Fantasy baseball streaming starting pitchers and arsenal changes for Payton Tolle, Zack Wheeler, more

Welcome to your fantasy baseball starting pitcher happy place. This is a new column for me this year that will combine a few things I’ve done in the past. In this article, every Monday, you’ll not only get a list of my favorite streaming starting pitchers for the whole week, but underneath that, you’ll get a breakdown of a few pitchers who are making interesting changes to their pitch mix. Today I covered Zack Wheeler, Payton Tolle, Peter Lambert, and JR Ritchie.

It’s a little bit of rankings and a little bit of analysis, and hopefully a lot of help for your teams.

As far as which pitchers on this list you’ll want to stream, your decisions will change based on your league type and settings. Since I’m listing starters for all week, I’m not going to be able to give a detailed analysis for each one; I’ll just highlight the matchup and some quick thoughts. As is usual with my articles, a streaming starter pitcher is rostered in less than 40% of Yahoo formats, so just keep that in mind as we’re going through because I won’t be mentioning pitchers who are rostered in more leagues than that, and I also won’t be mentioning pitchers who I would not start in any format.

Starting Pitcher Streamers of the Week

I was at Connor Prielipp’s debut against the Mets, and I came away pretty impressed. His slider is a truly elite pitch. I wrote about him in more detail in our waiver wire article. Steven Matz has a decent two-start week this week, so I’m OK firing him up. Jack Kochanowicz also has a two-start week. I like this first start a lot, but the Mets scare me a bit later. Maybe I’m holding onto the past too much, haha. I like Dustin May in this spot.

Payton Tolle is just above the cut-off, but he was just claimed this week, so I thought he was worth having on here, and I wrote about the changes he made since last season below. Tyler Mahle has also been pretty solid this season, and get a solid two-start week. I don’t LOVE this matchup with the Phillies, but they have really been struggling, so I think you can roll the dice. Cleveland is gonna send basically all lefties up against Nick Martinez, so that worries me a bit.

JR Ritchie is another pitcher I covered in more detail below, same with Peter Lambert, who I have come away impressed with this week. I don’t really love Cade Cavalli or Yusei Kikuchi, but they are matchup plays that I think you can feel OK about this week.

Not a ton of games today, and some aces going, so there aren’t many options. Hunter Dobbins looks likely to be activated off the injured list for this, but I can’t start him in his first game back.

Noah Schultz is above streamer territory, but I think you can fire him up here. I still believe that Mike Burrows will bounce back, and Boston has really been struggling so far this season. German Marquez is on the radar strictly because it’s the Rockies on the road after they start the week in Coors. On the flip side, I don’t love Joey Cantillo in Sacramento, even though I like Joey Cantillo.

Kyle Harrison was elite this weekend, so fire him up in this spot, and I would normally never recommend a starter in Coors, but Chase Dollander has been lights out. This is risky, but he’s hard to bench right now. I also think Rhett Lowder is in a decent spot for ratios, and I will roll the dice on Keider Montero, who I think looks better than he did last year.

This is that second start for Tyler Mahle I was talking about, and another great matchup for Justin Wrobleski to keep things going. Steven Matz and Jack Kochanowicz finish their two-start weeks here, and I think Jack Leiter is in play against a fine but not great Tigers offense.

Starting Pitcher Pitch Mix Changes

Zack Wheeler – Philadelphia Phillies (Fastball Velocity, Sweeper Shape)

Zack Wheeler made his return from Thoracic Outlet Surgery this weekend, and I wanted to quickly go over how he looked. For starters, the velocity was down about 1.5 mph across the board, which is to be expected. He was sitting in the mid-90s in the first inning and then fell down around 93 mph pretty quickly. He still showed elite extension, but his arm angle seems a little bit lower, and he wasn’t able to command the fastball up in the zone like we’re used to. That would be something to monitor because there’s a chance his arm angle has changed after the surgery, which may mean the struggles to elevate are going to be persistent. That would change the impact of his four-seamer, so we’re going to need to monitor that.

We also saw some shape/velocity changes on his sweeper, which was over two mph slower, but with more drop and horizontal movement. He used it 27% of the time against righties and had an 18% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) and 36% CSW. However, he had just a 36% strike rate, so we’re going to need to see better command of that going forward as well.

The rest of his arsenal actually looked pretty similar to what we’re used to, except that the extension and velocity were down on everything, which led to a pretty pedestrian called strike rate. I think you have to come away optimistic after this start; yet, we do need to acknowledge that this is not the same Zack Wheeler. We may get there later in the season, but the velocity and command are not here right now, which means there could be some hiccups in the first few weeks. You’re still starting him basically everywhere, but he just might not be a true ace for your fantasy staff for a bit – if he ever gets there this season.

Peter Lambert – Houston Astros (Fastball Velocity/Shape, Cutter Shape/Usage, Curve)

Nick Pollack and I have talked about Peter Lambert a bit on the “On the Corner” podcast, and I’m intrigued by what I’ve seen this year. After missing all of 2025 following elbow surgery, Lambert is now in Houston and is throwing just under one mph harder on his four-seam fastball with 1.4 inches more vertical movement. He has lost some extension, which is not ideal, but a 95.5 mph fastball with nearly 17 inches of iVB that he keeps up in the zone 56.4% of the time (15% more than in 2024) will certainly work. That fastball has a 21.8% SwStr% so far this season because he’s using it 42% of the time in two-strike counts against lefties. Against righties, it’s his primary early-count pitch, but lefties get a lot of curveballs and changeups early and then the elevated four-seamer late.

Lefties are also seeing a cutter 50% of the time in two-strike counts and 16% of the time overall after he used it just one total to lefties in over 60 innings in 2024. The cutter is three mph harder with far less sink and horizontal break. So far, he’s kept it high and away to lefties, which is an interesting location for it, but it works. Perhaps lefties are expecting the four-seam high and away, because that’s also where Lambert has attacked with that pitch, so the cutter and four-seamer are creating confusion in the same area of the strike zone. Regardless, it’s working, as is a changeup that has slightly more horizontal run, and a curveball that is five mph harder with 10 inches more horizontal movement and 12 inches less drop. Instead of a traditional 12-6 breaking ball, this has more sweep to it. He’s not throwing it a ton, but it’s missing bats and is an intriguing offering if he gets more confident in it.

All in all, this is an intriguing and much-improved mix. I’ve been looking to add Lambert in a few places over the last week.

JR Ritchie – Atlanta Braves (Pitch Mix Breakdown)

JR Ritchie made his debut this week for Atlanta, and I loved his demeanor. At his core, he is a strike thrower who will attack the zone with a deep arsenal of pitches. Yes, none of those pitches is truly elite. His four-seam fastball is 94.4 mph (which was actually up one mph from where he’s sat in the minors) with above-average extension at 6.6’ and good vertical movement for his below-average release height. He’s going to need to keep that pitch elevated, which he didn’t do to James Wood on that first-pitch home run. A 41.7% strike rate and 33.3% zone rate on the four-seamer in the debut was not good, as was just one whiff, so he may have gotten a bit lucky with that pitch, and that’s something we’ll need to watch out for.

Luckily for him, he also has a sinker for righties, but he threw just four of them in his debut because the Nationals don’t have many right-handed hitters. I would expect the sinker to be much more prevalent in future starts. Righties will also see a heavy dose of his curve, which may be his best pitch. It’s 82 mph with over 13 inches of both drop and horizontal movement. I don’t love that it had just a 32% zone rate and 48% strike rate in the debut, so we do need to see him command it better, but it’s clearly a solid pitch.

His changeup also flashed as a solid pitch to lefties, but his command of it was inconsistent, and he did show off a 91.7 mph cutter that he pounded the zone with. It seems that he knows his four-seamer isn’t great because he threw a lot of curveballs and changeups early, and when he was ahead of lefties. It’s hard to know how excited to be when we haven’t seen him really face right-handed hitters. It might center on the command of his curveball because the four-seamer and slider seem to be average to below-average offerings that we don’t want him to rely to much on.

Payton Tolle – Boston Red Sox (New Sinker, New Cutter Shape, Curve Usage)

Praton Tolle debuted this season on Thursday against the Yankees and looked great, allowing one run on three hits in six innings while striking out 11. He showed off that same elite four-seamer in this one, throwing it 50% of the time overall with a 37% CSw and 17% SwStr%. However, that usage was down 24% to lefties because Tolle also showed off a new sinker, which he used 30% of the time to lefties. It comes in at 97 mph, basically the same as the four-seam fastball, with 18 inches of arm-side run. That’s 10 inches more than the four-seamer. If Tolle can attack lefties inside with the sinker or even middle-in, then he can elevate that four-seamer for swinging strikes. That’s a tremendous attack plan for lefties and takes pressure off of his cutter and curve, which he can just show away and doesn’t need to be a main weapon.

However, I don’t think he needs to use the sinker as much to righties, which he did 14% of the time last week. The cutter, which is now 1.2 mph faster and with a little bit less vertical movement, should be a bit more of a focus. He had a 67% strike rate with it in the debut, which is great, but the locations were a bit all over the place. The same could be said for his curveball, which he threw 12% more to righties than he did last season and registered a 50% SwStr% on it. That being said, one look at the pitch plot from this game shows that his locations of the curve were a bit of a mess. He did a good job keeping it low in the zone, which is great, but many were REALLY low, and he didn’t seem to have a clear plan for attacking away or inside, etc. It’s nice that he’s using the pitch more, and it takes pressure off of his four-seamer to righties, but the locations on it will need to improve.

Overall, we knew Tolle was a pitcher who would succeed based on a trio of hard fastballs, much like Cam Schlitter, who he pitched against this week. The addition of the sinker and the improvements to the cutter are big for Tolle. Improving the usage of them will help even more and give him more time to refine the command of his breaking stuff.