Five Pitchers to Sell High On
It feels crazy to type, but we are already ~20% of the way through the 2026 fantasy baseball season. Most starting pitchers have six starts under their belts, and this is roughly the point of the season where fantasy managers start to believe in what we are seeing. As each day goes on, it’s harder and harder to make the case for sample sizes not being legitimate.
I think one of the hardest things to do in fantasy is pull off a sell high deal. You have to part with a player who has done well for you and try to properly value the likely underperforming asset that you will acquire in return. It’s a lot easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
In this article, I’ve identified five starting pitchers who have been off to solid starts to the 2026 season. I believe all five will see their numbers degrade over the coming weeks and months, and I’d be looking to make a move now while you can ask for peak value.
Some of the names below will be able to pitch you a very strong return on their own, while others are better used as a sweetener in multi-player proposals.
On the surface, Framber Valdez has performed pretty similarly to how he did in 2025. His 3.41/1.31 is within shouting distance of his 3.66/1.24 from last year and I think many people will be content with Valdez and his typically safe floor. That being said, I really start to worry when I dig in below the surface with Framber. While that WHIP is similar to where it was last season, it wasn’t exactly good in 2025 and he didn’t have a ton of wiggle room to continue to lose ground there.
His strikeout rate has plummeted from his usual 23-24% all the way down to 16%. This is also backed up by a massive 3.5% drop in his SwStr%. The contact rates against are also very concerning. Valdez has allowed an 82.7% contact rate and a 95% Z-contact rate.
Another concern is the reduction in ground balls. Valdez has always thrived in large part due to how many grounders he includes, but his 53.2 rate this year is the lowest mark we’ve ever seen from him. He’s allowing flyballs 29% of the time which is by far the highest we’ve ever seen from him, which could lead to an increase in his HR rate as well.
There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about Framber. Many fantasy players avoid drafting someone in the first year of a new contract, and it looks like those who went a different route made the correct call here.
Holmes has been getting some terrific results in the early going but I am having a very hard time believing that this is in any way legitimate. The main problem for me is the lack of whiffs and strikeouts. His 9% swinging strike rate and 17.6 K% just won’t cut it for the majority of fantasy players.
The 1.75 ERA and 0.97 WHIP are sparkling, but his 4.03 SIERA and 3.85 xFIP tell us that darker days are ahead. He allows a ton of contact which will lead to high WHIP totals like he had in each of the past two sessons (1.30). Holmes has really benefited from a .206 BABIP and 91.2 LOB% to start the season. These are incredibly unrealistic numbers to expect and are massively responsible for his success to this point.
Another factor to consider is how bad the Mets are looking in 2026, and how many will be in store for Holmes. Even if departs the game with a lead, do we really trust the bullpen to maintain that? He has won three of his first six starts which is a very unrealistic expectation to have moving forward. If Holmes ends up with double-digit wins it would be a huge success, but I am not forecasting that.
Kochanowicz has been one of the most surprising success stories from the early part of 2026. After a horrific year in which he put up a 6.81 ERA and 1.75 WHIP over 111 IP, he’s sitting pretty with a 3.09 ERA and 1.20 WHIP through his first six starts and 35 IP of the season.
Is the progress real? Unfortunately, I’d have to say that it’s not. Kochanowicz’s 4.79 SIERA and 4.45 xFIP paint a much more accurate picture of what to expect. If you see someone who would prefer to look at traditional metrics, he also has a 4.1 K-BB% to begin the season. This is the 3rd worst mark among all qualified SP’s, and would have ranked dead last on full season leaderboard for 2025.
It’s simply impossible to strikeout as few batters as he does, while walking as many batters as he does, and still be effective as a major league starting pitcher. While Kochanowicz has put together a few nice outing to begin the season, this is not something that will last for very long at all. As I alluded to in the opening, Kochanowicz is some one who makes a better throw-in to sweeten an existing deal as opposed to someone who will likely be able to fetch a huge return in a 1-1 trade.
Whole Connelly Early may have a 2.84 ERA and 1.20 WHIP to begin the season, he’s very lucky that things don’t look worse for him. He has struck out more than five batters in a game just once (his first start of the season), and has walked multiple batters in all but one appearance. He just doesn’t look nearly as sharp as he did when he debuted at the end of 2025.
In his small cup of coffee last year, Early had a 31.6 K-BB%, 2.34 SIERA, 2.35 xFIP, and 1.09 WHIP, this season, he has a 10.7 K-BB%, 4.42 SIERA, 4.42 xFIP, and 1.20 WHIP. Opposing batters are hitting him very well, as he’s giving up an 11.6% barrel rate as opposed to the 4.4% we saw last season. The swinging strikes and chases have disappeared, and he’s giving up a lot more contact than he did last season (68.3% to 79.8%).
While Early is very talented, he’s also a very inexperienced arm who pitches for a very dysfunctional team in a very hitter friendly ballpark. I think he’ll have m excellent career, but I doubt that 2026 is where it really takes off. I would try to capitalize on the solid surface numbers and sell ASAP.
Every once in a while, E-Rod will have a nice stretch and every fantasy analyst will inevitably receive 100s of questions about his viability. I’ve never personally seen the appeal here. We have a >1300 IP sample size of a 4.16 ERA and 1.33 WHIP over more than a decade. He is who he is, and yet, his 2.89 ERA to start the season has some folks buying in again.
His 5% K-BB is by far the worst we’ve ever seen from Rodriguez. His 6.4 SwStr% just simply isn’t good enough to cut it for managers in any sized league. He’s also down to a career worst 90 Stuff+ and doesn’t have a single offering that grades out above average at this stage of his career.
While his last two starts have been a bit shakier and it may be trickier to move him than it would have been a week ago, Rodriguez has always had his supporters and I think someone in your league would have interest here. Similarly to Kochanowicz, I think E-Rod is more of a throw in type as opposed to someone to move on his own, but a team desperate for pitching might look at his ERA and think he can put together a solid year.
Joe Orrico is a podcast host, writer, and producer for FanGraphs and FantasyPros. With a background in journalism and sports media, he has been producing fantasy sports content since 2021. You can find him on twitter @JoeOrrico99
Good stuff! You making a buy low version too?
Thank you! That will be coming next week!
Just acquired R Nelson – is he a candidate for next week’s article or has it been so bad you are saving him for a “rent-low” article down the line?
Hey, that FIP is only 5.59 and xERA only 5.23! I dunno how long a team with postseason aspirations can keep trotting him out there every fifth day, other than to guess “not long”
Well, as long as the Pfaadt man is next in line, I think he’ll continue to get some run. And yes, the FIP is rough, but there is plenty of room for regression, especially with a 35% LOB, 20 points worse than the next in line.