Are You For Real? Surprising Fantasy Baseball Pitcher Starts From Bryce Elder, Adrian Houser, Michael Soroka

Elliott looks at pitchers with surprising starts recently. These SPs could emerge as fantasy baseball waiver wire targets for Week 11 in 2025, or just mirages.

Welcome back to the "Are You For Real?" series as we dive into Week 11 of the 2025 fantasy baseball season. For those who are not familiar, this is a weekly column where we take a look at starting pitchers who had surprisingly good starts over the past week and put them under the microscope to determine whether they're legitimate or just smoke and mirrors.

There were so many surprising starts this week, it was hard to pick just three to write about. This week, we'll start with a breakdown of Bryce Elder's 12 K performance in San Francisco. Then, we'll deep dive into Adrian Houser's emergence in Chicago. We'll finish it off with a look at Michael Soroka's comeback bid in Washington.

Roster percentages are taken from Yahoo! and are accurate as of June 9.

• Fantasy baseball trade analyzer
• BvP matchups data (Batter vs. Pitcher)
• PvB matchups data (Pitcher vs. Batter)
• Who should I start? Fantasy baseball comparisons
• Daily MLB starting lineups
• Fantasy baseball closer depth charts
• Fantasy Baseball live scoreboard
• Fantasy baseball injury reports

Bryce Elder, Atlanta Braves – 11% Rostered

2025 Stats (prior to this start): 49 1/3 IP, 4.56 ERA, 4.71 FIP, 10.2% K-BB%

6/7 @ SF: 8 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 12 K

Elder was electric on Saturday, fanning a whopping 12 Giants in a dominant performance. The bullpen cost him the win, but it was still one of the best starts of Elder’s career. His 12 strikeouts represent a career high, and he completed at least eight frames for just the second time ever. Elder has been pitching much better after a rough initial start to the season, posting a 2.98 ERA over his last seven games.

Is he just a flash in the pan, or does this Elder deserve our respect?

Originally a fifth-round pick by the Braves back in 2020, Elder wasn’t a huge prospect on a national level, but was viewed as a future starter in Atlanta. He’s bounced between the majors and minors over the past few years, making 60 career starts between 2022 and 2025, most of which came in 2023 when Elder went 12-4 with a 3.81 ERA. He had been serviceable until completely falling apart in 2024, posting a 6.52 ERA in 10 starts.

Elder works with a four-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, sinker, slider, and changeup.

Elder’s most-used pitch is actually the slider, which he’s thrown 39% of the time this season. That is a 7.5% increase from last season and 5% higher than his career usage rate. An 84.5 mph offering, Elder’s slider has average vertical and slightly below average horizontal movement, along with an average spin rate of 2452 RPM. Here is an example from this start.

Bryce Elder slider 6.7.25 pic.twitter.com/Z9stqZwITY

— Elliott Baas (@ElliottBaasBB) June 9, 2025

Batters have really struggled against Elder’s slider this season, posting a .184 ERA, .347 SLG, and .248 wOBA off the pitch thus far. The expected stats suggest that Elder may’ve been a little on the fortunate side with the pitch, but he still has a .225 xBA, .396 xSLG, and .282 xwOBA with his slider this season.

The slider is by far Elder’s best strikeout pitch; he has a 28.7% whiff rate with the slider, while the pitch with the next highest whiff rate is the sinker at just 12.7%. He was racking up Ks with it on Saturday, earning eight of his 14 swinging strikes with the slider. While the slider is a good strikeout pitch relative to Elder’s other offerings, it’s not an exceptional strikeout pitch on its own.

Elder has a 14.6% swinging-strike rate with the pitch this season, down 2% from his career mark. The whiff rate has not improved even during his hot seven-game stretch; it was still 14.6% over that period. Elder has never had a strikeout rate above 21% in the majors before, and Saturday looks more like an aberration in the K department than a breakthrough.

The slider is Elder’s most-used pitch, but just barely. He’s thrown the slider 39% of the time, and he’s thrown his sinker 38.8% of the time this season. A 91.5 mph offering, Elder’s sinker has slightly above average vertical movement and average horizontal movement. Let’s have a look at his pitch movement profile (sinker in orange).

As you can see, his sinker has a rather typical shape that can induce groundballs effectively. Elder has a three-degree average launch angle against his sinker this season, along with a 57.9% ground-ball rate. Overall, opponents are hitting .273 off Elder’s sinker with a .494 SLG and .355 wOBA.

It’s a solid groundball pitch, but not world-beating, and Elder surrenders a lot of hard contact against his sinker. The average exit velocity against is a blistering 90.3 mph.

The expected stats suggest that Elder has earned his performance with his sinker, posting a .277 xBA, .453 xSLG, and .339 xwOBA against the pitch. Batters have been able to handle Elder’s sinker quite well throughout his time in the majors, posting a .297 AVG and .433 SLG off the pitch all time.

Sure, he gets groundballs, but he also gives up plenty of hits, too, as evidenced by his career 1.30 WHIP. The pitch has poor velocity and average movement, and the results have been commensurate.

Elder leans heavily on the slider and sinker, throwing them a combined 77.8% of the time this season. The remaining 22.2% of the time, he throws either his four-seamer or changeup, mixing each pitch in with some regularity. His four-seam fastball was hardly used in this start, with Elder throwing it just 5.6% of the time. That might be for the best, as batters have clobbered the pitch for a .333 AVG, .389 SLG, and .386 wOBA.

Batters are having an easy time squaring Elder’s four-seamer up, as they have a monster 31.3% line drive rate off the pitch this season. That is why Elder has such bad numbers off his fastball despite an 86.2 mph average exit velocity. Sure, batters aren’t hitting it that hard, but line drives are by far the most likely batted ball type to go for a hit, so even a weak line drive can be better than a hard grounder or flyball.

Opponents have a 24.3% line drive rate off the four-seamer all time, so perhaps regression is coming, but it would be an oversimplification to assume that his .375 BABIP will normalize over time. It won’t normalize that much so long as Elder is giving up this many line drives with the pitch.

Elder had some impressive results with his changeup in this one, putting up a 43% whiff rate on 13 changeups. Elder hadn’t been throwing his changeup much before this start, averaging just 8.9% usage over his last four outings. His usage rate went up to 13.1% in this start, perhaps because the Giants deployed four left-handed bats in their lineup.

Elder hasn’t used the changeup much this season, but he does have some concerning numbers against the pitch.

Batters have hit .286 off Elder’s changeup with a .619 SLG and .395 wOBA. The expected stats are even worse, with Elder posting a .373 xBA, .740 xSLG, and .466 xwOBA with his changeup. Batters are pulverizing the ball for a 91.4 mph average exit velocity, along with a 10-degree average launch angle.

Like with his four-seamer, it’s been line drive city for batters off Elder’s changeup. Opponents have a 28.6% line-drive rate against the pitch this season and a 21% line drive against it all time. We could certainly see some regression in the line drive rate, but giving up a blistering 91 mph line drive is not a recipe for success.

Verdict:

Elder has been around for a few years, and time and time again, I find myself unimpressed with his stuff. His best pitch, the slider, boasts painfully average movement and spin and a below-average whiff rate. It would be foolish to expect big strikeout performances from Elder going forward.

Sure, he got 12 strikeouts in this one, but he has had fewer than five strikeouts in seven of 10 starts this season.

He also has weak fastball velocity, and opponents have shown that they can handle Elder’s heaters just fine during his time as a major leaguer. Elder has also developed a home run problem recently, allowing 1.4 HR/9 between 2024-2025.

There is a lot more downside than upside here, and we will likely never see another performance like this from Elder again. He could work as a streamer in a pinch, but he’s not someone I’d trust every time, nor would I spend any FAAB on him.

Adrian Houser, Chicago White Sox – 15% Rostered

2025 Stats (prior to this start): 18 1/3 IP, 1.47 ERA, 2.36 FIP, 12.9% K-BB%

6/7 vs KC: 6 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

It was another quality start for Houser on Saturday, who mowed down the Royals for six innings of one-run ball en route to his second victory of the season. Houser has been incredible since joining the White Sox rotation, putting up four consecutive quality starts and posting a sparkling 1.48 ERA.

Has he turned a corner, or will this Houser of cards come crashing down?

Originally a second-round pick way back in 2011 by the Astros, Houser spent the majority of his time in the big leagues with Milwaukee after being acquired in the Carlos Gomez trade. He’s bounced around a bit these past few seasons, struggling to find a major league opportunity until recently with Chicago.

Houser works with a five-pitch mix consisting of a sinker, four-seam fastball, curveball, changeup, and slider. A deep repertoire indeed, but Houser relies heavily on his fastballs, throwing the sinker and four-seamer a combined 60.2% of the time.

His sinker was by far his most-used pitch in this outing against the Royals, throwing it 46% of the time. A 94 mph offering, Houser’s sinker is his signature pitch and boasts above-average vertical and horizontal movement. The sinker does what good sinkers do, which is induce groundballs at a healthy rate.

Houser has a 63% ground-ball rate with his sinker this season, along with a three-degree average launch angle against.

Batters do hit the ball hard with a 91.3 mph average exit velocity; however, with just an 11.1% fly-ball rate, the power threat is minimized. 11.1% is microscopically low, but not that unrealistic for Houser.

He has a 16.9% fly-ball rate with his sinker all time and has had multiple seasons below 12%. He hasn’t achieved that since 2021, but he also put up a 3.22 ERA in 28 games that year, essentially the last time he was fantasy relevant.

Batters have really struggled against Houser’s sinker, hitting just .212 with a .242 SLG and .228 wOBA against it. Those are strong numbers, but it’s only been four starts, and the expected stats suggest that he has overperformed with the pitch. He has a .261 xBA, .305 xSLG, and .271 xwOBA against the sinker this season.

Those are more in line with his career numbers, and I think we could see the .259 BABIP against his sinker rise over time.

He has a .290 BABIP with the pitch for his career and has just a .273 BABIP against overall, compared to a .294 career BABIP against. He’s not drastically overperforming in the BABIP department, but regression could come for the sinker. Overall, Houser’s sinker is a solid pitch that does its job at inducing groundballs, but can be susceptible to hard contact and line drives.

Houser’s next most-used pitch this season has been the four-seamer, but that wasn’t the case for him on Saturday as he threw it just 12% of the time. Instead, Houser leaned on his changeup in this start, throwing it 22% of the time. He’s been increasing his changeup usage start-by-start this season, and Saturday was a season-high.

An 85.7 mph offering, Houser’s changeup is characterized by its low spin of 1572 RPM and nearly 18 inches of horizontal movement.

Batters have had a tough time hitting the changeup, batting just .235 with a .412 SLG and .274 wOBA against it. Houser also has a monster 26.9% swinging-strike rate with the pitch, a number that surely won’t last but is more than double his career swinging-strike rate with the changeup of 11.4%.

He got five of his nine whiffs with the changeup in this start, and the changeup seems to be a pitch that Houser is emphasizing more this season. Again, there is no way the swinging-strike rate holds, but it’s still his best strikeout pitch, and I’d like to see the usage continue to trend upwards.

The other secondary offering that Houser features prominently is his curveball, a pitch he’s thrown 17.3% of the time this season and 14% of the time in this start. An 81.7 mph offering, Houser’s curveball has plus vertical drop and a surprisingly low spin rate of 1971 RPM. Houser is just one of five qualified pitchers with a curveball that has a spin rate under 2000 RPM.

Opponents have not been able to hit this pitch this season, batting just .077 with a .077 SLG and .175 wOBA.

It’s a very small sample size, so we can expect regression with the pitch; batters are hitting .282 with a .416 SLG against the curveball all time. His 13.8% swinging-strike rate represents a significant spike in whiffs, as his career mark is just 6.8% and he’d never had a double-digit rate in the past.

Strikeouts have never been a big part of Houser’s game with a career 18.6% K rate, which makes me skeptical of these high swinging-strike rates. It’s a good sign, but we need to see more than four starts before we can trust it.

Houser has been excellent for the White Sox as an innings-eater thus far, but there are several indications that he’s been exceedingly lucky, too. His .273 BABIP is below his career average, but his LOB rate and HR/FB rates are both off the charts. He currently has an 89% LOB rate (compared to a 69.9% career average) and a 4.5% HR/FB ratio (compared to a 12% career average).

Home runs have never been a significant concern for Houser, but he won’t sustain his current 0.37 HR/9, especially considering his home ballpark and 91.2 mph average exit velocity against. Regression will come for Houser at some point, and with a 4.76 ERA and 1.45 WHIP between 2022-2024, I don’t want to be left holding the bag when it does.

Verdict:

Houser looks better than ever, but his success has been buoyed by a .273 BABIP, 89% LOB rate, and 4.5% HR/FB ratio. His sinker is an effective groundball pitch, and one of Houser’s biggest strengths is limiting the longball, but there is no way he sustains a 0.37 HR/9. Not only is there no chance he sustains a sub-2 ERA, but his career numbers also suggest that he could regress beyond where his ERA estimators suggest.

His ratios could balloon to match around the 3.80 SIERA he’s posted, more than two runs higher than his current ERA. One thing to like about Houser is that he has consistently completed six innings, making him great in quality start leagues. If he continues to pitch well, he could be traded to a contender down the road, increasing his fantasy value, but that wouldn’t elevate him beyond a streamer.

He is pitching well enough to earn a roster spot in deeper than standard leagues, but I’d be quick to drop him if things turn south.

Michael Soroka, Washington Nationals – 5% Rostered

2025 Stats (prior to this start): 31 IP, 5.81 ERA, 4.55 FIP, 16.8% K-BB%

6/6 vs TEX: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K

Soroka was excellent on Friday, blanking the Rangers over six innings for his second consecutive victory and third on the year. Soroka has struggled to prevent runs this season, having allowed at least three runs in five of seven starts thus far. Was Friday a sign of him turning it around, or should we continue to avoid Soroka in fantasy?

Originally a first-round draft pick by Atlanta back in 2015, Soroka was a big-deal prospect coming up through the Braves’ system. He had a solid cup of coffee with a 3.51 ERA over 25 2/3 innings in 2018, but 2019 was a banner year for Soroka. He posted a 2.68 ERA in 174 2/3 innings, posted four fWAR, and made the All-Star team.

It looked like Soroka was a future star until injury struck.

Soroka pitched in a total of 10 games between 2020-2023, missing the entirety of 2021 and 2022 with a torn Achilles. The Achilles injury had multiple setbacks and surgeries for Soroka, and it truly looked like a tragic tale of a young athlete cut down. But, he’s finally healthy again and pitching in the big leagues, something that wasn’t always an assurance during the rehab process.

Soroka works with a four-pitch mix consisting of a four-seam fastball, slurve, sinker, and changeup.

Soroka may have four pitches, but he relies heavily on two of them, the four-seamer and the curveball. Let’s start with his four-seamer, a pitch Soroka has thrown 44.2% of the time this season. A 94.2 mph offering, Soroka has actually gained velocity compared to his 2018-19 self, when he was averaging just 92.9 mph with the heater.

Soroka may have that extra life on his fastball, but the pitch is painfully average in terms of movement. Have a look at his movement profile from this season (four-seamer in red).

Typical movement means the pitch is less deceptive to hitters and easier to square up. Likewise, opponents have a 16-degree average launch angle and a 92.1 mph average exit velocity off Soroka’s four-seamer this season.

An uncharacteristically low 8.9% line-drive rate against the pitch helps keep the numbers against it down, but Soroka has a 27% line-drive rate against his fastball all time, along with a .307 BABIP.

It would be reasonable to expect both of those numbers to rise, and thus, Soroka would be getting worse results on his fastball. As it stands, he has a .263 AVG, .579 SLG, and .379 wOBA against the four-seamer this season. The expected stats suggest that he could perform better with a .244 xBA, .439 xSLG, and .316 xwOBA against, but it’s hard to bank on positive regression when the line drive rate and BABIP are so out of whack.

If batters continue to hit the ball this hard against Soroka’s four-seamer, they will continue to have success.

The four-seamer isn’t anything to write home about, but what about that slurve? Soroka has thrown it 35% of the time this season, a career-high by far. He’s effectively replaced his slider with the slurve. An 80.5 mph offering, Soroka’s slider has average horizontal movement and slightly above-average vertical movement.

The pitch is noteworthy for its high spin rate at 2921 RPM, the third-highest spin rate on a slurve in MLB. Here’s an example from this start.

Michael Soroka slurve 6.6.25 pic.twitter.com/Cn3OL7gmAE

— Elliott Baas (@ElliottBaasBB) June 9, 2025

As if Marcus Semien needed any more trouble at the plate. The pitch is loopier than a traditional slider and is closer to a curveball than a slider. Batters have really struggled against this pitch this season, hitting just .160 with a .340 SLG and .240 wOBA. The expected stats suggest that Soroka has earned these results with a .181 xBA, .250 xSLG, and .215 xwOBA.

Those are great numbers, but one area where Soroka has been lacking is whiffs.

He did earn six of his 10 whiffs with the slurve in this start for a 55% whiff rate, but that hasn’t been the case for most of the season. He has a 29.5% whiff rate with the pitch overall and a 33% chase rate. Not horrible numbers, but they do not indicate much more strikeout potential for Soroka.

The slurve is his best strikeout pitch, and it’s not really all that good.

He throws the sinker and changeup about 10% of the time each, using the sinker against righties and the changeup against lefties. Neither pitch has been all that effective, with batters hitting .304 off the sinker and .308 off the changeup. His changeup usage did rise to 18% in this start, but that may’ve been because Texas deployed four left-handed bats in this one.

He only got one whiff with his changeup in this start and has just a 10% whiff rate with the pitch overall. It’s nice that Soroka has four pitches to round out his repertoire, but neither of them appears to be anything special and may even be liabilities for Soroka at times. Opponents are hitting .284 against Soroka’s sinker for his career.

Soroka has other flaws, too, such as an extreme case of Gopheritis (he’s allowed 1.7 HR/9 between 2023-2025) and the fact that he pitches for a losing club. He doesn’t offer much strikeout upside, doesn’t offer much win potential, and rarely goes deep enough for a quality start.

Throw in some ugly ratios and you’ve got yourself a stew going…I mean, you’ve got a pitcher with little fantasy appeal.

Verdict:

This was Soroka’s only good start this season. Seriously, it’s the only start where his ERA was under 4.50. Sure, he’s had a few big strikeout games, but in terms of run prevention, this has been his only good start. He took advantage of a Texas lineup that has a pitiful .289 wOBA off RHP this season, the second lowest in the league, and just one point from being tied for the lowest.

Soroka could be usable against bad teams, but I need to see more strong starts before considering adding or using him.

Soroka was once a fantasy superstar, but unfortunately, those days are behind him. His repertoire is anchored by a middling fastball that batters have no trouble handling, and the slurve has been his only good pitch this year. He mixes in a sinker and changeup, but not to great effect.

With underwhelming whiff rates, bloated ratios, and a losing club behind him, I see no reason to add Soroka outside of deep or NL-only leagues.

More Fantasy Baseball Advice