Fantasy Baseball Starting Pitchers: Potential Post-Injury Pick-Ups

August 6, 2026

Are these pitchers fantasy baseball breakouts or fake outs? Dan analyzes advanced pitcher statistics for several pitchers who are returning to action in 2026 after missing the 2025 season with injuries.

I thought I might be done for the year writing about starting pitchers and analyzing recent pitching performances. But perhaps I am a sucker for a good comeback story, and there happen to be three pitchers who have debuted recently after missing large chunks of time (some full seasons) after having major arm surgeries.

Patrick Sandoval made his return to the mound a month ago, this time with the Boston Red Sox. We have the largest sample size of data for him to crunch today, but we have only two starts for Houston right-hander Hayden Wesneski and one start (just yesterday) for Texas left-hander Cody Bradford. So drawing any real definitive conclusions about the futures of these pitchers is probably not a good idea, but speculating as to whether or not they could provide some fantasy value in the final months of this season seems like a worthy task.

All three pitchers have rostership percentages in single digits, so we are talking about deep league pick-ups and shallower league streamers or watch list adds, folks. Let's dig into these bounceback pitchers to see which of them may be worth adding in the short term, or at least monitoring a bit more closely!

Patrick Sandoval, Boston Red Sox

• 7% Rostered
• Fantasy Stats: 24 IP, 3.38 ERA, 1.67 WHIP, 25 K
• Advanced Stats: 4.23 SIERA, 4.46 xERA, 22.9% K%, 9.2% BB%, 4.1% Barrel%

Let's go back to the year 2022. Sandoval was a promising 25-year-old starting pitcher who had just completed his first full season as a starter. He had a 2.91 ERA and 24% K% that season, and had sucked me into his charm as I thought he could be the next "lefty with a nasty changeup" to take the league by storm.

But Sandoval didn't break out in 2023. Instead, he saw his strikeouts dip, his walks go up, and finished with a 4.11 ERA and a gross 1.51 WHIP. His 2024 campaign was more of the same as his ERA ballooned to 5.08 and he was just 2-8 in 16 starts before his season ended in late June.

He missed the entire 2025 season after having Tommy John surgery, and the Red Sox pulled him off the scrap heap this winter, signing him to a two-year deal. He wasn't expected to have much of a role in Boston this season, but injuries to Garrett Crochet and Connelly Early (who was later traded to Washington) created an opportunity for him to contribute.

The early returns for Sandoval through five starts are a mixed bag, but Boston has to be pretty happy with what they have gotten out of him thus far.

Patrick Sandoval's changeup is a weapon, if he can get ahead of hitters.

Against RHH on Tuesday, his slider command was the best it's been, but the fastballs weren't there. If he puts it all together, look out

Strike % vs R:
SL: 71%👍
FF: 55%👎
SI: 60%👎

6 whiffs on the CH pic.twitter.com/7ADeXXXSrG

— Jake Roy (@Jake3Roy) August 5, 2026

We're seeing some flashes of the best version of Sandoval from 2022, as his K% and BB% are nearly identical to that breakout season. He's added almost a full tick on the radar gun to his four-seamer and sinker, but both of those pitches continue to get hit hard this season. His best pitches are easily his slider and changeup, which helps to explain why he's prioritizing those in his arsenal at 30% and 24% usage, respectively.

The strikeouts and ERA are helpful right now, but it's hard to stomach that WHIP, which has always been Sandoval's biggest issue. He's always been a high-walk pitcher and a guy who gives up a lot of hits, too. He has good enough to stuff to work around all those baserunners at times, but eventually it's going to affect his ERA, too, as his 84.2% LOB% is simply not sustainable over a larger sample size without being an elite strikeout pitcher.

Perhaps he's had some bad luck on batted balls (.386 BABIP), but his 33% GB% is tracking to be a career-low, as it was in the 45-50% range in his career in L.A.

Again, it's a very mixed bag of results for Sandoval here, but nothing in his underlying metrics suggests that he's any different of a pitcher than he was at his peak for the Angels. He's also the first guy to get moved to the bullpen when Garrett Crochet returns, though we don't know how soon that will be. As much as I was hoping to find something to re-ignite my former love for the lefty Sandoval, I think I'm okay leaving him on waivers for now as I am just not all that confident that he can be a consistent fantasy option.

Hayden Wesneski, Houston Astros

• 8% Rostered
• Fantasy Stats: 11.2 IP, 3.86 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 8 K
• Advanced Stats: 4.71 SIERA, 16.7% K%, 8.3% BB%, 12.1% SwStr%, 2.9% Barrel%

Our second post-Tommy John bounceback candidate is the 28-year-old right-hander Wesneski. The former Cubs prospect couldn't break into Chicago's rotation on a full-time basis from 2022 to 2024, but had done so in his first season with the Astros last year.

Before suffering his season-ending injury in early May, Wesneski posted a 4.50 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and 17.6% K-BB% across six starts. It was a promising start to his tenure in Houston, but can the Astros count on Wesneski to be a reliable option every fifth day the rest of the way? They've worked some magic with Peter Lambert this year, but could certainly use some more starting pitching help, as Mike Burrows (now injured) has been a huge disappointment, and Ronel Blanco and Cristian Javier are both getting knocked around by opposing hitters.

Wesneski has made two starts so far, winning both of them while striking out four and walking two in each start.

Hayden Wesneski tonight vs. Blue Jays:

6.0 IP | 4 H | 2 R | 2 ER | 2 BB | 4 K | ERA: 3.86

• 78 pitches (51 strikes)
• Max Velo: 96.5 mph (avg fastball: 93.8 mph)
• 11 swing & misses (27% whiffs). pic.twitter.com/7mIgYUW6i5

— Javier Gonzalez (@Astros_Coverage) August 5, 2026

A paltry 16.7% K% is one reason why his SIERA suggests regression, while a 41% GB% doesn't help either. The good news for the strikeout rate, however, is that Wesneski has been missing bats to the tune of a 12.1% SwStr%, which suggests he's probably closer to a 22-24% K-rate guy over time, which lines up with what he's done in the past.

Wesneski features a five-pitch arsenal, leading his sweeper at 30% usage. That makes sense, since it's easily his best pitch (40% Whiff%) and you can see why as he has elite horizontal movement on that pitch. His cutter has been very good, too, with a 43% Whiff% and has so much horizontal movement that it could probably just be classified as a hard slider.

The bad news for Wesneski is that his four-seamer and sinker continue to get hit really hard. Like most righties, he's going sinker-heavy to righties and fastball-heavy to lefties, but neither pitch misses bats and has xSLG rates of .484 and .555, respectively. His Z-Contact% is sitting at 91.2% and O-Swing% at 43.6%, which means he's relying on a lot of chases from hitters and is not missing many bats in the zone.

That helps to explain why he has an xERA of 5.64; the batted ball results have been ugly on two of his top three pitches. I usually have some doubts about starters who are so dependent on their best breaking ball without having a reliable high-velocity pitch, and Wesneski is a classic example of that prototype with this pitch mix.

I'll admit that I did pick up Wesneski after his first start on a few teams, mainly because the Peter Lambert turnaround has proven that Houston can still get the best out of their starters. But my expectations are fairly low here, as nothing in his profile suggests that he's anything more than a fifth-starter type. I'd lump him in the streamer category for now, but I'll definitely be watching his next few starts closely to see if his strikeouts tick up and his batted ball results improve.

Cody Bradford, Texas Rangers

• 3% Rostered
• Fantasy Stats: 4.1 IP, 0.00 ERA, 1.62 WHIP, 5 K
• Advanced Stats: 4.34 SIERA, 3.16 xERA, 25% K%, 10% BB%, 12.8% SwStr%%

It was a long road back for Bradford, as he missed the entire 2025 season and had his return this year delayed by a setback this spring. He had taken a pretty big leap in 2024, his second full season in the big leagues, going 6-3 with a 3.54 ERA and 1.01 WHIP across 13 starts (76.1 innings).

Cody Bradford with his 1st strikeout since 2024! Man it’s good to see him back in action. pic.twitter.com/zmlVMNtR5w

— Right on Rangers (@RightOnRangers) August 5, 2026

Bradford's debut went about as well as it possibly could, as he pitched four and one-third shutout innings against the Giants yesterday. He walked two and struck out five, while allowing five hits (four singles and one double). His arsenal of pitches looks pretty much the same as what he was throwing before the injury, as he went heavy with his four-seamer and changeup to lead the way.

Racking up a 40% CSW% while throwing only 88-90 mph on his four-seam fastball is pretty impressive, but also probably not what we should expect going forward. Bradford's fastball does "play up" as he comes from a high arm slot and uses his six-foot-four frame to create elite extension (7.1), but he's not going to sustain a 33% Whiff% on that pitch. He was at 18% on the four-seamer in 2023 and 21% in 2024, which are still solid numbers for a fastball, don't get me wrong.

His best pitch is his changeup, and he upped his usage to 37% yesterday. He was at only 27% in 2024, with more curveball and slider usage, but the changeup may be his best option going forward as both of his breaking balls got hit pretty hard in 2024.

I love what we saw from Bradford yesterday, but a few things should cause us to pump the brakes a bit on getting too overly excited. The first would have to be his opponent, as he faced a Giants team that rolled out five hitters who had not been regulars in their lineup all season, as Heliot Ramos is now in New York, Casey Schmitt and Matt Chapman are on the IL, and Harrison Bader is being investigated for getting hurt while riding his scooter.

The other factor working against Bradford is a potentially crowded Texas rotation. While Bradford should stick in the rotation for now as a major upgrade over Cal Quantrill, the Rangers are also expecting Jordan Montgomery to return from his season-long absence sometime soon, and Jack Leiter is still expected back at some point before the end of the season.

The scheduling gods are smiling on Bradford, however, as he should face the Los Angeles Angels and their incredibly K-prone lineup in his next start. I'd consider streaming him in that one; it's about as good of a matchup as a soft-tossing lefty can get, just ask Trevor Rogers, who whiffed nine Angels yesterday!

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