It’s only logical, as some players move up our rankings, others must move down. To help make sense of all this, our writers are taking a deeper look at some of the players climbing the ladder and some who have slipped a few rungs.

Risers

Chase Burns, Cincinnati Reds, Current Rank: 14, Previous Rank: 61

Starting pitching is the epitome of chaos in baseball and especially the fantasy baseball world. You never have enough of it and what you do have can change on a dime. One minute you are on top of the baseball world as the best of the best, who everyone wishes they could be. Then injuries or a bad spell and you drop like a rock. The reverse can also be true, with pitchers going from being a prospect to sitting as a top 15 dynasty starting pitcher in just 43.1 innings. That is what happened to Chase Burns from the start of 2025 to now. He began last year as our 61st ranked dynasty starting pitcher and now in almost the blink of an eye he comes in at number 14. What a jump in so few innings, but what really has fueled the monumental leap?

Burns is the classic starting pitcher fantasy baseball GMs drool over. At 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds he is a perfectly built gas thrower with a dynamite slider. Maybe that is why he is so high this year. He reminds everyone of Spencer Strider from the good times. Burns has a fastball that averaged 98.7 MPH in the major leagues last season, with 18.1 inches of induced vertical break. On top of the fireball, his slider was one of the best pitches in baseball, with a strikeout rate of 47.8% and a whiff rate of 43.9%. In his 43.1 major league innings, he had an overall strikeout rate of 35.7%. So we have a pitcher who brings the heat in the 97th percentile and his strikeout rate would have been just as high if he qualified. Strider is a great comparison, because Burns is also a mostly two-pitch pitcher. In 2023, Strider’s huge strikeout year, his fastball averaged 97.1 MPH and 18.4 inches of induced vertical break. His slider had a 50.9% strikeout rate and a 55.3% whiff rate that year. Even in the minor leagues before Burns came up to the majors he was absolutely dominant with a 1.77 ERA over 66 innings, including a 36.8% strikeout rate, and a 2.16 FIP.

2026 will be a big year for Burns and if he can reliably find a third pitch, we could be seeing the next huge strikeout artist who is still a rookie. This is what makes him so valuable, he is just 23-years-old and has already shown how well his two pitches can succeed at striking out major league hitters. If he can make the next leap, he could go full Tarik Skubal and be one of the top pitchers in baseball and seemingly we could see it happen overnight. This time next year, Burns could be a top five dynasty pitcher, now is the time to add him in fantasy leagues.

Fallers

Roki Sasaki, Los Angeles Dodgers, Current Rank: 51, Previous Rank: 10

From one dynamic star pitching prospect to another here, but this one has taken a tumble. Roki Sasaki was on top of the world as he came over from Japan for the 2025 season. Unfortunately, injuries, bad pitching, and early struggles wiped out his up arrow, as he went from number 10 last season to number 51 this year. Sasaki is probably just as equally talented as Chase Burns, but they took diverging paths in 2025.

Sasaki threw only 36.1 innings last season and another 10.1 innings in the postseason. He helped the Dodgers to win a second consecutive World Series, but his numbers didn’t look like many expected. He had a regular season ERA of 4.46, with a worrisome 5.80 FIP. He was getting lucky and that was likely due to the unimaginably low strikeout numbers. He had a strikeout rate of 17.4% during the regular season and just 14% in the postseason. What also was of some concern was his walk rate, 13.7%. It wasn’t the season he envisioned, but he came through as a reliever in the playoffs.

Ultimately, Sasaki fell in the rankings because his true outcome is harder to nail down now. It doesn’t mean he can’t become a top 10 dynasty starting pitcher asset again. He still has a fantastic arm and an exceptional splitter. His command and injury history make him more of a wild card than Burns, but his talent and upside is right there given his fastball and splitter combination. If Sasaki can improve his fastball and achieve the velocity he was once billed to have, the splitter will become an uber elite pitch. In 2025, the splitter had a strikeout rate of 31.3% and a whiff rate of 37.2%. If hitters have to worry about an upper 90s fastball, watch out, because the splitter may become unhittable.

Big things are still to come for Sasaki and as a full-time starter in 2026, a healthy year could easily propel him back up the rankings. One healthy year and an improved fastball will ease the minds of the rankers and we could see him in the riser section this time next year. His arm talent is too good to be relegated to being a bullpen pitcher, so hopefully we see an improvement and a full year. He could take the major leagues by storm this year and it wouldn’t shock me at all, he is oozing with the talent to do so.

(Daniel Labude)