2026 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Jac Caglianone and Mike Burrows added to Frank Stampfl's Breakouts 2.0 These five players should provide excess value in 2026 drafts By Frank Stampfl Mar 13, 2026 at 10:47 am ET • 7 min read Diamond Images In order to win your Fantasy Baseball league, you need to earn a profit on the players you draft. For me, sleepers are players who are obvious values, ones that should pay off their average draft position and then some. Breakouts, however, are the players who can provide that excess value, and maybe even deliver league-winning upside. The five names below are all players who've flashed big upside already, whether that was in the majors, the minors, or right now in spring training. For most on this list, they just have to capitalize on the opportunity in front of them. For one ( Mick Abel ), he just needs an opportunity. Nonetheless, I'm very excited about each of these players providing surplus value this season. Sleepers 2.0: Scott | Chris | Frank Breakouts 2.0: Scott | Chris | Frank Busts 2.0: Scott | Chris | Frank Emmet Sheehan LAD • SP • #80 ERA 2.82 WHIP .97 IP 73.1 BB 22 K 89 ADP 137.6 View Profile Emmet Sheehan is not as young as Eury Perez , Chase Burns , and Nolan McLean , but he seems to have just as much hype as those guys, and rightfully so! Sheehan made his return from Tommy John surgery last season, and he performed like an ace. He put up a 2.82 ERA and 0.97 WHIP, while generating whiffs and limiting walks. Among pitchers with 70 innings last season, his 23 percent K-BB rate ranked 14th, and his 15.6 percent swinging strike rate was tied for ninth. Sheehan started to take on more of a workload as the season went on, too. In his final seven games, he went at least 5.2 innings in five of them. He even went seven innings three different times, which is pretty shocking for a Dodgers pitcher returning from surgery. Sheehan mainly gets the job done with three pitches: his four-seam fastball, slider, and changeup. The slider is ridiculous, posting a .200 xwOBA with a 44 percent whiff rate. He also does a good job generating whiffs with his four-seam and inducing weak contact with his changeup. The biggest question with Sheehan is the one we have with all Dodgers pitchers… workload. The Dodgers are expected to have a six-man rotation this season, which will limit volume for each of them. With that said, Blake Snell is already hurt, Tyler Glasnow has an extensive injury history, and Roki Sasaki remains a mystery. The only two Dodgers pitchers I'm targeting this season are Sheehan and Yoshinobu Yamamoto . I'm sure Sheehan will be limited at times, but when he's on the mound, I expect him to perform like a SP3 with the upside to be even better than that. Jonathan Aranda TB • 1B • #8 BA 0.316 R 56 HR 14 RBI 59 SB 0 ADP 182.8 View Profile Man, there is a lot to like about first base this year. You have a bunch of talent up top, but also lots of fun upside later on. Sal Stewart is the hitter I love this season , but I also really like Jonathan Aranda . He was awesome last season. Technically, he already broke out! The problem is that his breakout was cut short due to a wrist injury that forced him to miss nearly two months. In the 106 games Aranda played, he hit .316 with 14 homers and an .883 OPS. Aranda does exactly what we look for in a hitter. He ranked 93rd percentile or better in each of xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and launch angle sweet-spot percentage. Here's a graphic to prove it! Baseball Savant I think what's kept this ADP down is that his season was cut short last year, and he plays for the Rays . Aranda doesn't have gaudy numbers because he only played in the 106 games, but his rate stats were off the charts. Also, I think when most people see a left-handed Rays hitter, they just assume he'll be a platoon bat. That's a fair assumption for most, but I don't believe it to be true for Aranda. He held his own against lefties last year, hitting .274 with a .723 OPS. Also, the Rays can't platoon every left-handed bat in their lineup! They also have Gavin Lux , Cedric Mullins , Chandler Simpson , and Jake Fraley . Honestly, the Rays need Aranda in their lineup every day because, frankly, it's not a very good lineup. Given health, I can see Aranda hitting .280-plus with 20-25 home runs, which would be a steal where he's going in drafts. Jac Caglianone KC • 1B • #14 BA 0.157 R 19 HR 7 RBI 18 SB 1 ADP 201.2 View Profile Alright, it's time for me to join in on the fun. Everybody has Jac Caglianone as a breakout this season, including me. He's the perfect candidate. Caglianone was the sixth overall pick in the 2024 draft and, entering last season, was ranked as a higher prospect than Nick Kurtz at some outlets. Cags destroyed the minors last year, hitting .337 with 20 homers and a 1.025 OPS in only 66 games. He earned his promotion to the Royals but did not have the same success in the majors. In 62 games, he hit just .157 with seven homers an