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Frank's deep dive into starting pitcher fantasy baseball breakouts, waiver wire adds for Week 10 of 2026. Are these unlikely aces potential league winners?
We're onto the 10th edition of our Unlikely Aces column in 2026. This is an article where we take a closer look at surprising pitchers who have provided ace-like production, even though you got them off the waiver wire. Our goal here is to try to determine their rest-of-season fantasy value, deciding whether you should cash in and sell high or stay the course.
The starting pitching landscape has been riddled with landmines this year, with aces like Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet sidelined, along with upside arms like Cole Ragans and Eury Perez. This makes these Unlikely Aces much-needed for your fantasy teams, as you try to keep your ratios in check to contend for the long haul of the 162-game season. But the biggest question here is, can these pitchers keep it up?
With that in mind, keep reading to see how you should value Braxton Ashcraft, Parker Messick, and Will Warren for the rest of the year. Each of these pitchers has provided strong ERAs and WHIPs, but we're diving in to see if what they're doing is sustainable. Remember, as always, any roster percentages referenced here are from Yahoo! leagues.
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Braxton Ashcraft, SP, Pittsburgh Pirates
85% Rostered
Braxton Ashcraft came into the 2026 MLB season with a lot of hype, and so far, he's delivered. In 74.2 innings, Ashcraft has a 2.77 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP with a 27.3% strikeout rate and a 5.7% walk rate. You have to be impressed by that 21.5 K-BB%. This is why the underlying metrics support the surface stats, including a 3.09 SIERA and a 13.7% swinging-strike rate.
Ashcraft has been on quite a roll lately, allowing two earned runs or fewer in five of his last six outings. We've seen him put up eight or more strikeouts in four starts this year, including 11 against the Twins in his last turn.
Ashcraft has a five-pitch arsenal, including a four-seamer, curveball, slider, sinker, and splitter.
Ashcraft averages 97.0 MPH on his four-seamer, which has induced a .296 xwOBA but only has a 19.3% whiff rate. The best pitches have been his curveball (.205 xwOBA, 41.9% whiff rate) and slider (.260 xwOBA, 34.9% whiff rate). The sinker has been used to pitch to contact, while the splitter is a weapon that is exclusively against lefties. This gives Ashcraft a diverse arsenal that has led to this breakout season.
In terms of pitch mix, the highlights are the splitter (brand new pitch), along with the decreased slider usage, which has gone from 31.2% to 24.3%. Ashcraft has also increased the usage on his four-seamer (29.7% to 31.6%) and curveball (21.1% to 24.7%).
When looking under the hood for Ashcraft, we can see that he checks every box that you want to see when assessing a breakout. The strong results are supported by the underlying metrics, while the pitches themselves have strong numbers as well.
Verdict: Playing for a team like the Pirates, where he's in a pitcher-friendly environment, bodes well for his rest-of-season outlook. The move here is to buy high on Ashcraft.
Parker Messick, SP, Cleveland Guardians
91% Rostered
Parker Messick was a once-touted prospect who has smashed all expectations, even those of the most optimistic observers. The Guardians' lefty has registered a 2.21 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP with a 27.2% strikeout rate and a 7.7% walk rate. It's impressive to see a 25-year-old have a 19.5 K-BB% in his first full season in the big leagues.
Looking at the advanced metrics, we see a 3.36 SIERA that is considerably higher than his 2.21 ERA, and an 11.9% swinging-strike rate. This points towards negative regression for Messick, but that doesn't mean he can't remain a frontline starter for you for the rest of the season. It's just that a sub-2.50 ERA is unlikely to be sustainable.
Messick has a six-pitch arsenal with a four-seamer, changeup, sinker, curveball, cutter, and slider. The four-seamer has been highly effective, inducing a .231 xwOBA and a 26.2% whiff rate despite sitting at 93.8 MPH. But the changeup has been the real money pitch, including a .237 xwOBA and a 44.7% whiff rate. The slider gives Messick a weapon against lefties, while the cutter helps him out against righties. These are two pitches that he throws exclusively to those types of hitters.
In terms of pitch mix, Messick has decreased his four-seamer usage (36.0% to 30.9%), while introducing a brand new pitch in the cutter. The changeup has gone from 84.6 MPH to 85.4 MPH, which helps explain the increase in whiff rate on the pitch (31.2% to 44.7%).
But beyond that, the pitch mix is pretty similar for Messick. Adding that cutter is huge because it's a weapon to help get righties out.
This is the case where you just have to ride it out with a talented first-year starter. We all know how good the Guardians are at developing pitchers, so we can treat Messick like the latest success story.
If you want to try to sell high on him for a disappointing front-line starter like Logan Gilbert, I won't fault you for that. But aim high with these offers, since Messick is legit.
Verdict: Hold Messick and enjoy the ride. This is a talented first-year pitcher playing for a contending Guardians team. The wins should be there, even though the ratios are likely to regress a bit. That changeup is an absolute weapon.
Will Warren, SP, New York Yankees
85% Rostered
Will Warren was always an intriguing young pitcher for the Yankees, but he got overshadowed coming into this season because they already had Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Ryan Weathers. But Warren is proving that he's a talented arm in his own right, putting up a 3.22 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP with a 25.8% strikeout rate and a 7.0% walk rate in 64.1 innings.
You have to like how the 27-year-old righty has trimmed his walk rate from 9.1% to 7.0%. That's had a major impact on his overall numbers.
When looking under the hood, we see that Warren has a 3.46 SIERA and a 9.9% swinging-strike rate. While you'd hope that the swinging-strike rate was better, the 3.46 SIERA supports his 3.22 ERA.
Warren has a five-pitch arsenal, including a four-seamer, sinker, sweeper, changeup, and curveball.
The four-seamer has been much more effective this year, going from .340 xwOBA to .258 xwOBA. The main whiff pitches are used almost exclusively against lefties, including the changeup (32.4% whiff rate) and the curveball (45.5% whiff rate).
In terms of pitch mix, Warren has increased his sinker usage from 21.0% to 26.5%, while trimming his changeup (9.8% to 7.7%) and curveball (7.0% to 2.7%). Overall, there's not much of a notable change here. This could just be the case of a pitcher getting better with experience.
My only concern with Warren is the lack of strikeouts lately. In his last three starts, he's combined for only 11 strikeouts across 17 innings. Then you have to consider that the Yankees are stacked with rotation depth.
What if they decide to skip Warren's starts here and there to limit his usage and save his bullets for the stretch run? They have that luxury, especially with Cole back and looking like he's returning to form.
Verdict: With that in mind, it's not a bad idea to try to sell high on Warren right now. There's not much of a change in pitch mix, while the strikeouts are a bit underwhelming, especially the swinging-strike rate. Try to entice your league mate by selling the fact that Warren pitches for a World Series contender like the Yankees.
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