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Even on a holiday weekend, the Hot Stove remained turned on, and while many of the biggest names on the market remain unsigned, we've seen a few high-profile exceptions lately. So, before we get to the heart of today's newsletter, here's a quick rundown of the major moves from the past week:

  • Ryan Helsley signs with the Orioles: Scott White says you should expect to draft Helsley in the 12-15 range among relievers in 2026 now that it looks like he'll be closing once again.
  • Dylan Cease signs with the Blue Jays: I covered this one, noting that while Cease can be a frustrating pitcher who will wreck your ratios, he's also one of the most reliable sources of volume and is capable of brilliance, making his SP20 price in early drafts worth chasing. 
  • Sonny Gray traded to the Red Sox: Is this the big upgrade to the Red Sox rotation we were promised? It's certainly an upgrade, though one that carries some downside risk given the cracks that are starting to show up as Gray reaches his late 30s. 

Hopefully, the next few weeks will see a bunch more signings, and we won't go into the new year with players unsigned and Spring Training looming. But we can't control that. Here's what I can control: My Breakout picks for 2026. 

And that's what we're focusing on in the rest of today's newsletter. And, unlike last week's sleeper picks, price doesn't matter here. I mean, sure, I'd love to get any of the following 10 players at a Draft Day discount. But the whole point of this specific exercise is that, if I'm right about these guys, they'll be discounts at pretty much any price. Not all of them have superstar upside, but most of them do; the ones that don't could still be significant difference-makers in Fantasy if all goes right. 

Here's what it would look like: 

Way-Too-Early 2026 Breakouts

Chase Burns, SP, Reds

Burns was the No. 2 pick in the 2024 MLB draft, and by the time he made his debut this summer, he was arguably the top pitching prospect in baseball. His 4.57 ERA in his first taste of the majors won't get your heart racing, but if you look under the hood, there's so much to be excited about here. Most notably, he had a five-game stretch where he struck out 10 batters in four of them, and that seems like a pretty good signal in and of itself – only eight pitchers had more double-digit strikeout starts than Burns all season, and they're pretty much all aces for Fantasy. 

Burns isn't there yet, but he has the ace tool kit, and, frankly, it looks a lot like his teammate, Hunter Greene's – big fastball, absurdly dominant slider, and just enough command to make it all work. Greene will be a top-15 starter despite significant injury question marks, and while he definitely should go ahead of Burns in drafts, there's a decent chance we get to May, and we view the two as more or less the same guy. There are some injury and innings limitation concerns here.

Ben Rice, C, Yankees

Rice is going to be one of the most popular breakout picks in Fantasy in 2026, and for good reason. His exact role for 2026 hasn't been revealed just yet, but we know he's catcher eligible, and we know he's probably going to play every day somewhere. If it's not actually at catcher, that's fine for us – we'll take a catcher-eligible hitter who doesn't actually have to face the rigors and risks of donning the tools of ignorance regularly. And Rice might not just be a good hitter for a catcher; he might be an elite hitter even by the standards of first base.

His .255/.337/.499 line with 26 homers was good for any position, but there's reason to believe he could be even better. His .358 wOBA was accompanied by a .395 expected mark, and there really isn't anything in his profile that suggests he should be a perennial underperformer. He has a good approach at the plate, makes plenty of contact, and hits the ball in the air to the pull side (25.2% pulled-air rate) with authority (93.3 mph average exit velocity). The skills are all here for Rice to make a big leap, especially since he should be in line for more consistent playing time after he sat against some lefties earlier in the season. You might get top-three first baseman production from your catcher spot, and that could be a huge edge on the competition. 

Nolan McLean, SP, Mets

McLean has the Logan Webb Starter Kit. He starts with a worm-killing sinker and pairs it with multiple high-spin breaking balls that can generate whiffs, plus a very good four-seamer he typically saves for two-strike counts. It's all very Logan Webb, and I think that's a decent place to set expectations for McLean. He probably won't be the same kind of volume as Webb, though the fact that he threw 161.2 innings last season means we likely won't see any real limitations on his workload in 2026, at least.

The real question is how much better McLean can be than Webb. That's asking a lot, but hey, this is a guy who just put up a 2.06 ERA and 3.56 xERA in his first taste of the majors – and who wasn't even a full-time pitcher until 2024. Expecting another step forward isn't unreasonable, in other words, and the "Logan Webb Starter Kit" isn't that different from the
"Zack Wheeler Starter Kit". McLean has the arsenal depth, if not necessarily the elite results across the arsenal. Yet. He's going to be a popular breakout candidate precisely because of that combination of a high floor and the potential for another step forward. 

Jackson Merrill, OF, Padres

The shine is off the rose for Merrill, whose price is likely to drop between 40 and 50 picks on average from last season. I'll be buying the dip with a guy who doesn't even turn 23 until next April and has been a well-above-average hitter through his age 21 and 22 seasons. A guy who, even in a disappointing season where he battled injuries, showed excellent barrel control and hit the ball hard all over the field. 

I'll also point out that Merrill was hitting .304/.349/.474 in mid-June when he suffered a concussion. He was cleared to play again just over a week later, but the issues stemming from concussions can linger a lot longer than the official diagnosis lasts. That Merrill bounced back with a huge September makes me even more confident in projecting the bounce-back season from him, and I would hope we'll see more activity on the basepaths from him after he stole just one base in 2025 (while dealing with hamstring and ankle injuries). Ultimately, it's a bet on an elite talent who still showed high-end skills and flashed high-end production. Even if he isn't much of a base stealer moving forward, I still think he could be a high-end four-category contributor; if the steals come back, he could still be a first-rounder. 

Samuel Basallo, C, Orioles

The case here is similar to the one for Rice. Basallo is, of course, much less proven at the MLB level, and there are more questions about his playing time, but the bet is the same: In a best-case scenario, we're talking about a potential difference-making first baseman with catcher eligibility. Basallo made his debut shortly after his 21st birthday and, to be fair, looked overwhelmed, hitting just .165/.229/.330. So we have to look to his minor-league track record for hope here, and there's a lot to be hopeful about. Despite being 20 for most of the season, Basallo's 151 wRC+ at Triple-A was the third-best for any hitter in the International League, and he did that while showing both excellent plate discipline (14% walk rate, 24% strikeout rate) and huge power (94.2 mph average exit velocity, 57% hard-hit rate). The tools are all here for Basallo to be an absolute difference maker at catcher. 

Eury Perez, SP, Marlins

If all you knew about Eury Perez is that he made the majors as a 20-year-old and threw 90 innings, you'd have every reason to believe he's going to become one of the best pitchers in baseball. Since 2001, here's the full list of pitchers who got to at least 90 innings as a 20-year-old:

That's not quite a list of the best pitchers of the past 25 years – what the heck is Jordan Lyles doing there? – but it's not far off. And then you look into Perez himself closely, and it's pretty clear this guy isn't the next Jordan Lyles. He's put up a 28.1% strikeout rate with an average walk rate and comes after hitters with an excellent fastball and a full complement of breaking balls. He's still trying to find the right mixture of secondaries, but the pieces are clearly here, and the numbers are even more impressive when you remember his age and that more than half his MLB innings have come after recovering from Tommy John surgery. Perez won't even be 23 years old on Opening Day and might be poised to emerge as one of the very best pitchers in baseball as soon as this season. 

Jackson Holliday, 2B, Orioles

This is just another opportunity to bet on a preternaturally young, gifted player who hasn't quite put it together. Maybe Holliday never will. If you believe in the underlying stats on BaseballSavant.com as being relatively fixed, they aren't giving us a ton of reason to be optimistic – his .312 expected wOBA was right in line with his actual .304 mark, and Holliday hasn't really shown either the high-end exit velocities or exceptional plate discipline you're looking for, settling in around average in terms of max exit velocity and in the quality of his swing decisions. 

As a 21-year-old. 

I know I'm harping on this a lot with Merrill and Perez, too, but it's just worth keeping in mind that players this young deserve to be graded on a scale. Holliday was holding his own in the majors last season while being just eight months older than Kevin McGonigle and 15 months younger than JJ Wetherholt, two top prospects who have yet to actually make their MLB debuts. So, yeah, there's some blind faith involved in planting a flag with Holliday. But if he's capable of a 17-homer, 17-steal season while still developing, it doesn't take much for this profile to really take off. 

Michael Harris, OF, Braves

Michael Harris is good. I know this might be a controversial statement for some of you, but I stand by it. Oh, let's be clear: He's incredibly frustrating, and probably always will be given his wildly aggressive swing decisions. When you swing at everything, you'll make contact with pitches you're probably better off leaving alone, and I think that explains why he's been so frustrating over the years. And I don't expect that to change in 2026. 

But the thing is, even if all he is is the 2025 version of himself, that's a pretty terrific Fantasy player – the .249 average hurts, but he went 20-20 with 86 RBI! And the underlying numbers suggest he left a lot on the table, with his .289 wOBA paling in comparison to his .315 mark – and that .315 mark was the worst of his career, a compelling reason to think a bounceback is in store. A 20-20 floor with room to grow from a 25-year-old with plus athleticism and bat speed is a profile worth betting on when it only costs around the 100th pick. 

Kyle Bradish, SP, Orioles

Bradish might just be one of the best pitchers in baseball. We don't have a ton of evidence to support that claim, but here's what he's done in his past 14 starts since the start of the 2024 season: 2.65 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 2.48 FIP, 34.6% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate.

He had some trouble keeping the ball on the ground after he returned from Tommy John surgery last season, but the swing-and-miss stuff was totally intact, including a pretty massive 25% strikeout rate with his sinker of all pitches. You should rank him more conservatively than his recent skills indicate, given the small sample size we're working with, but there's just a ton to get excited about here, even if the Orioles might have to limit his workload at certain points. Bradish's ceiling is well within the top 12, while his current price is barely inside the top 30 at SP. 

Cade Smith, RP, Guardians

Smith might just be one of the best relievers in baseball. Because he's a reliever, we're obviously dealing with inherently tiny sample sizes, but in his case, it's 149 innings with a 2.42 ERA and 35.1% strikeout rate in his MLB career. That ERA is good for 11th among all pitchers who have thrown at least 100 innings over the past two seasons, and his FIP is even better. Than anyone. At 1.67, he has the best FIP in baseball over the past two seasons, with more than a half-run gap between him and No. 2, Mason Miller. And he's pitching for a Guardians team that has produced 40-plus saves pretty much every season – last season, Smith and Emmanuel Clase combined for 40, and Clase had averaged 44.3 from 2022 through 2024. Smith might just fill the Emmanuel Clase-shaped hole in the RP rankings perfectly.