02 xERA and 3.17 SIERA, and the strikeouts are back this year, up 7% from last year. He was a good candidate for positive regression in strikeouts as he still had a very solid SwStr% last year, but he's missing bats at an even higher rate this year (15.5% SwStr%). That's an elite number that we only really see from the top handful of strikeout artists across the league.

The arsenal is basically the same, but there have been a few improvements to his stuff this season. His four-seam velocity is up a full tick on the radar gun from 91 to 92 mph. And while that may seem like a below-average fastball, remember that the average velocity for lefties hovers around 93 mph, while it's higher (94-95 mph) for righties. Also consider that Imanaga's elite 18.4 inches of induced vertical break helps his four-seamer play up, meaning it appears to get on hitters more quickly than a typical 92 mph fastball.

Shōta Imanaga, Wicked back-to-back Sweepers. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/mRJlqVwWBm

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 13, 2026

The splitter has been deadly again, generating a 43.4% Whiff%, but the real difference-maker has been an improved sweeper that he uses against lefties. He's added more vertical and horizontal movement to the pitch, taking the Whiff% rate from 34% last year all the way up to 43% this year. He's getting more chases on both pitches outside of the zone, raising his O-Swing% from 31.5% last year to 39.7% this year.

The control continues to be there, too, and a relatively minor increase in walks doesn't worry me in the slightest, especially at 6%.

Verdict: Imanaga is about as reliable as it gets right now and is returning excellent value. With the current state of starting pitchers being what it is (tons of injuries to studs everywhere), I wouldn't be in any rush to sell Imanaga's start. He may not end up finishing the season this high in the rankings, but he's very likely to turn in good ratios and strikeouts the rest of the way. Enjoy the production and draft value that's being provided.

Shane McClanahan, Tampa Bay Rays

• 87% Rostered, Yahoo Overall Rank: 79
• Missed the entire 2024 and 2025 seasons
• 2026 stats: 39.2 IP, 2.27 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 25.8% K%, 9.4% BB%

While I have a pretty clear-cut verdict on Imanaga, McClanahan's situation is a lot harder to diagnose for a few different reasons. For one, we haven't seen him healthy and pitching at a high level in two years, so questions about his durability and health are going to persist, even while he's starting to produce some results that remind us what he did in the first few years of his career.

It's been a tale of two seasons so far for McClanahan. In his first four starts, he lasted five innings just once and allowed 10 earned runs across just 22 innings. He also walked 11 hitters, while striking out just 18. It was looking as if he might never return to any semblance of his former self, and then this happened.

Shane McClanahan’s last 4 starts:

5.0 IP | 0 R | 7 K’s
6.0 IP | 0 R | 5 K’s
5.2 IP | 0 R | 4 K’s
5.0 IP | 0 R | 7 K’s

Sugar Shane looks BACK 🔥 pic.twitter.com/kSjoffz0uR

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) May 13, 2026

Bang! 21.2 straight scoreless innings with a 23:4 K:BB in his last four starts. So is McClanahan all the way back, or is he just getting lucky lately, and what should we expect from him going forward?

Well, let's start with the stuff. Yes, indeed, Shane's four-seam velocity is down (95 mph) compared to where he was sitting (97 mph) earlier in his career. However, 95 is nothing to sneeze at from a lefty, and McClanahan has three very good complementary pitches to go with it.

The fastball has been hit hard so far, but he's only featuring it 36% of the time. He just needs to keep it out of the heart of the zone and use it as a pitch to get ahead in counts and keep hitters honest with the velocity so they're not sitting on the softer stuff.

Like most lefties, he attacks righties with his changeup, which has been very good this year, eliciting a 0.87 opposing batting average and 0.87 SLG%. It's also his best swing-and-miss pitch, carrying a 37% Whiff%.

He goes after lefties with his slider, which has also been effective at generating weak contact and getting whiffs. And his curveball might be an even better pitch, but he uses it rather sparingly to hitters from both sides of the plate. At 82 mph, it's a nice change of pace from his slider and changeup around 85-86 mph.

Yes, the walk rate is still a bit higher than we'd like at 9.4%, but he's trending in the right direction with these last four starts in terms of control, and his 35.4% Ball% is solid, suggesting he could eventually settle in around 7-8%.

His BABIP and HR/FB both suggest some potential regression to his ERA over time, but he's checking most of the boxes for me in terms of looking like a solid pitcher with the potential for repeatable success.

Verdict: If you're concerned with his injury history, then selling high makes some sense. But I think this version of McClanahan could still be pretty good for fantasy purposes, even if he's not likely to ever reclaim his high-end strikeout capability. He's returning a lot of value on his draft price, and it would be tough for me to move him without getting another really solid pitcher or asset in return.

Clay Holmes, New York Mets

• 76% Rostered, Yahoo Overall Rank: 70
• 2025 stats: 165.2 IP, 3.53 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 18.2% K%, 9.3% BB%
• 2026 stats: 48.1 IP, 1.86 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 19.3% K%, 8.3% BB%

Yes, you read that correctly. Clay Holmes is the 70th-ranked player in Yahoo fantasy baseball. The Mets' righty is now in his second season as a starting pitcher, after serving as a reliever in Pittsburgh and across town for the Yankees in his first seven seasons.

Holmes is coming off a pretty solid season in 2025, winning 12 games for the Mets while producing some usable ratios. He's a groundball pitcher, so not a guy that we expect big strikeout numbers from. But, he's been eating innings this year, and his rank is pretty much a reflection of his sparkling ratios since he's only raised his K% about 1%.

Everything in Holmes' arsenal has very good downward movement, which is how he gets so many groundballs.

He's not blowing it by anyone with velocity, but his sinker-heavy approach continues to get results, and he has a nasty "kick change" that he uses along with a sweeper, cutter, and curveball to round out his pitch mix.

Clay Holmes, 2Ks in the 4th. pic.twitter.com/Qi8AokCTQ0

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 3, 2026

So while he's been awesome so far this year, I don't think it's a stretch at all to suggest that he's pitching over his head. It's awfully tough to maintain these kinds of ratios as a groundball pitcher who allows so much contact. His .222 BABIP is 63 points lower than his career average. His LOB% is also a career-best 87.3% and a good bit to regress, especially without the type of stuff to get strikeouts in big spots with runners on base.

His xERA is 3.73, and SIERA is 3.94. Those numbers aren't bad by any means, but they certainly don't support a Paul Skenes-type ERA that Holmes is carrying now. Some regression is coming, and he may still end up being a useful pitcher for fantasy, but I'm willing to wager that he won't come anywhere close to finishing the season with these types of stats.

Verdict: This is an easy one for me. Holmes was drafted around pick 300 or later, so why not float him out there in some offers to see if you can upgrade your roster? He's a clear sell-high for me. If a manager is going to focus on his elite ratios, do the smart move and cash in this chip for a more reliable asset going forward.

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