The grind of an eight-month, 162-game fantasy season is daunting. The combination of beautiful summer days, family vacations, long days at work, and the beginning of football season can take the avid baseball fan into a tailspin. Before you know it, the season is over! As you approach 2025, it’s time to digest all you missed down the stretch of the baseball season. With that in mind, we are looking at pitching breakouts who struggled in the first half of 2024 but had monster second halves! Significant changes like this result from a skill change (i.e., velocity or spin), a new pitch, a pitch mix change, or a little of each. Here are five pitchers who had rough starts to 2024 but finished as fantasy aces on the verge of 2025 breakouts!
Second Half Pitching Breakouts You May Have Missed
Bowden Francis, TOR
1st Half: 3-2, 5.82 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 11.6 K-BB%
2nd Half: 5-3, 1.80 ERA, 0.60 WHIP, 21.3 K-BB%
Bowden Francis is the low-hanging fruit of second-half pitching breakouts. Coming out of camp, Francis was the fifth starter in Toronto, but that quickly changed after allowing seven earned runs in his first outing at Houston. The Jays moved Francis to the bullpen until forearm inflammation sent him to the IL in late April. Upon his return, Francis made one start before being jettisoned back to the bullpen. When the Jays traded Yusei Kikuchi (more on him to come) in late July, they again summoned the 28-year-old to the rotation, and that’s where the story begins.
Francis put together one of the most impressive runs in recent memory, taking an ERA of 5.44 in early August and flipping the script to a 3.30 ERA to close 2024. In six starts from August 12 to September 12, Francis tossed 43 innings, allowing 13 hits and six ER, with a 1.26 ERA and 0.92 average against. He carried a no-hitter into the 9th inning in two outings only to allow a solo home run, ending his shutout and the no-hit bid. Francis was dominant at the end of 2024 and should be firmly on your radar ahead of 2025.
Francis’s breakout was fueled by adding a sinker to his pitch mix. Francis threw the sinker just 6% of the time, but the narrative on him as a pitcher completely changed. Before adding the sinker, Francis relied on his curveball, which was a highly ineffective pitch, particularly against RHH. As a result, righties could attack his four-seam. The fastball was getting obliterated to a .273 average against, a .509 SLG, and a .853 OPS. Adding a sinker allowed Francis to cut his curveball usage in half (10%), thus reducing hard contact and allowing his four-seam fastball to right-handed hitters in the zone. The result was a 31.8% strikeout rate, a 15% swinging strike rate, and a .076 average against the four-seamer.
Entering 2025, monitoring the sinker usage in Spring Training is vital. If Francis continues to lean into the sinker and scrap the curveball, his breakout could last beyond the final two months of 2024. Francis does not offer considerable strikeout upside, but if he’s limiting hard contact, his workload, ratios, and win potential could be league-winning in fantasy.
Hunter Brown, HOU
1st Half: 7-6, 4.39 ERA, 1.37 WHIP
2nd Half: 4-3, 2.26 ERA, 1.13 WHIP
Hunter Brown is undoubtedly one of the most talented pitchers in the game. However, his battle with command and control and an excessive number of home runs allowed limits his upside and fantasy appeal. Even on a team loaded with offensive firepower, Brown is just two games over .500 in his career and has struggled to compile an entire season of quality work. In 2024, Brown had a rocky start to the season and entered his start on June 14 with an ERA of 5.58. Fantasy owners particularly remember his implosion at Kansas City in his third start. Brown lasted just 2/3 of an inning, allowing 11 hits and 9 ER with no strikeouts on just 40 pitches. The entire month of April was a complete disaster, as he allowed 25 ERs (11.80 ERA) in 19 innings of work and led owners to drop him after using a top 10-round pick on him.
There were varying opinions on Brown’s first-half struggles, but looking below the surface, you’ll find interesting data. Hitters had a .288 average, .485 SLG, and .855 OPS through May, albeit with a 4.1% barrel rate and a ridiculous .353 BABIP. The unusually high BABIP resulted in 10.5 hits per nine and a strand rate of 65.2%, contributing to an inflated 6.39 ERA. Brown didn’t help himself either, throwing 61.5% of his pitches for strikes with a 10.7% walk rate. To summarize, Brown was a mix of bad and unlucky. But things would turn around quickly.
From June 1 on, Brown made 20 starts and allowed three ERs or less in 17 of them. His season ERA went from 6.39 to its final mark of 3.49. Brown made progress by cutting his walk rate to 7.4% while improving his strikeout rate by 25.8%. His BABIP regressed to the mean (.287) while opposing hitters managed a .221 average against with a sub-.600 OPS. In addition, his strand rate ticked up to 82%, nearly 10% over the league average. The bulk of Brown’s metrics didn’t change, but what did was his arsenal.
Brown is a “kitchen sink” guy who throws many different pitches. At times, he had seven different offerings. In the first half, he was 49% fastball, which included his cutter, four-seam, and splitter. It yielded a .341 average and a 1.091 OPS with an 11.5% SwStr rate and 27.5% K-rate. But the second half was a different story. Right-handed and left-handed hitters alike feasted on his four-seamer. To offset success against the fastball, throw something that changes the batter’s eye level and offers movement to keep hitters guessing. The result was an 18% increase in sinker usage and an 8% increase in cutter usage while throwing fewer four-seamers (down 12%). His sinker generated a 37.7% chase and a 3% barrel rate, limiting hard contact and holding hitters in check. The cutter yielded a .559 OPS and a minuscule 31.5% ideal contact rate. But the most significant benefactor was the four-seam fastball. In the second half, his four-seamer had a 40.9% strikeout rate with a 15.2% SwStr rate. Hitters managed a .185 average against it with an OPS of .545.
The arsenal changes were very impactful for Brown. He desperately needed something with movement to keep hitters off of his four-seam fastball, and he made it work with more sinkers and cutters. It’s interesting to see how Brown’s pitch mix evolves in 2025. Brown has an outstanding arsenal of pitches to carry him to the next level if he continues to set his four-seam up for success.
Yusei Kikuchi, LHP
1st Half: 4-8, 4.42 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 26.0 K%
2nd Half: 5-2, 3.49 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 31.1 K%
The trade of Kikuchi to Houston not only provided Bowden Francis an opportunity but also pushed Kikuchi to the next level. We’ve seen a mixed bag from Kikuchi throughout his career, showing flashes of huge upside only to regress with poor command and control. It was more of the same for the Japanese-born left-hander in 2024. That is, until he was traded to Houston.
Kikuchi started 2024 well, pitching to a 3.24 ERA with 61 strikeouts in his first 61 innings. The wheels fell off before his trade. From June 1 to the trade deadline, he allowed 39 ER (6.42 ERA), including 12 home runs and an .838 OPS in 11 starts. The trade to Houston was a much-needed change of scenery, and Kikuchi made the most of it. Over his final ten starts, he had a 2.70 ERA with 76 strikeouts in 60 innings. Opposing hitters batted .188 against him, and Kikuchi posted a 25.9% K-BB rate. So, what changed?
The Astros are notorious for utilizing breaking balls as the primary source of whiffs for any pitcher. Kikuchi has always had an outstanding mid-90s fastball that attacked hitters up in the zone with a low vertical approach angle (-4.6 vAA) and 16 inches of induced vertical break (iVB). The problem has been inconsistent command and control of the fastball, which has proven detrimental. On the other hand, his slider has shown to be a solid offering with the potential for more. The pitch mix breakdown below shows that he leaned into the slider over 20% more with the Astros and excelled. The result was a 33% CSW, 29.2% whiff rate, and 15% SwStr, with opponents batting .172 against the slider. As a result, Kikuchi saw a 5% jump in strikeout rate, while hitters lost 82 points in batting average.
Kikuchi is a free agent this offseason, and the Astros are among his suitors. The importance of leaning into the slider with his new (or old) team is in the numbers and would continue to push Kikuchi into the upper echelon of strikeout pitchers.
Yusei Kikuchi 2024 Pitch-Mix
Bryce Miller, SEA
1st Half: 7-7, 3.63 ERA, 1.06 WHIP
2nd Half: 5-1, 1.89 ERA, 0.84 WHIP
The Mariners’ rotation is unequivocally the best in baseball, and Bryce Miller, who was once considered the fifth-best, is ascending to ace level quickly. Miller burst onto the scene in 2023, taking a fastball-heavy approach and experiencing tremendous success early in his career. In his first two months in the Majors, Miller threw his four-seamer 68% of the time, with his slider (18.2% usage) a distant second. Hitters began to adjust. Left-handed hitters, in particular, were highly successful against Miller, so he adjusted. His attempt to neutralize lefties was incorporating a sinker, sweeper, and changeup into his pitch mix. Ultimately, lefties finished 2024 with a .303 average against and a .917 OPS. Miller finished his rookie season with a 4.32 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 25 starts, still needing a plan to get lefties out.
The first half of 2024 wasn’t terrible for Miller. He had an ERA of 3.46 with underlying metrics that supported it. But in the second half, Miller made a change that gave hitters a new look and deepened his repertoire. Miller introduced a knuckle curve, which he threw 9% of the time and 14% against lefties. Although Miller struggled to throw it for strikes, the curveball completely dominated LHH, earning a 46.7% strikeout rate and holding hitters to a .200 average. Adding the curve gave Miller a second pitch in the lower half of the zone with a completely different movement profile from his sweeper. As a result, each of his other pitches got a boost in CSW, most notably the cutter (up 19%), the splitter (up 10%), and the sweeper (up 7%). Miller’s overall strikeout rate jumped almost 5% in the second half, exceeding 9 K’s per nine for the first time.
Miller already offers a low WHIP and above-average ERA as a fantasy asset, but his strikeout upside was limited. Adding a breaking pitch with high swing-and-miss potential only bolsters his impressive arsenal. Ahead of 2025, Miller has established himself as a likely breakout and darkhorse Cy Young candidate in the American League.
Nick Martinez, RHP
1st Half: 3-5, 3.88 ERA, 1.13 WHIP in a hybrid role
2nd Half: 7-2, 2.30 ERA, 0.92 WHIP as a starter
If you had 34-year-old Nick Martinez as a 2024 breakout, congratulations, you picked a league winner! Martinez is different from any of the pitching breakouts we’ve already discussed in that he kept his arsenal the same. Instead, he was given another opportunity as a starter and ran with it.
Martinez was an 18th-round pick in 2011, and after three failed seasons (2014-2017) as a starter with the Rangers, he tried his luck in Japan. He pitched for the Nippon Ham Fighters from 2018 through 2021 before the Padres brought Martinez stateside as a swingman in 2022. Martinez spent two years with San Diego and landed with the Reds ahead of the 2024 season. Entering last season, Martinez had a 4.31 ERA and 1.39 WHIP in the Majors across 198 appearances. He made 87 starts with a 4.56 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP as a starter. As a reliever, Martinez had an ERA of 2.90 and a 1.18 WHIP.
The Reds initially deployed Martinez as a starter for two turns through the rotation before he moved into a swingman/bulk reliever role. But, after the trade deadline, Martinez re-joined the rotation and made 11 starts down the stretch. In those 11 starts, he was brilliant. Across 63 1/3 innings, Martinez had a 2.42 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, a 3.3% walk rate, and a 33.9% chase rate. The catalyst behind his success is what most analysts caution you to avoid: poor extension. Despite standing 6-foot-1, Martinez gets just 5.9 feet of extension, which ranks in the 7th percentile among MLB pitchers. But he makes up for the poor extension with ELITE iVB on three of his five pitches: four-seamer, cutter, and sinker. And his changeup…oh his changeup. He used the changeup 22% of the time, and among qualified starters, Martinez’s change ranked 1st in HardHit rate (17.2%), 4th in Whiff Rate (41.6%), and 5th in wOBA (.217) and strikeout rate (32.6%). Notable pitchers in this range are Chris Sale, Cristopher Sanchez, Tyler Anderson, and Michael Wacha. That’s an outstanding group!
Nick Martinez enters his age-35 season as a free agent and is ‘highly coveted’ according to his representative, Scott Boras. His landing place may not matter as Martinez survived Great American Ballpark despite allowing a 41.4% fly-ball rate. The real question is, do you believe in what he’s doing, and is it sustainable? If the answer is yes, Martinez is the definition of a late-career breakout and should be rostered everywhere in all league types in 2025.
Got a few late-season pitching breakouts of your own? Let us hear it in the comments below.