Saturday Fantasy Baseball SP Streamers: Chad Patrick Leads the Way
Five starting pitchers with good matchups on Saturday who are widely available in fantasy leagues.
Welcome to the first edition of the 2026 starting pitcher streamers! The past two days have featured mainly the top starters on most teams, not leaving many guys who are available in fantasy leagues. It's a quirk of the early season that we won't run into often moving forward unless there are only a few games on the schedule.
Let's look at five starting pitchers with good matchups on Saturday who are widely available in fantasy leagues. Most stats are from MLB.com, as are the probable starters.
Use FantasySP's daily and weekly projections to find the players expected to excel and help make your toughest lineup decisions!
Joe Boyle, Tampa Bay Rays @ St. Louis Cardinals
Boyle is massive, listed at 6'8 and 250 pounds. He has just 29 games (22 starts) and 115 2/3 big-league innings, and he has shown good strikeout work in that time while walking way too many guys, holding a BB rate of 14.3% versus league average around 8-9%. He also did big-time K work in the minors, so if he can ever find his control, Boyle might be something.
St. Louis was a bottom-10 offensive team last season, and they started a bit slow on Thursday, scoring one run in the first five innings. Then, after giving up six to the Rays in the top of the sixth, the Cardinals put up an eight-spot in the bottom of the inning, taking the 9-7 lead they would eventually win with. I'm still targeting the Cards, but it's always worth watching when a team does well early.
Boyle is a low-level streamer with a little upside. He hasn't been hit very hard, mostly hurting himself with walks, so there's a chance he finds his groove and has a good game.
Cristian Javier, Houston Astros vs. Los Angeles Angels
Javier underwent Tommy John surgery in 2024, limiting him to less than 40 innings both that year and last season after he returned. His career walk rate is just a bit high, but he has also struck out nearly 27% of the batters he has faced versus league average around 21-22%. Javier had a lot of success before his injury, and he could be a sneaky pickup now while he's widely available.
The Angels have hit five home runs in the first two games, with Mike Trout putting one out in each contest. LA scored six runs yesterday after just three in the opener, but despite their power surge, I'm still looking to target them when possible. Time will tell if the Angels play their way off our target list (and how long Trout stays on the field).
Javier is a mid-level streamer. It's reasonable to want to see him succeed again before trusting him, but there is a nice ceiling to his game.
Chad Patrick, Milwaukee Brewers vs. Chicago White Sox
The White Sox picked up on Thursday where they left off the past few seasons, losing 14-2 against these same Brewers. Every team will have games like that, but it's telling that the team that has been among the worst for several years started on such a poor note.
Patrick gets the next crack at Chicago after the Sox struck out 20 times in that first game. In his first big-league season last year, Patrick threw just under 120 innings with both a walk rate and strikeout rate better than league average and an ERA near 3.50. There's major upside here today.
Patrick is a mid-to-high-level streamer. I wanted to tout him as simply a high-level guy, but it's best to temper expectations just a bit this early in the season.
David Peterson, New York Mets vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Peterson's strikeout rate fell a little below average the past two seasons after being well above average the three years prior, but he also brought his walk rate down to an average level in those two years when it was several percentage points worse than average prior to that. It worked out to a 2.90 ERA in 2024, but that jumped to a middling 4.32 last season, in line with his career rate. Peterson is a fine pitcher when the matchup is right.
The Pirates were one of the worst offenses in baseball last year, ranking last in runs, home runs, slugging percentage, and OPS and in the bottom 10 in most other box stats. They hit three home runs on Thursday, each of them coming from players who were added in the offseason (two from Brandon Lowe, one from Ryan O'Hearn). That's encouraging, but I'm still looking at Pittsburgh as one of our premier streaming targets.
Peterson is a low-to-mid-level streamer. His K rate falling brings down his value a bit, but Peterson is worth a look against the worst offenses (which I'm treating the Pirates as).
Will Warren, New York Yankees @ San Francisco Giants
The Giants have gotten off to a rough start offensively. After getting shut out on Wednesday night in a 7-0 opening night loss, San Francisco was skunked again yesterday, losing 3-0 to New York with just one hit and two walks. The Giants will eventually score runs; they're not going to go 0 for 162. It wouldn't be a surprise to see them stay as a below-average offensive team, though, particularly playing in a pitcher's park.
Warren had a successful first full season in the majors in 2025, throwing 162 1/3 innings with an above-average strikeout rate and a walk rate right near average. More than 10% of the runs he allowed were unearned; that could mean good things, but it could also mean that his run prevention wasn't quite as good as his 4.44 ERA might indicate, and jumping that toward 5.00 would hurt his fantasy value.
Warren is a mid-level streamer. His strikeout work was good in the minor leagues as well, so there's upside to his game, and further improvement from the 26-year-old would make him a valuable fantasy player.
Saturday's Streamer Rankings
- Chad Patrick, MIL
- Will Warren, NYY
- Cristian Javier, HOU
- David Peterson, NYM
- Joe Boyle, TB
