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Thunder Dan's starting pitcher (SP) fantasy baseball sleepers, cheap upside picks for 2026. His favorite SP draft targets that could be in for a big fantasy season.
My series of starting pitching articles rolls along, with some bargain-bin discounts that are all available much later in drafts!
I typically like to wait longer to draft starting pitchers than others, as I think it's easier to find value at the position than at hitter. There are quite a few candidates for your rotation available after pick 270 in NFBC drafts (since February 1), and that's the range that I'll focus on here in this piece.
We are swinging for the fences here (pardon the baseball pun) with some high upside arms that could make a huge fantasy impact this season. Let's dive into four late-round pitchers who you should be considering in 2026.
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Logan Henderson, Milwaukee Brewers
NFBC ADP: 272
We got only a small glimpse of what Henderson can do at the MLB level last year. He made only five starts spanning 25 1/3 innings as he dealt with arm injuries, tossing another 77 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level, too.
What we did see from Henderson was pretty impressive. He posted a 33% K% and 8% BB% with an ERA of 1.78 and a WHIP of 0.99. Those are some Cy Young candidate numbers, and no one actually expects him to be able to replicate that type of success over a full season.
But his numbers are Triple-A in a much larger sample were pretty good, too. The K% was 28%, and the WHIP was still a very healthy 1.11, as he showed solid control and the ability to suppress hard contact at Triple-A, too.
What's wild is that Henderson doesn't throw particularly hard with his four-seam fastball (93 mph) and relies almost exclusively on one offspeed pitch (his changeup), yet he had a 28% Whiff% on both pitches. The movement profiles for both pitches are solid, with his four-seamer having above-average iVB (17.1 inches) and 11 inches of arm-side run.
The changeup has a ton of horizontal movement with nearly 19 inches of arm-side run. The two pitches look identical coming out of his hand, but are 10-12 mph different in velocity, and ideal separation to keep hitters off balance.
Logan Henderson's 2Ks in the 1st. pic.twitter.com/KdbVKFG2OU
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 14, 2025
The cutter was effective against lefties, with the slider being the only pitch that got hit hard. Henderson has made only one appearance this spring, but has talked about going back to throwing a curveball as he did in college and ditching the slider. I think that would round out his arsenal quite nicely and allow him to have another offspeed pitch that he could use against both righties and lefties.
He's not a lock to make the rotation to open the season, with Robert Gasser, Kyle Harrison, and Brandon Sproat all battling for the fifth spot. But with Brandon Woodruff looking like he may not be ready to start the season, we could see two of those four head north with the big league team, and I bet Henderson is one of those two.
Parker Messick, Cleveland Guardians
NFBC ADP: 317
Another rookie who dazzled in his 2025 debut was lefty Parker Messick. Across seven starts and 39 2/3 innings, Messick posted a 2.72 ERA while striking out 23% of the hitters he faced and with just a 3.6% BB%.
Parker Messick racks up 9 strikeouts across 5 1/3 frames during his latest start in The Show ⭐️
The @CleGuardians' 2022 second-rounder has a 2.08 ERA in 6 MLB starts: pic.twitter.com/epPqjXaXNR
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) September 20, 2025
Messick is a true five-pitch guy, throwing a changeup, slider, sinker, and curveball in addition to his four-seamer. His curveball and slider both have above-average horizontal movement, even though he has a classic three-quarters (45-degree) arm angle.
The fastball wasn't overpowering at 92-93 mph, but had an elite Location+ rating of 112 and was rarely hit hard. Despite the lack of velocity, he had a 29% whiff rate on his fastball, comparable to Paul Skenes for context.
Like most lefties, his changeup is his top offspeed option, but his slow curveball (just 77 mph) was death to righties as well. He reminds me quite a bit of someone like Kris Bubic, who uses his offspeed stuff to set up his fastball, which allows it to play up to hitters.
Like Henderson, Messick is battling for a spot in a potentially crowded Cleveland rotation of talented young arms. However, I'd be surprised if he spent much time at Triple-A this season. He's demonstrated some elite command and an advanced arsenal, albeit in a small sample size. But this former second-round pick was dominant at every step in the minor leagues, too.
Cleveland continues to pump out quality pitchers from their farm system, and Messick has all the makings of a quality MLB starter who can help your ratios, even if he doesn't dominate with strikeouts.
Braxton Ashcraft, Pittsburgh Pirates
NFBC ADP: 278
There's a lot of hype in the Pirates camp this season. Konnor Griffin is hitting moonshots, and Bubba Chandler is pumping 100 mph on the radar gun, but the young Pirates prospect that has me the most excited for this season is the second-year righty, Ashcraft.
The hard-throwing Ashcraft delivered 69 very effective innings in 2025, making eight starts and another 18 appearances in relief. The surface stats were quite solid (2.71 ERA, 1.25 WHIP), but there was a lot to like about his profile beyond those numbers.
These percentile rankings screenshots get overused at times, but I think they're still a useful snapshot of a player's performance. Does Ashcraft's look like that of a player who's being taken after pick 300 in drafts?
I love seeing that ground-ball rate up over 50%, and the low hard-hit% and barrel% (4.6% is elite) are excellent batted-ball metrics in their own right.
Ashcraft mixes a high-90s fastball with a two-seamer, a very hard slider (92 mph), and a big curveball (84 mph) in what has the makings of a really solid arsenal. The slider and curveball both miss bats (32% and 36% whiff rates, respectively), but have very different shapes and velocities.
His overall Stuff+ grade was 105, with the curveball checking in at an impressive 135. I noticed that Ashcraft was among the biggest decreases in projected ERA once Derek Carty implemented his own Stuff model into his BatX projections, which is no surprise given the velocity and movement profiles of his pitches.
Pitchers THE BAT X likes more after accounting for their "stuff".
Which of these guys are you targeting in drafts? pic.twitter.com/QxBXp2ygN6
— Derek Carty (@DerekCarty) February 20, 2026
I love targeting Ashcraft later in drafts. He's looked strong so far this spring in his first two outings, and his stuff really stands out when compared with a lot of other pitchers being drafted in this ADP range.
Ryan Weathers, New York Yankees
NFBC ADP: 267
Did I save the pitcher with most upside for last? I was on Weathers going into last season, and I'm absolutely back on board this year as he'll take his big arm to the Bronx to pitch for the Yankees.
There was quite a bit of buzz around Weathers' last year at this time as he was showing off an impressive velocity bump and sharp secondary pitches, but an injury in spring training pushed back his first start to mid-May, and another injury in June cost him nearly three months before he returned to make three more starts for Miami in September.
Weathers enters his sixth MLB season without having tossed more than 94 innings in a single season (which he did in his 2021 rookie year). It appears that he's found even more velocity, as he's been touching 98-99 mph so far this spring.
Ryan Weathers was razor sharp today.
3.2 IP 5K 12 Whiffs 52% Whiff rate. Fastball topped out at 99.8 MPH 🔥
If he can stay healthy, he is going to be this years’ Jesus Luzardo and a STEAL.
His ADP at NFBC is 316.0…
— Nicho Roessler (@NichoRoessler) February 26, 2026
His changeup is filthy in terms of its vertical movement, and it yielded a 40.6% Whiff% last season. His sweeper was very effective, too, as it elicited a 39.1% Whiff% and had some strong batted ball results (.172 xBA, .256 xwOBA).
We don't have another good comp for Weathers as a hard-throwing lefty with plus secondary stuff other than Tarik Skubal. I'm not saying that he'll be able to come anywhere close to what Skubal has done the last few seasons, but the quality of his stuff is pretty darn close.
His plate discipline metrics (13.2% SwStr%, 82.5% Z-Contact%, 43.6% O-Contact) all suggest that he has the potential to increase his strikeout rate this season from the 22% range where he's been the last two years to the 25% and above tier that would separate him from the rest of the pack. It feels like he's on the verge of a Cristopher Sanchez-type breakout, and I want as many shares as possible.
Weathers’ ADP is on the rise, but there’s still plenty of room for profit here if he can stay healthy and take another step forward.
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