Starting Pitcher Fantasy Baseball Breakouts To Improve Further In 2026

March 4, 2026

Corbin's starting pitcher fantasy baseball breakouts to improve further in 2026. These upside pitchers can provide elite value, and are his SP draft targets.

There's a trend here with these potential breakout starting pitchers of recovering from significant injuries and logging a small sample of innings in 2025. Typically, when players break out, there's a mixture of luck and skill in their favor.

The ADP market becomes sharper, with more information and early drafting in fantasy baseball leagues. To identify breakouts, we're looking at starting pitchers drafted within the top 150 picks in NFBC leagues since the start of February. These pitchers succeeded in 2025, and the skills point toward additional success in 2026.

Like most of my columns, we'll examine the skills, underlying metrics, and other relevant factors to identify whether the data points toward sustainability in these breakout pitchers from 2025. Can these starting pitchers sustain their success and continue to improve into 2026? Should we pay up for these breakouts from last season? We'll answer those questions and more.

Kyle Bradish, SP, Baltimore Orioles

NFBC ADP: 78.6 (Since February 1st)

Bradish was dominant after returning from Tommy John surgery. Across a 32-inning sample, Bradish set a career high in strikeout minus walk rate (29 percent) and swinging-strike rate (15 percent). Bradish's slider led the way, with an elite 21.7 percent swinging-strike rate in 2025, compared to an above-average career norm (17.1 percent).

He found success by using his best pitch more often. Bradish made a pitch mix change, specifically against right-handed hitters. He bumped the slider usage to 45.8 percent against right-handed hitters in 2025. Bradish threw his slider 38 percent of the time to righties in 2024 and 40.2 percent in 2023.

Besides additional whiffs, Bradish's slider was effective at limiting damage against right-handed hitters. That's evident in Bradish's slider, allowing a .139 wOBA (.161 xwOBA). The slider's movement profiles hadn't changed much from previous seasons, so the pitch looks more legitimate than a small-sample fluke.

Interestingly, Bradish's curveball elicited a 23.4 percent swinging-strike rate in 2025, nine percentage points above his career average (14.3 percent). However, this time it's more of a noisy small sample because Bradish threw it 6.3 percent of the time against right-handed hitters, down from 10-13 percent in previous seasons. Another wild stat for the curveball is the .441 wOBA allowed, yet a .053 expected wOBA in 2025 versus right-handed hitters.

It might seem like Bradish could struggle against left-handed hitters. However, Bradish upped his sinker usage to lefties in 2024 (36.3 percent) and in 2025 (30.3 percent). That's significantly higher than Bradish's sinker usage at 10.3 percent in 2023.

Why does Bradish's sinker matter against left-handed hitters? It's mainly because he has located the sinker high and away from left-handed hitters over the past two seasons. That coincides with Bradish's sinker, allowing quality results, especially when thrown away from lefties.

Bradish looks like a solid SP2 with SP1-type upside. We could see a repeat of 2023, with slightly better skills.

Eury Perez, SP, Miami Marlins

NFBC ADP: 91.8 (Since February 1st)

We have a trend of starting pitchers recovering from an injury and finding success in 2025. That's the case with Pérez after missing time due to recovering from Tommy John surgery. Pérez had a 4.03 xERA slightly better than his actual ERA (4.25). Although Pérez's strikeout skills weren't elite like in 2023 (15.8 percent swinging-strike rate, he posted a 13.8 percent swinging-strike rate in 2025.

The slider continued to lead Pérez's arsenal, eliciting an 18.7 percent swinging-strike rate. Meanwhile, Pérez's changeup was sneaky good with a 16.8 percent swinging-strike rate in 2025. That's already two above-average offerings based on swinging-strike rates. Interestingly, Pérez added a sweeper in 2025, which he mainly threw to right-handed hitters.

Pérez went from mainly throwing sliders (44.3 percent) and four-seamers (42.3 percent) against righties in 2023 to tossing four-seamers (50.1 percent), sliders (27.3 percent), and sweepers (16.6 percent) in 2025. Since Pérez threw a gyro-like slider, he introduced a sweeper that moves more toward his glove side, given the induced movement profiles.

Since Pérez throws his changeup hard, it doesn't generate tons of downward movement. It's worth noting that Pérez's changeup added over two inches of vertical movement while gaining nearly one inch of arm-side fade in 2025. What's wilder is that Pérez had hitters whiffing at his changeup while hardly being thrown in the zone in 2025, with a 6.1 percent zone rate. For context, the league-average zone rate for changeups was 39 percent in 2025.

In the visual above, Pérez's changeup heatmaps against left-handed hitters in 2023 were drastically different in 2025. It could be that Pérez struggled with his command as he recovered from Tommy John surgery in 2025. There's a good chance opposing hitters will look at Pérez's zone rates and locations because they might layoff the changeup if they can identify it.

We haven't even discussed Pérez's electric four-seamer at 97-98 mph, coming from a low arm slot (30 degrees) while generating an above-average 17.7 inches of induced vertical break (IVB). The league average for four-seam IVB hovers around 16 inches. It's worth noting that Pérez lost almost five inches of extension (4.8 inches) in 2025.

Since Pérez's horizontal and vertical release points haven't changed, it might be something mechanical that he'll fix as he prepares for the 2026 season. Because of Pérez's four-seam velocity and IVB, it grades out well in Stuff+ (117), so it's a foundational pitch in his arsenal.

There's a good chance that Pérez reaches a career-best in innings, something around 150, as the projections indicate. Make Pérez a draft target as an SP2 or SP3 with upside.

Emmet Sheehan, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers

NFBC ADP: 136.4 (Since February 1st)

Sheehan was recovering from Tommy John surgery in May 2024 and returned in the middle of June 2025. He made one start, then the Dodgers optioned him to Triple-A before being called back up after two weeks. Sheehan teased us with three seven-inning outings in his last six games, including one earned run and 29 strikeouts combined.

The advanced metrics look juicy, evidenced by Sheehan's 23 percent strikeout minus walk rate and a 16.2 percent swinging-strike rate. We probably can't expect the high-end ratios with a 2.82 ERA and 0.97 WHIP. However, Sheehan's strikeout skills support a 3.46 xERA, which would be better than most projection systems.

Sheehan's slider has been nasty, eliciting a 23.3 percent swinging-strike rate in 2025, better than 2023 (19.6 percent). He throws a gyro-like slider, which interestingly lacks an above-average movement profile. Sheehan was commanding the slider well, specifically against right-handed hitters, leading to weak contact (.154 wOBA, .191 xwOBA).

The changeup lost whiffs in 2025, inducing a swinging-strike rate of 13.6 percent, down from 22 percent in 2023. That's partly because Sheehan threw his changeup 3 mph harder in 2025 (86.2 mph) compared to 2023 (82.9 mph). Sheehan's changeup maintained its downward movement (35-36 inches), yet it lost over four inches of arm-side fade in 2025.

That led to Sheehan's changeup going from an above-average horizontal movement profile in 2023 to below average in 2025. Although Sheehan's changeup lost whiffs, it allowed weak contact. That's evident in Sheehan's changeup, giving up a .155 wOBA (.201 xwOBA) in 2025, compared to a .297 wOBA (.232 xwOBA) against left-handed hitters.

He continued to locate the changeup low and away from left-handed hitters, leading to quality outcomes, as seen in the visual above. Like Pérez, Sheehan's four-seamer can be overlooked, though it possesses an above-average vertical movement profile. That's evident in Sheehan's four-seam, generating 17.9 inches of IVB in 2025, over three inches more than in 2023.

Sheehan raised his arm angle by five degrees (35.9 degrees) when throwing the four-seam in 2025. That's mainly because he brought his horizontal release point closer to his midline by over three inches while raising his vertical release by 1.7 inches. Theoretically, that could lead to Sheehan's four-seam jumping on hitters with the release point change and additional IVB.

The draft market is sharp and values Sheehan as a potential breakout starting pitcher. There might be volume concerns since he hasn't touched 100 innings across the minors and majors throughout his professional career. We often find breakout pitchers in the draft range of Sheehan's ADP, so we'll want to invest in him heading into 2026.

Brandon Woodruff, SP, Milwaukee Brewers

NFBC ADP: 127.6 (Since February 1st)

Woodruff surprised many by posting elite ratios across 64 innings in 2025. However, Woodruff is dealing with a lat strain and could begin the season on the injured list, so there's some injury risk at his price. Interestingly, Woodruff's success coincided with a significantly lower fastball velocity (career low at 92.9 mph) than his career average (95.5 mph).

Woodruff maintained strong strikeout skills, evidenced by his 26 percent K-BB% and 13 percent swinging-strike rate, close to his career averages. The changeup led the arsenal with a 20 percent swinging-strike rate. Woodruff threw his changeup 2-3 mph slower in 2025, which added two inches of downward movement and lost an inch of arm-side fade.

He'll need to rely on pristine command if the velocity doesn't return in 2026. The visual above shows Woodruff commanding the changeup well against left-handed hitters, leading to quality results (.050 wOBA, .099 xwOBA). Woodruff maintained his arm angle, yet his horizontal release point was nearly two inches (1.9) farther away from his midline when throwing the changeup.

Woodruff added a cutter in 2025, throwing it 15.8 percent of the time. He seemed to have traded the slider for a sweeper and a cutter, though the cutter was most notable since he threw it 20 percent of the time to right-handed hitters. Woodruff's cutter has an above-average movement profile and closely resembles Ryan Pepiot, Tobias Myers, and Merrill Kelly.

Like Woodruff's changeup, he seemingly located the cutter well against right-handed hitters, leading to weak contact (.126 wOBA, .118 xwOBA). Thankfully, Woodruff has multiple pitches to attack both sides of the plate, which should potentially help sustain his success into 2026, assuming we regress his velocity and strikeout skills to his career averages.

If fantasy managers drafted safer projected innings at starting pitcher to begin their draft, target Woodruff as an SP3 with SP1 upside.

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