2026 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers: AL Starting Pitchers

Welcome back to RotoWire's new feature listing our favorite sleepers by position, with three sleepers and one deep sleeper at every position on the diamond. For the purposes of this series, here's how we're defining "sleeper" and "deep sleeper":

• Sleeper: a player being drafted between picks 150 and 350 who could significantly outperform his draft price
• Deep Sleeper: a player being drafted after pick 350 who could significantly outperform his draft price

So far, we've covered catchers, first basemen, second basemen, third basemen, shortstops and outfielders in this series as well as NL starting pitchers. Now it's time to look at pitchers in the American League for your 2026 fantasy baseball drafts.

Note: The average draft position in this article is taken from all Draft Champions leagues which have drafted over the past month.

Best 2026 AL Starting Pitcher Sleepers

MacKenzie Gore (ADP 176, P 76)

Acquired from the Nationals in January for a bunch of prospects headlined by Gavin Fien, Gore has been something of a tease the last couple years. The 26-year-old southpaw looks the part of a future ace and made 30-plus starts during each of those seasons, but seemingly gets banged around for an inning or suffers through an outright blowup every outing for a couple batters or a full inning. Gore looked like he was finally putting everything together in 2025 by reeling off a 2.89 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 119:23 K:BB through his first 15 starts and 87.1 innings, though a rough six-week stretch from mid-June to early-August spoiled his final numbers.

A deeper look at the stats backs up both the promise and frustration of having Gore on your fantasy roster last year. He recorded whiff rates north of 40 percent on three different pitches, yet those were the ones the threw the least often - slider, cutter and changeup - as he instead tossed his 95.3 MPH fastball nearly half the time while giving up an xwOBA of .379 on it.

The Rangers got a career-best performance out of Nathan Eovaldi last season by convincing him to drastically reduce his four-seamer usage and lean more on his breaking pitches. A similar plan for Gore and the natural development of an extremely talented arm who was selected third overall during 2017 right after Hunter Greene could make a tantalizing 2025 first half his new normal.

Bryce Miller (ADP 247, P 97)

Few pitchers were bigger disappointments last season than Miller. After an outstanding 2024, everything regressed for the 27-year-old right-hander as he dealt with elbow troubles. His fastball velocity slightly declined, but it was his control and command that really suffered as he put too many hittable pitches over the plate and too many obviously unhittable ones off it. The end result was an ERA that nearly doubled from 2.94 to 5.68 and a WHIP that went from 0.98 to 1.41.

Miller avoided surgery this offseason as the elbow issue was deemed to only be a bone spur that could be managed with rest and rehab. He came into camp indicating he hadn't felt any discomfort in the joint all offseason, which is encouraging but also not something that will really be put to the test until he starts ramping up for Opening Day.

Miller's upside is obvious and there's no reason to think he'll again allow an xSLG above .500 on the four-seamer and two-seamer if he stays healthy. He also made his knuckle curve a more consistent part of his pitch mix last year. And if Miller's stuff is generally sharper this season, it could become a difference-maker as he produced a 37.8 percent whiff rate with it during 2024 - albeit with half the usage rate. Seattle could have 2025 first-rounder Kade Anderson quickly knocking on the door for a rotation spot, though Miller won't be the one looking over his shoulder if he returns to form.

Bailey Ober (ADP 303, P 117)

I could have written up Zebby Matthews here instead, but the younger Twin is getting plenty of buzz elsewhere and I'm frankly not as convinced as others it's going to be all that easy for him to simply stop grooving fastballs down the heart of the plate to big-league hitters. All that attention is causing Ober to fly under the radar, making him perhaps the better example of a classic sleeper.

The 30-year-old right-hander was rock solid over 2023 and 2024 with a 3.73 ERA, 1.03 WHIP and 337:72 K:BB over 323 innings, yet all that's been forgotten in the wake of a rough 2025 that saw his numbers collapse across-the-board. Even with his struggles, he still delivered a 94th percentile chase rate according to Statcast, though lost fastball velocity that made his killer changeup less effective and led to a lot more hard contact. There's a simple explanation for Ober's regression as a hip issue bothered him for most of the season and didn't look the same after rejoining the rotation in August while only on the IL for about a month.

He attacked the problem during the offseason by working with a specialist to improve the mobility and flexibility of his hips, which could come with not only better, but more consistent mechanics and maybe even improved velocity. Minnesota desperately needs some positive rotation news with Pablo Lopez already on the shelf and expected to miss the entire campaign. So having Ober regain his prior form and actually improve on it would help fill the void at the top of the staff.

Deep Sleeper

Luis Morales (ADP 415, P 168)

Unless you were a golden boy named Nick Kurtz, not much of what happened with the Sacramento Exiles... sorry, the Athletics last year got much attention. That was especially true of the pitching staff, which labored to keep balls in a minor-league ballpark and which saw star closer Mason Miller shipped out at the deadline. However, there were some encouraging developments, with none more bigger than the debut of Morales.

The 23-year-old Cuban right-hander began the year at Double-A Midland where he registered eight starts before getting bumped up to Triple-A Las Vegas. Pitching in a PCL desert park didn't slow him down much as he still delivered a 54:20 K:BB through 47 innings before moving to the Majors. Morales would go on to record a 3.14 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 43:18 K:BB across 48.2 frames from nine starts and a long relief appearance despite serving up eight homers, half of which came in back-to-back September outings at Sutter Health Stadium. He leaned on a 97.3 MPH fastball with the A's while mixing in a slider, sweeper and changeup - with the two breaking pitches both generating whiff rates of around 38 percent.

With a minor-league performance and raw stuff promising higher strikeout rates and an Opening Day rotation spot seemingly secure, Morales offers the upside to emerge as the A's staff ace while they spend the next two years in Sacramento before moving into a shiny new Vegas stadium.

Who is your AL top starting pitcher sleeper for 2026? Let us know in the comments below.