Starting Pitcher Fantasy Baseball Breakouts or Fake Outs? Pitchers On The Rise (Week 8)

May 21, 2026

Are these pitchers fantasy baseball breakouts or fake outs? Dan analyzes advanced pitcher statistics and surging fantasy baseball SPs for Week 8 of 2026, including

That's right, it's time once again to break down some starting pitchers who are enjoying successful starts to the 2026 season. This week's trio of pitchers is an interesting one, as I'll delve into one highly-rostered veteran (Michael King), and a couple of younger arms who may be available on your waiver wire in J.T. Ginn and Zebby Matthews.

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

Michael King, San Diego Padres

• 95% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 73.1 IP, 3.44 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 24.7 % K%, 8.4% BB%
• 2026 stats: 58.1 IP, 2.31 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 25.8% K%, 10.5% BB%

King is in his third season with the Padres after spending the first five years of his career with the Yankees, mainly as a reliever. His 2024 season was his best as a starter, as he made 30 starts during his first year in San Diego and finished with a 2.95 ERA and 1.19 WHIP.

Last year's numbers dipped across the board, and King missed about half the season with shoulder and knee injuries. He was a bit of a risky pick at his ADP this spring, since we weren't sure which version of King we'd get in 2026. Was he fully healthy, and could he replicate his 2024 success?

Well, his recent run of good starts against St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles has lowered his ERA to 2.31 and WHIP to 1.06, both of which would be his best marks since becoming a starter in 2023.

Michael King was GROSS against the Dodgers tonight 🔥

7.0 IP | 4 H | 0 R | 2 BB | 9 K’s

All of King’s whiffs and called strikes against LA tonight:pic.twitter.com/OIx0jnK3s7

— Baseball Performances (@MLBPerformances) May 19, 2026

This start against the Dodgers certainly got my attention. So is King all the way back to being a high-end starter who we can trust to help anchor our fantasy baseball rotations?

This is a tough one because King hasn't made any major adjustments to his arsenal. He's still primarily a sinker-sweeper-changeup guy with a four-seamer and slider mixed in. There's no big change in velocity on any of his pitches, no different pitch shapes, and no big increases in movement either.

The biggest thing I can point to would be King's increase in his GB% as he's sitting at 48.9% on the year, which would be a career-high if he finished the year that high. It makes sense for a sinker-heavy pitcher to get a healthy amount of groundballs, but King had a pretty strong fly-ball lean last year (45% to 38%) and allowed a career-worst 1.47 HR/9.

He's brought that back down to just 0.62 this year, though a 7.8% HR/FB might suggest that he's been a bit lucky on home runs, too.

Despite seeing his overall Stuff+ rating go down this year (likely because he's throwing so many changeups and sinkers - pitches that often carry very low Stuff+ scores), his SwStr% is up a point, as is his K%. The only real red flag right now is the 10.5% BB%, which is two points higher than it was in each of the last two seasons. If he can cut down on the walks going forward, I like his chances of maintaining this level of production.

Verdict: King is clearly healthier in 2026 and looks much more like the 2024 version of himself. He doesn't quite belong in the top tier of starters, but he's proven that he can provide a nice combination of strikeouts and solid ratios. Even with a little regression, he should still be a very valuable fantasy asset this season if he can stay healthy.

J.T. Ginn, Athletics

• 39% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 90.1 IP, 5.08 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 25.3% K%, 7.9% BB%
• 2026 stats: 51.1 IP, 2.98 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 21.7% K%, 8.4% BB%

When you flirt with a no-hitter and strike out 10 hitters, you deserve a spot in this column! Especially if you are a third-year pitcher with a career 4.30 ERA who has never flashed that type of potential before.

Ginn ultimately lost his no-hitter in the ninth inning and allowed a walk-off, two-run home run to lose the game 2-1. I feel like his breakdown in this article is going to take a similar path, as there's a lot to like here about what he's done this season, but ultimately, I'm not entirely sold that he's a full-fledged breakout.

Let's start with some of the good stuff! Ginn has two very good pitches - his sinker and slider. The sinker sits 94-95 mph and has above-average vertical drop, while the slider complements the sinker quite nicely at 85-86 mph with some hard downward bite of its own.

JT Ginn, 96mph Sinker and 86mph Slider, Individual Pitches + Overlay.

Why you'd swing at a slider in the other batter's box. pic.twitter.com/PWyuJygBC3

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 19, 2026

He's added a four-seamer to his mix this season, while reducing his sinker usage from 51.5% to 36.7%. His fastball and cutter aren't great pitches, but simply function as a change-of-pace pitch that he can use (primarily to lefties).

Like King, his Stuff+ won't pop in the ratings, but his sinker-heavy approach has been good for a career 50% GB%, and keeping the ball on the ground is even more important for someone who's making their home starts at the HR-friendly Sutter Health Park.

Ginn's sinker is more than just a pitch to get groundballs, too; he has a very healthy 23.3% Whiff% on the pitch to go along with 28% on the slider and 30% on the changeup.

His SIERA sits at 3.91, just one run higher than his ERA, and his xERA is even better at 3.64. He's trimmed his barrel% down to 6.4% from 9.8%, and his HardHit% has dropped to 33.6% from 45%, where it sat for each of the last two seasons. So, despite getting fewer strikeouts this year, the batted ball results have been much improved.

Ginn still has some work to do against lefties. He has a 5.05 FIP and 1.39 WHIP to southpaws, while his K% is 7% lower and BB% jumps by 8%. Those splits definitely concern me a bit, as does what seems like an unsustainable .239 BABIP (he's been well over .300 in his first two seasons). An 80% strand rate isn't super alarming, but it is 5% higher than his career average, and without a big jump in K%, that also feels like a spot for regression.

Verdict: Ginn has likely improved overall as a starting pitcher in year three. It remains to be seen if he can really be this much better than his baseline of performance, however, and he has several factors working against him in maintaining an ERA around 3.00. He's probably closer to a 4.00 ERA guy with a modest strikeout rate.

There's still value to be had there, and he's worthy of a roster spot in standard leagues with the current market for starting pitching being what it is. But keep those expectations in check, he's still in streamer territory for me. Stream him against teams with a lot of righties - like the Los Angeles Angels, for example!

Zebby Matthews, Minnesota Twins

• 26% Rostered
• 2025 stats: 79.1IP, 5.56 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 24.9% K%, 6.8% BB%
• 2026 stats: 13 IP, 1.38 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, 22.9% K%, 2.1% BB%

It took nearly two months, but the Twins finally called up Zebby to make his 2026 debut one week ago. He was very effective against the Marlins in that start, striking out five while going seven scoreless innings and picking up the win. He then logged six solid innings against the Astros earlier this week, giving him two strong starts across his first 13 innings this season.

Zebby Matthews, Nasty 86mph Slider. 😨 pic.twitter.com/uL0k1qIBJv

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 20, 2026

As someone who advocated for drafting Matthews this year and had him stashed in multiple leagues, I should be overjoyed, right? Well, I'll certainly take those results any day, but something still seems a bit off with Matthews, and I'm still holding my breath a little.

First of all, he wasn't exactly killing it at Triple-A before his promotion. He had a 4.72 ERA and 1.50 WHIP in seven starts there with just a 22% K%. The late promotion makes some sense then, if you consider that he wasn't really tearing it up in the minors and forcing the Twins' hand to move him up.

If there is something to celebrate so far, it's been the command, as his 2.1% BB% is superb, and good control is consistent with his profile in the past. However, the strikeout rate is down 2%, SwStr% is down 3%, and the velocity on his pitches is down across the board and by as much as a full 1.0 mph on his cutter, slider, and four-seamer.

A 70.8% F-Strike% is terrific, and clearly getting ahead in the count is helping him out quite a bit. However, his contact rates are up, which makes me a bit nervous because he's been hit very hard in the past and we have only a small sample size of innings with him getting these elite batted ball results.

He's likely been pretty lucky in these first two starts. He's sporting a .229 BABIP compared to a .347 career average and a 93% LOB% compared to a 69% career average. The other red flag category I always check is HR/FB%, which is only a 6.7% for Matthews in these first two starts compared to 12% and 20% his first two seasons.

We don't have a velocity bump or a major arsenal tweak to point to for these improved results. In fact, we have a somewhat concerning velocity dip.

Verdict: I still think he has a very solid profile and the potential to be a good starting pitcher in this league, not many guys can throw 95 mph with four different offspeed pitches and maintain such good control. However, these early returns seem very inflated. I'm holding onto him where I have him, and hoping that we see better underlying numbers going forward, but won't be surprised if he regresses to around league-average results pretty quickly unless something changes.

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