The pinnacle of the off-season has arrived with the release of the 2026 Top 1,000 Dynasty Baseball Rankings on the Patreon! Top 80 are free here on the Brick Wall. Analysis, 2026 Projections and Prime Projections for every player. The All-in-One Spreadsheet is coming soon which includes my Top 164 FYPD Ranks, Top 570 Prospects Ranks, Top 1,116 Dynasty Ranks, and the fully updated Positional Ranks. I’ve been doing these Top 1,000 Rankings since 2019, and man, it always feels so great when I release it out into the wild! Now that the Rankings have been completed, I’m let loose to write some of my favorite articles of the off-season. Position by Position Target Week is next week. Predicting the 2027 Top 50 Prospects Rankings which doubles as a bold prediction article is coming soon too. 2027 Top 10 FYPD Ranks, Spring Training Rundowns, and so much more is coming before the season. The big lists get posted on my website here in very late March, literally right before the season starts as I like to get my rankings on public record. And then of course baseball will be officially back with the regular season, bringing tons of Dynasty Baseball Rundowns, Updated Rankings, Mailbag Podcasts, Targets and so much more. We never left, but also, we are so back! Here is the Top 1,000 Rankings for 2026 Fantasy Baseball Dynasty Leagues (Patreon):
CLICK HERE TO JOIN MY PATREON FOR THE REST OF THESE RANKS & TONS OF EXCLUSIVE CONTENT ALL OFF-SEASON & SEASON, INCLUDING:
-TOP 1,000 2026 DYNASTY BASEBALL RANKINGS
-TOP 500 2026 DYNASTY FANTASY BASEBALL PROSEPCTS RANKS
-TOP 161 2026 FIRST YEAR PLAYER DRAFT RANKS
–2026 DEEP POSITIONAL RANKS: Top 80 C–Top 91 1B–Top 97 2B–Top 101 3B–Top 161 SS–Top 288 OF–Top 335 SP–Top 83 RP
–2026 FYPD TARGET & STRATEGY GUIDE
-HALP’S DYNASTY BASEBALL PODCAST: END OF SEASON MAILBAG!
–SPREADSHEETS
-Plus so much more coming like Position by Position Targets, Predicting Future Prospect Lists, Top 10 2027 FYPD Rankings, Spring Training Rundowns …
1) Shohei Ohtani – LAD, RHP/DH, 31.9 – Shoulder surgery? No problem. Ohtani came back and put up career highs in homers (55), Barrel% (23.5%) and xwOBA (.439). Internal brace surgery? No problem. Ohtani returned to the mound and put up career highs in BB% (4.3%), xERA (2.45), velocity (98.4 MPH) and nearly K% (33.0%). You can cut this man open. You can slice and dice him. And like Ben Stiller from Dodgeball, he is just going to keep coming at you angrier and stronger. Nobody makes Othani bleed his own blood. Okay, maybe not like Ben Stiller from Dodgeball at all, because the small market good guys actually won in the end in Dodgeball, unlike real life, where the behemoth Dodgers crushed the spirits of the “good guys”, the Toronto Blue Jays, in one of the most epic Game 7 World Series comebacks of all time. This is real life, and most of the time, the bad guys win. I refused to let the injuries shake my faith in Othani one bit last off-season, still placing him 1st overall and writing, “It’s his 2nd major elbow surgery in 5 years, but I’m not betting against a super human talent like Ohtani, and the same goes for the shoulder surgery. I just can’t bring myself to bet against the true GOAT.” Father Time will now be the last boss for him to defeat, and while we all know Father Time is undefeated, I just might think Ohtani can take him ;). I don’t know the age Ohtani has to be to move me off him from this top spot, but I do know 31/32 isn’t going to be it. He once again is my #1 player in dynasty. – 2026 Projection: 130/50/115/.286/.391/.630/23 // 12/3.07/1.05/191 in 150 IP
Shadow1) Shohei Ohtani – LAD, DH only/Weekly Leagues, 31.9 – This is first time I’ve had Shadow Ohtani shadowing the real Ohtani. I feel like the world is folding in on itself. This is where I would rank Ohtani in weekly lineup leagues or as a hitter only. He’s just too good. I don’t care that he’s 31 years old. He’s going to give Father Time the first loss of his career. – 2026 Projection: 130/50/115/.286/.391/.630/23
2) Juan Soto – NYM, OF, 27.6 – Where the hell did 38 steals come from? That was tied for the 4th most in baseball. More than Elly De La Cruz stole. More than Trea Turner stole. Just as many as Bobby Witt stole. And it wasn’t just that he decided to run more. He was also extremely successful, getting caught only 4 times. He was caught 4 times in just 11 attempts in 2024. He got caught 5 times in 17 attempts in 2023. He got caught 7 times in 16 attempts in 2021. And the craziest part is, he actually got slower this year. Like, a lot slower with a 25.8 ft/sec sprint (26.8 in 2024). And oh yea, he also hit a career high 43 homers with his usual truly elite offensive performance (.441 xwOBA was 2nd to only Aaron Judge). It would be so damn silly if he just went back to stealing 10 bags next year. We can’t expect 38 again, or maybe even 30, but I’m not sure how 20+ isn’t the expectation, and adding stolen bases to his profile easily makes him the #2 dynasty asset behind Ohtani. – 2026 Projection: 118/38/109/.282/.412/.535/21
3) Bobby Witt Jr. – KCR, SS, 26.10 – Witt hit only 23 homers in 157 games, and while I want to completely hand wave it away as just a down power season, I don’t think we can completely dismiss it. Kauffman Stadium was one of the very worst ballparks for homers, so I love to see them bringing the fences in, and it’s certainly a bump for all KC hitters, but even looking at his expected homer totals in other ballparks, they all look like they hovered/averaged out to the mid 20’s area. He hit 11 homers at home vs. 12 homers on the road (52 career homers at home vs. 53 on the road). His 12.5% Barrel% is good, but it’s not like off the charts good. His 34.9% Pull% is below average and pretty damn low for a power hitter. He hit 32 and 30 homers the two previous years, so I’m not saying at all that this is now his true talent level, but I feel like the hope was for Witt to explode into like a 30-40+ home run perennial type bat, and the numbers just aren’t saying that is who he is. The only other quibble is that the plate approach is still below average with a 7.1% BB% and 30.7% Chase%. The hope was that he would have improved on that by now too. I only bring up the negatives because they are more interesting to me. We all know Witt is an elite dynasty asset, and I have him ranked 3rd overall for a reason. He smokes the ball with a 93.3 MPH EV and a 48.5% Hard Hit%, both of which are career highs. He lifts it with a 15.2 degree launch, he makes tons of contact with a 18.2% K%, and he’s one of the fastest men in baseball with a 30.2 ft/sec sprint. I love him. He’s an untouchable if I own him. And I can’t deny that a part of me thinks he’s about to 50/50 with the new stadium dimensions, hah, but the cold hard numbers really don’t lead to that conclusion. Either way, the guy is a beast, and no matter what ballpark he plays in, an insane career year could always be in the cards. – 2026 Projection: 113/33/104/.303/.364/.521/36
4) Corbin Carroll – ARI, OF, 25.7 – If you thought the 5’10” Carroll was already topped out power wise. If you still had that scary moment in your head from 2023 where he held his shoulder in agonizing pain after a swing. If you thought we’ve already seen peak Carroll. Think again, because he just leveled up in 2025 to a whole new stratosphere. His power exploded with a 92.1 MPH EV, 14.5% Barrel%, 115.8 MPH Max EV, a 16.7 degree launch, 49.9% Hard Hit%, and a 22.9% Air Pull%. All of those were career highs by far, and they led to a career high 31 homers with a career high .383 xwOBA. He was already an elite dynasty asset, and now he’s leveled up to an elite real life hitter too. He combined the newfound power with his already elite speed (29.8 ft/sec sprint), leading to the first 30/30 season of his career. Carroll is so good that Arizona refuses to take any hitter taller than 5’10” in the draft now hah (Kayson Cunningham in 2025 and the Slade Caldwell in 2024). – 2026 Projection: 112/29/91/.266/.350/.519/36
5) Ronald Acuna Jr. – ATL, OF, 28.4 – This wasn’t like the last time. The last time Acuna came back from a torn ACL he looked rough with only 15 homers and a .764 OPS in 119 games. This time he went right back to being elite with 21 homers, a .935 OPS, and a .407 xwOBA that was 8th best in baseball in 95 games. But just because I love to scare you a little, I can’t help but notice some similarities to Mike Trout’s career arc. Acuna has played in more than 119 games in a season just twice in his career. Just like Trout’s decline, Acuna’s whiff% is starting to creep up there as well with a 30.3% whiff% that was a career worst. And just like Trout, it sure seems like there could be stolen base decline, only stealing 9 bags with a barely above average 27.9 ft/sec sprint. If the back nine of Acuna’s career is injury filled with big power and declining steals and BA, don’t kill the messenger. But it’s too early to actually put that on him. And as you see with my extremely high ranking of him, I’m not running scared at that possibility. He proved he is healthy and back to being an elite hitter coming off the knee surgery. He should steal more bags with a full healthy off-season. That demands him being back into the elite of the elite dynasty tier. – 2026 Projection: 115/34/98/.279/.393/.520/25
6) Elly De La Cruz – CIN, SS, 24.3 – Elly’s evaluation is kinda all over the place. I try my best to present coherent thoughts/analysis/arguments when writing these blurbs, but Elly’s 2025 is making that as hard as possible. You can say one of the major positives of his season was the major improvement to his K% (25.9% vs. 31.3% in 2024), but his still risky whiff% wasn’t nearly as improved (31.7% vs. 33.4%), and his BA tanked in the 2nd half with a .221 BA and 28.9% K% in his final 52 games. So it’s hard to just say there is now no hit tool risk with him. His 22 homers and 37 steals are awesome, but both numbers were worse than what he did in 2024 (25/67). The 7.6 degree launch and 9.8% Air Pull% both regressed from 2024 too. He finished 23rd overall on the Razzball Player Rater, which is great, but again, his 2nd half slide really puts a damper on that (.854 OPS pre break vs. .666 post break). It’s really easy to start getting lost in the weeds here, so I feel the best thing to do is pull out as far as possible to not lose the forest through the trees. And the forest is telling us this is an insanely talented young kid who might not be perfectly refined quite yet, and might not be completely without risk, but is still on that path to put up some truly special seasons. He was just 23 years old last year. I’m not letting the poor 2nd half and things to nitpick throw me. This is an elite dynasty asset whose best years are ahead of him. – 2026 Projection: 107/27/89/.262/.338/.473/40
7) Aaron Judge – NYY, OF, 33.11 – Judge is the best hitter in baseball and it’s really not even close. His .476 xwOBA led all of baseball by a mile (Soto’s .441 was 2nd), and his .463 wOBA led all of baseball by 2 miles (Nick Kurtz’ .419 was 2nd). He doesn’t run a ton, but he runs enough to more than chip in there too (12 steals). The only question when it comes to dynasty is his age. He’s going to be 34 years old for most of 2026. I said that Ohtani is about to hand Father Time his first loss, and Father Time could be fighting a battle on 2 fronts with Aaron Judge coming for him too. It sure doesn’t look like Judge is falling off that cliff anytime soon. Maybe a smarter dynasty owner than me would pull the trigger on a trade when his value is still through the roof, but I know that I wouldn’t be able to do it if my team was still competing. Age be damned, he deserves a super high ranking. – 2026 Projection: 131/54/120/.313/.432/.666/10
8) Fernando Tatis Jr. – SDP, OF, 27.3 – Statcast expected stats are a tremendously valuable tool. I started using it in my analysis the second it hit the scene in 2015, and it has led to so many huge hits for me every single year since then (most notably Rice this season). But it’s not perfect. It has flaws. And the #1 one flaw seems to be that it underrates lifting and pulling. Tatis once again underperformed his expected stats with a .381 xwOBA vs. .353 wOBA. He had a .387 xwOBA vs. .359 wOBA in 2024 and a .364 xwOBA vs. .332 wOBA in 2023. He has a career .382 xwOBA vs. a career .368 wOBA. The discrepancy is very clearly due to the 9.4 degree launch and 12% Air Pull%. Not to come at Statcast, because I love Statcast, but why they wouldn’t change the formula a bit is beyond me. So while expected stats paint a rosier picture than reality, reality is still extremely rosy. Tatis went .268/25/32 and finished 27th overall on the Razzball Player Rater. He crushes the ball with a 93.3 MPH EV, he’s fast with a 28.6 ft/sec sprint, and he actually had the best K/BB of his career with a 18.7/12.9 K%/BB%, both of which were career bests. His 24.4% Chase% and 27% whiff% were both career bests as well. Unless he starts lifting and pulling a lot more, which is certainly possible, we can’t really expect those big mid 30’s, .900+ OPS seasons, but he’s still excellent as is. – 2026 Projection: 103/29/84/.277/.365/.490/29
9) Julio Rodriguez – SEA, OF, 25.3 – The 2nd half bandit struck again. Julio put up a .731 OPS in the 1st half vs. a .900 OPS in the 2nd half. It’s wild how consistent he is. In 2024, he had a .690 1st half OPS vs. .818 2nd half OPS. In 2023 he had a .721 1st half OPS vs. .941 2nd half OPS. In 2022 he had a .814 1st half OPS vs. .937 2nd half OPS. Can nobody figure out how to get him to hit as well in the 1st half as he does in the 2nd half? Is it too much like messing with voodoo. Like if you try to change a good thing to make it better, you are actually going to make it worse. Instead of his 1st half’s matching his 2nd half’s, it will be the other way around. I guess it’s better off this way if you play in playoff leagues anyway. And no matter how he gets there, it always ends up in a great fantasy season with 32 homers, 30 steals and a career best 21.4% K%. He still chases a ton with a 35.9% Chase%, which is probably a big part of the volatility, but when you swing a 76.4 MPH bat, you can make that work. He hasn’t really improved at all or refined his game from his rookie year, and while you can’t rule out improvement as he’s still really young, I think we gotta value him as is. Sweat out the poor 1st half and then enjoy the monster 2nd half. – 2026 Projection: 104/30/93/.275/.334/.482/31
10) Gunnar Henderson – BAL, SS, 24.9 – Gunnar hit only 17 homers in 154 games. Monster power hitters really don’t have seasons like that. Like ever. Power can fluctuate year to year for sure, but dipping to only 17 is not normal. And it’s not like it was the result of some extended cold stretch. He never hit more than 4 in a month and he hit only 1 in September. The barely above average 8.5% Barrel% is also not saying this was some massively unlucky aberration. And we already know he’s not a big lift and pull guy with a 9.5 degree launch and 15.3% Air Pull%. I’m not saying this is now who he is at all, but I think it does say the 37 homers he hit in 2024 isn’t who he is either. He’s probably more of a 25+ guy who will hit 30+ when things go right, similar to Tatis and Julio. You can also blame the intercoastal strain that put him on the IL to start the season. It just felt like he started the year behind the 8 ball and could never catch up. We also found out that he played through a shoulder impingement for most of the year, but I’m not sure if that is supposed to make me more confident or scare me that we now have to worry about a shoulder injury. His 12.3% HR/FB% was way off from his career norms (18.8%), so you have to assume some positive regression, and he crushes the ball with a 92.1 MPH EV, a 49.2% Hard Hit%, and a 75.4 MPH swing, so there is just no way a power bounce back isn’t coming. And the big silver lining to his down year was that he stole 30 bags. A power bounce back to 25+ will put him right in line with a Tatis and Julio like projected stat line. – 2026 Projection: 101/28/86/.278/.359/.481/25
11) Nick Kurtz – SAC, 1B, 23.1 – Kurtz stepped right into the majors and immediately performed like one of the best power hitters of all time with 36 homers and a 1.002 OPS in 117 games. He was actually even better in his brief minor league career with a 1.152 OPS in 33 games, and he was even better than that in his college career with a 1.234 OPS in 164 games, so it’s not like what he did in the majors came out of nowhere. It follows the narrative of him simply being one of the best hitters of his generation. The 77.2 MPH swing, 18.4% Barrel%, and 97.7 MPH FB/LD EV are all in the elite of the elite. There is no question that he’s going to be a beastly power hitter for a long time, but there is a question if he’s really going to be an all time great. For one, he played in a minor league stadium that was massively juicing up homer totals (he hit 22 at home vs. 12 on the road). He’ll be playing there again in 2026 and 2027, so I’m not even sure we can use that as a negative, but it’s something to keep in mind for 2028 and beyond. The two biggest red flags are that he struggled vs. lefties (.197 BA with a .685 OPS), and that he showed danger zone level of swing and miss with a 35.5% whiff% and 30.9% K%. He had a 31.2% K% in his final 48 games, and a .221 BA with a 35.1% K% in his final 23 games, so you certainly can’t say it was improving by the end of the year either. If he has a sophomore slump where the BA tanks, it won’t be coming out of nowhere. The signs were there. But in dynasty especially, it would be far too risk averse to get scared off by that. This was just his first full year of pro ball, so I’m expecting contact improvement, and he’s the type of hitter who can hit for high BA’s even with an elevated K%, like he’s been doing his whole career. My bet is that he is one of the best power hitters of his generation, and the floor is high too as he’s going to hit a ton of dingers no matter what. – 2026 Projection: 97/38/111/.267/.361/.528/3
12) Junior Caminero – TBR, 3B, 22.9 – Caminero vs. Kurtz is a going to be a super fun debate to have all off-season, and I really don’t think you can go wrong with either. Caminero has the same question that Kurtz has about having the huge season in a minor league park, which is very suspicious, but Caminero actually hit 22 homers at home vs. 23 homers on the road (albeit with a much worse OPS). Tropicana Field is also a good ballpark for righty homers, so I don’t really think it’s that much of a concern that Caminero is going back to the Trop in 2026. And like Kurtz, Caminero also has elite of the elite bat speed (78.6 MPH) and FB/LD EV (97.7 MPH). Caminero’s biggest edge over Kurtz is his contact rates (19.1% K% and 24.7% whiff%), but Kurtz beats him on Chase% (32.2% vs. 22.2%) and BB% (6.3% vs. 12.9%), so that mitigates that edge majorly. And while Caminero doesn’t lift as much (10.7 degree launch vs. 15.3 degree launch), he pulls more (21.5% Air Pull% vs. 15.8% Air Pull%). It is really a back and forth battle for the best young power hitter in the game that could be decided either way. Kurtz’ superior plate approach gives him a ceiling as a generational real life hitter that I don’t think Caminero quite reaches, and Caminero’s superior contact rate gives him a much safer floor. Because I lean upside over floor, I’m giving Kurtz the edge, but it’s truly dead even for me. – 2026 Projection: 92/35/107/.276/.330/.519/8
13) Roman Anthony – BOS, OF, 21.11 – I nitpicked a few things about Anthony last off-season that I thought could impact his ultimate fantasy value. For one, I questioned how many bases he was going to steal, and I was correct with him stealing only 4 in 71 games in the majors (3 in 58 games in the minors). I also questioned how much he was going to lift and pull, and again, I was correct as he put up a 6.9 degree launch with a 13.8% Air Pull%. He hit 8 homers in 71 games. And finally I questioned the contact rates, and there too I ended up being correct with him putting up a 27.7% K% and 29.8% whiff%. I was right about the things to nitpick, and maybe they still come into play in future years, but the bat was just so insanely elite I don’t think it matters anymore. He had an elite of the elite 75.1 MPH swing with a 94.5 MPH EV and 60.3% Hard Hit%. That puts him in the land of Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Yordan Alvarez. While the homer totals weren’t high, 6 of them came in his final 21 games. The .382 xwOBA is already in the near elite range. A bat like that is launch proof, and even if he doesn’t run a ton, anything he does add there is just gravy. His best comp looking at the elite dynasty assets could be Juan Soto, albeit with worse contact rates. – 2026 Projection: 102/25/81/.272/.379/.486/10 Prime Projection: 120/35/105/.285/.406/.530/15
14) Kyle Tucker – LAD, OF, 29.3 – The Quiet Killer finally had a season that wasn’t all that quiet. The spotlight was put on him with the trade to the Cubbies, and it looked like he was going to have one of those massive contract years in the 1st half with a .291 BA, 17 homers, 20 steals, and a .933 OPS in his first 82 games, but it all came crumbling down after that with a .692 OPS, 5 homers, and 5 steals in his final 54 games. It seems the likely culprit was the hairline fracture he suffered in his right hand in June. They originally missed the fracture in the imaging, so he played through it, but it clearly had a major impact on his production. We can’t hold the slump against him, and clearly the Dodgers didn’t hold it against him either with a 4 year, $240 million contract. He’s one of the most consistent players in our game, a perennial 30/30 candidate, and at 29 years of age, there should be several more elite seasons in him. Signing with the Dodgers is the perfect landing spot for him, not only lineup wise, but also ballpark wise as it is the 4th best park for lefty homers. – 2026 Projection: 94/30/89/.276/.380/.501/25
15) Garrett Crochet – BOS, LHP, 26.10 – There is a clear 3-headed monster in the true top tier of dynasty pitchers, and all 3 have great arguments to be the #1 overall dynasty pitcher in the game, but only one of them can take the crown, and I’m anointing a new King this off-season. Garrett Crochet is my #1 dynasty pitcher in the game. It feels to weird to say because he’s likely the worst pitcher of the 3 on skills alone. Worse being relative as he’s still insanely elite with a 2.59 ERA and 31.3/5.7 K%/BB% in 205.1 IP. He was the #1 overall pitcher on the Razzball Player Rater. His 255 strikeouts led all of baseball. He pitched the 2nd most innings in baseball behind only Logan Webb. He won the 2nd most games behind only Max Fried and tied with Carlos Rodon. And his 25.7% K-BB% was 2nd to Tarik Skubal. Even if he’s very, very, very slightly worse than Skubal and Skenes on skills alone, he has Skenes beat on Win potential (and probably Skubal too), and he has Skubal beat on age (I talk more about age in the Skenes blurb). I could pick any of the 3 out of hat and be fine with that order, but Crochet seems to be in that perfect Goldilocks zone of young, elite, and on a good team. Skubal and Skenes can’t fully check all 3 of those boxes like Crochet can. – 2026 Projection: 17/2.88/1.05/246 in 195 IP
16) Paul Skenes – PIT, RHP, 23.10 – Playing for Pitt kills Skenes’ in wins. Pitt scored 583 Runs which was last in baseball, and the only other team even close to them was Colorado at 597 (absolutely wild that it’s even possible for Colorado to be that bad playing in Coors). The guy put up a 1.97 ERA with a 29.5/5.7 K%/BB% in 187.2 IP and won only 10 games. Pitt made offensive additions this off-season, Konnor Griffin is coming, and Pitt has nowhere to go but up, but it’s still a major thorn in his fantasy value. On almost any other team, he would be the undisputed top dog, and in Quality Start leagues, he would be my top dog, but in Wins leagues, it has to be taken into account. Crochet and Skenes are close enough in age, and Crochet is elite enough himself, where I do give the edge to Crochet. But I just can’t seem to bring myself to say that I would trade a 23 year old Skenes for a 29 year old Skubal in dynasty, even though Skubal is the better win now fantasy pitcher. Skenes nestles inbetween Crochet and Skubal at #2. – 2026 Projection: 13/2.55/0.99/238 in 195 IP
17) Tarik Skubal – DET, LHP, 29.5 – Skubal is the best pitcher in baseball. He’s #1 for me in redraft. He’s better than Crochet and Skenes. His 27.8 K-BB% led all of baseball amongst qualified starters. His 32.2% K% led all of baseball. His 0.89 WHIP led all of baseball. His 4.4% BB% trailed only Zack Littell. His 2.21 ERA trailed only Paul Skenes. He trailed Garrett Crochet by only 1 spot on the player rater, and that was in a year where Crochet won 5 more games than him, and we know wins are fickle. He’s in his last year of team control for Detroit, so wherever he ends up landing, it’s almost certain to be a good team. Wins shouldn’t be a problem. There is a great argument that at a not old 29, and considering age shouldn’t be factored in as much for pitchers due to the injury volatility, that he should be the #1 dynasty pitcher in the game. I wouldn’t argue with anyone that puts him first. I was honestly tearing the hair out of my head trying to figure out the right order. – 2026 Projection: 15/2.51/0.94/242 in 195 IP
18) Zach Neto – LAA, SS, 25.2 – I feel like nobody wants to admit that Neto is a near elite dynasty asset. Actually, I feel like nobody really wanted to bet on this kid like I have since before he was drafted. I ranked him 3rd overall in his FYPD class, far above consensus, and then I’ve kept being the high man on him since. And I guess I’ll keep being the high man on him after his power explosion in 2025. He came back from shoulder surgery, and the medical community has obviously perfected this surgery of late, because everyone seems to come back with a super charged shoulder (check out my 18 Dynasty Baseball Strategies/Thoughts for 2026 where I go into this more). His EV jumped 2.5 MPH to 91.5 MPH, his Hard Hit jumped 7.8 points to 46.6%, and his Barrel% jumped 7.6 points to 14%. It led to a career high 26 homers in just 128 games. He also never lifted and pulled more with a 17.5 degree launch and 24% Air Pull%. This is an easy 30 homer bat. He also stole 26 bags, and while he got caught 9 times, he was improving as the season went along with 13 steals in 15 attempts in his final 62 games. He’s going to keep on running, making him a reasonable bet for a perennial 30/30 bat. The 26.9/6.0 K%/BB% isn’t great, but neither the 30.1% Chase% or 29.1% whiff% is in the true danger zone, and he’s displayed a good feel to hit throughout this entire career. I’m not too worried about the hit tool tanking him. I know you don’t want to admit it, but this is what a near elite dynasty asset looks like. – 2026 Projection: 91/30/86/.255/.323/.478/30
19) Wyatt Langford – TEX, OF, 24.5 – Langford actually did have the blow up we were all expecting in 2025, it just didn’t fully show up in the surface stats. And even his surface stats were pretty good when it was all said and done. His 14% Barrel%, 91.4 MPH EV, and 48.4% Hard Hit% were all up majorly from 2024, and all of them are now in truly special power territory. That is exactly what we wanted to see. Combined with his already strong lift and pull (17.5 degree launch and 24.2% Air Pull%), he’s setting up to be an easy 30+ homer bat for years to come. Along with the power, he kept on running, ending up with a 22/22 season in 134 games. That is what he did when he was on the unlucky side (.353 xwOBA vs. .337 wOBA). The contact rates took a step back, but a 26.3% whiff% is absolutely zero to be concerned about. Not only did he avoid the sophomore slump, but he took a step forward in his surface stats, and 2 steps forward in his underlying numbers. It was a tremendously successful season, and if people are starting to cool on him, even slightly, I would be all over it. I’m not budging on him. – 2026 Projection: 88/28/91/.263/.349/.470/22
20) Jackson Chourio – MIL, OF, 22.1 – Chourio didn’t take the steps forward we wanted to see. He basically had a repeat of his rookie year. He went .275/21/22 in 2024 and then went .270/21/21 in 2025. The .319 xwOBA is just barely above average. He lifted and pulled a bit more, but he still doesn’t lift and pull a ton. He hits the ball hard, but a 42.3% Hard Hit% is not off the charts. He runs, but he’s not a particularly great base stealer (caught 7 times). And the worst part of the year is that his Chase% spiked to 36.9%, which is entering the danger zone if not already there. I’ve seen the seeds of doubt start to creep into people’s minds. If Chourio felt inevitable after 2024, I would say he doesn’t feel quite as inevitable after 2025. But once you add the context that those were his 20 year old and 21 year old seasons, I don’t know how you can’t still be all in on this kid. If 20/20 is the floor, 25/25, or 30/30 still feels inevitable in his peak seasons. Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt Jr never improved their high chase rates either, and they are doing just fine. Granted Julio hit the ball a lot hard and Witt lifted it a lot more, so they aren’t perfect comps. There is no guarantee massive improvement is coming. We’ve seen plenty of young kids like Chourio have success right off the bat, and then just never really improve. I hate to say it, but Michael Harris seems to be a pretty close comp to Chourio age, production and skillset wise. If he doesn’t show the steps forward we want to see in 2026, I think we are going to see the beginning of that dynasty value slip, but I’m betting on that improvement coming. – 2026 Projection: 94/25/85/.282/.332/.479/25
21) Pete Crow-Armstrong – CHC, OF, 24.0 – Can we just enjoy the season Pete Crow had before we start bashing him for this 2nd half and Chase. I feel like the angry 1950’s dad at the dinner table yelling at his kids while the family is crumbling around him. You’re going to sit there and be quiet, enjoy this food, and thank your mother for her hard work. Don’t make me bust out the whooping stick. Pete Crow was almost definitely my biggest hit of 2025 (I’ve been the high guy since he was drafted), ranking him 64th overall, and writing in part, “Pete Crow Armstrong’s power has been underrated from the time he was drafted. And in 2024, especially the 2nd half of 2024, we started to see the first buds of a breakout that could absolutely explode in 2025. For starters, he put up a 88.9/94.0 MPH AVG/FB EV on the season, which shows that power potential I saw 4 years ago wasn’t a mirage. And when it comes with a 17.2 degree launch, an elite 30.0 ft/sec sprint speed, and elite CF defense, you have the makings of an extremely exciting fantasy player. Put some respect on this man’s name. His name is Pete Crow Armstrong, not Pete Crow Armweak.” … and then the true explosion came in 2025 with him upping his Hard Hit% 4.8 points to 41.6%, upping his Max EV 6 MPH to 113.2 MPH, upping his Barrel% 5.6 points to 13%, and upping his bat speed 2.1 MPH to 72.7 MPH. It resulted in 31 homers, and he combines the power explosion with elite speed (29.5 ft/sec sprint with 35 steals) and elite CF defense. This was the insanely fun fantasy player I foresaw, but of course things can never be easy, and Pete Crow had go out and end the season with a massive slump. He put up a .525 OPS in his final 50 games. He definitely got unlucky with a not too bad 25.9% K% and a .222 BABIP, but it for sure more than hints at the risk still present in this profile. And that risk is the way too high 41.7% Chase%. High chase adds a lot of volatility, and that isn’t just high chase, that is full danger zone high chase. If you want to be scared off, that is fair, and I completely get it, but if you’ve read my work at all over the years, you know I’m not running scared. His glove is going to keep him on the field, and even with a low BA, that power/speed combo is going to make a major impact. I’m also betting on the plate approach improving as he matures. Pete Crow has already paid off majorly if you’ve taken my advice over his career, and I’ll be happy to keep buying if people are scared off by the 2nd half. – 2026 Projection: 86/28/88/.252/.308/.469/33
22) Konnor Griffin – PIT, SS/OF, 19.11 – I felt the Griffin explosion in my gut last off-season. The Baseball Gods were speaking to me, and I listened, predicting he would explode into elite prospect status in my Predicting the Top 50 2026 Dynasty Baseball Prospects Rankings last off-season, ranking him 4th overall and writing, “Griffin will have the explosion that everyone who passed on him in first year player drafts feared he would have. The hit tool concerns will be overblown as he maintains an under 25% K% at Single-A, and the power/speed combo will shine with 16 homers and 48 steals in 102 games. He’ll basically be the 2026 version of the 2025 version of Sebastian Walcott. Off the charts tools and a better than expected hit tool.” … and then he went out and surpassed even those expectations, slashing .333/.415/.527 with 21 homers, 65 steals, and a 21.7/8.9 K%/BB% in 122 games. He finished the season at Double-A where he actually put up his best wRC+ of any level with a 175 wRC+ in 21 games. Remember when everyone was making excuses for the 19 year old Walcott at Double-A all year for his mediocre slash? Well, Griffin came in and just busted that whole thing up, showing a 19 year old can most certainly dominate the level. Not only did I foresee the rise in the off-season, but I got blow back after ranking him 1st overall on the Prospect Rankings in early June before he even got the call to High-A. I then made a final plea in my August Dynasty Rankings before he got the call to Double-A, shooting him up to 29th overall and writing, “This is my final plea to you. DO NOT TRADE GRIFFIN UNDER ANY SCENARIO. I don’t even think Roman Anthony can touch his upside. Just don’t trade him, please.” And then after what he did at Double-A, there is no more room for debate. He’s lightning fast, he crushes the ball with a 91.2 MPH EV and 49% Hard Hit%, and the hit tool was better than expected. This is not only the #1 prospect in baseball, but he’s already a nearly elite dynasty asset for me. – 2026 Projection: 28/9/35/.247/.318/.433/17 Prime Projection: 118/32/111/.279/.351/.523/44
23) Jose Ramirez – CLE, 3B, 33.7 – Mr. Consistency churned out another ho hum elite dynasty season with 30 homers and 44 steals. Those stolen bases were actually a career high. He’s played in less than 152 games just once since 2016 (not including the Covid shortened year). He’s going to be 33 years old, which after 30 years old, 33 years old is the next biggest marker for when dynasty value drops. You are now officially in your mid 30’s. I don’t foresee the cliff coming next year, but if we are going to find a comp for a reasonable career arc, Jose Altuve is a pretty good comp. Both are small guys without big bat speed and without big hard hit. Altuve put up a 164 wRC+ in his age 32 year old season and then a 154 wRC+ in his age 33 year old season, but the decline hit after that with a 127 wRC+ at age 34 and a 113 wRC+ at age 35. Ramirez hits the ball harder than Altuve and he runs more than Altuve, so his decline could be even smoother than Altuve’s, and Altuve has still been really good in those decline years, but I think it’s fair to start factoring in some decline at 34 years old. That gives him one more undisputed year of eliteness (yes, I know that isn’t a word), and probably more than a few after that of really damn good. – 2026 Projection: 106/32/90/.281/.355/.505/35
24) Cal Raleigh – SEA, C, 29.4 – Raleigh’s insane 2025 was very obviously a career year. I don’t think anybody is now expecting him to be a perennial 60 homer bat, or even 50 homer bat. The 28 year old career year is textbook, well almost textbook, as he does have one thing that says we shouldn’t discount a real leveling up here. And that is that he’s a catcher. Catcher’s are known for delayed offensive breakouts because of how much time they spend on their defense. And Raleigh did show real improvement in his underlying numbers too. The 26.7% K% and 13.8% BB% were both career bests, so it looks like there was some maturation of the plate skills. His 49.6% Hard Hit% is a career best, and while it’s not up majorly from 2024, it is up majorly from where it was in 2022-2023. His lift and pull was also up with career bests in launch (25.2 degrees) and Air Pull% (38.4%). Only Isaac Paredes had an Air Pull% even close to that (Paredes beat him out by 0.1 at 38.5, but the next highest was Tork at 31.8%). And the cherry on top is that he ran a ton for a catcher with 14 steals in 18 attempts. He was just having fun out there. So while it’s almost certain that 2025 will be the best year of his career, it does look like he’s leveled up from a 30+ homer bat to a 40+ homer bat. Catchers take a beating behind the plate, so who knows how long he will be able to hold that level, but I’m betting on a few more monster power seasons at least. – 2026 Projection: 90/42/110/.244/.346/.541/10
25) Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – TOR, 1B, 27.0 – Vlad sparks a really interesting floor vs. upside debate when it comes to very early round picks. I understand the strategy of taking high floor guys with your early picks, and then going for the upside shots later on. It makes sense. And Guerrero has as high of a floor as anybody with elite contact rates (13.8% K%) and elite Hard Hit (50.7%). It resulted in a very strong season with a .292 BA and 23 homers in 156 games, which was good for 53rd overall. That is also clearly on the low end of his ability as he smashed 8 homers in 18 games in the postseason. He’s a true talent 30 homer bat with a very high BA, which is awesome, but unless he starts lifting and pulling more, that just isn’t the level of production that other elite dynasty assets can give you. I really want all category contributors with my very top picks, and because Vlad isn’t going to help much in steals, he’s already capped there. So if you aren’t going to contribute in all categories, you need to be an absolute beast in others, and taking out his 2019 season where played in 2 miniature ballparks, he’s never hit more than 32 homers. He’s averaged about 27-28 homers over the last 4 years. His xwOBA says he’s been unlucky, but as I laid out in the Tatis blurb, xwOBA most certainly underrates lifting and pulling, and Vlad doesn’t lift and pull with a 7.8 degree launch and 14% Air Pull%. He’s underperformed his xwOBA in his career. If he starts lifting and pulling more, he can definitely have that explosion, and if you are in leagues that devalue steals (points/6+ category leagues), then for sure he would be ranked higher in those leagues, but in 5×5, I think this is a pretty fair ranking. He’s just more BA dependent than optimal. – 2026 Projection: 96/31/105/.303/.390/.507/5
26) Yordan Alvarez – HOU, OF, 28.9 – Alvarez is the easiest buy low call in the history of buy low calls. In fact, it’s so easy of a buy low call, that he’s probably not a buy low at all, because nobody in their right mind will sell low. He hurt his hand in early May, which was originally misdiagnosed, but eventually it was diagnosed as a fracture, and it forced him to miss 3 months. He was off to a slow start before the injury, but it was purely due to poor luck as the underlying numbers were in his usual elite range, and then when he returned from the injury, he hit 3 homers with a 1.031 OPS in 19 games before hurting his ankle and ending his season. He finished the year with a .797 OPS, but it came with an elite .402 xwOBA, 94.7 MPH EV, and 16.6/14.1 K%/BB%. I mean, who is going to sell low on that? Maybe you can argue he’s injury prone and there is injury risk in the future due to his bad knees, but even that seems far too risk averse in his age 28 year old season. Maybe I can see that argument to sell a few years from now. So buy low if you can, but I doubt you can. – 2026 Projection: 91/33/96/.291/.380/.560/3
27) James Wood – WSH, OF, 23.6 – This year for Halloween I dressed up as James Wood’s 2nd half. Haunted houses, witches, zombies … they have nothing on how scary James Wood’s second half was (and yes, I originally wrote this blurb around Halloween time and have now morphed it to make sense months later ha). He put up a 40.3% K% with a .215/.293/.379 triple-slash in his final 67 games. I want to say it was just a cold streak and to trust his career .259 BA in 1,025 career PA, but I can’t help but get Oniel Cruz stuck in my head when thinking about Wood. The profiles are very similar as extremely tall men (6’7”), who have elite bat speed (76 MPH swing), and elite Hard Hit (16.3% Barrel%/94.3 MPH EV/56.3% Hard Hit%). But as we saw with Cruz this year, and as we saw with Wood’s 2nd half, the risk is that the hit tool tanks them. That is just the game when you are willing to take on some extra risk for that extra upside. They all aren’t going to be Aaron Judge. And it’s going to add some volatility year to year, and even within seasons. But you really can’t be scared off by it completely. Everyone has slumps and everyone has bad years, and when these types have slumps/bad years, it’s the BA is going to look ugly. It’s why he’s still a Top 30 dynasty asset for me even with that extra risk. He put up a .348 xwOBA in 2024 and then a .368 xwOBA in 2025. He improved his lift and pull, and while the lift and pull still isn’t great with a 6.3 degree launch and 11.3% Air Pull%, it doesn’t have to be that great when you smash the ball as hard as he does. And he improved vs. lefties, putting up a .823 OPS vs. them, which is a big deal. He’s not as good of a base stealer as optimal with 15 steals in 22 attempts, so that along with the hit tool risk is why he can’t be considered close to like a Top 10 dynasty asset, but I’m still all in on this kid. And while this isn’t Cruz’ blurb, you should stay patient with him too. Just a little bit of luck with a little bit of improvement will result in a lot of fantasy goodness. – 2026 Projection: 84/33/96/.252/.345/.482/15
28) Francisco Lindor – NYM, SS, 32.4 – Trying to predict which players are going to defeat Father Time, or at least give them a great fight, is a nearly impossible task. We can prefer certain archetypes over others, like being wary of speed first types, but really, we can’t perfectly predict whose bodies will hold up and whose will start to decline. I say that because I’ve been sitting here thinking long and hard about how much I want to bet on Lindor deep into his 30’s, and I’m not sure there is something to really hold onto that makes me want to bet big on it. He’s not a big bat speed guy (below average 71 MPH swing), he’s not a burner (slightly below average 27.4 ft/sec sprint), and he’s not a Barrel machine with a 8.8% Barrel%. The contact rates, approach and hard hit are all good, but they aren’t in the elite area where there is a huge amount of leeway for decline. It seems to me he fits more into the potentially gentle decline category, rather than the guy who keeps on being truly elite deep into his 30’s. But as I started this blurb, it feels foolish to think I can actually predict how a player will decline. Too much goes into it. And of course, that is just looking ahead. Lindor is only going to be 32 years old next year and there is no reason he shouldn’t have his 4th straight basically 30/30 season in 2026. But I think at 32 we have to start thinking about what the decline will look like, and I’m not sure I want to bet on him still being elite in his mid 30’s. He should still be good though. – 2026 Projection: 110/31/90/.269/.342/.473/30
29) Pete Alonso – BAL, 1B, 31.5 – Alonso is one of the true rocks of our game. He’s never played in less than 152 games (he’s played in all 162 the last 2 years) and he’s never hit less than 34 homers (38 homers in 2025). Underlying numbers wise, he actually had a career year in 2025 with a career high .399 xwOBA and career high by far 93.5 MPH EV. His only weakness was that he was a BA risk, and even that is now gone with a .272 BA and .288 xBA. The 75.3 MPH swing is near elite. He landed a 5 year, $155 million deal with Baltimore, and really no matter where he landed, he will once again be one of the best power hitters in the game. Simple as that. – 2026 Projection: 92/40/120/.263/.348/.519/3
30) Jazz Chisholm – NYY, 2B/3B, 28.2 – It’s all about Games Played for Jazz. I mean, it’s all about Games Played for everybody I guess, but Jazz is one of the more injury prone hitters in the game. You know I lean towards taking on more risk than average, so I’ve been high on Jazz for the last two seasons, and that has paid off in a major way with him following up his 24/40 season in 2024 with his first 30/30 season (31/31) in 2025. Here is how I closed out his Top 1,000 Blurb last off-season, “Staying healthy one season is good, but he needs to go back to back healthy seasons for me to take “injury risk” off his resume, or at least have it downplayed. If not for injury risk, Jazz has an argument for Top 15 status, so this ranking (27th overall) does factor in a bit of risk.” … and the good news is that he mostly stayed healthy in 2025, playing in the 2nd most games of his career at 130, but 130 is not quite a full season. He missed a little over a month with an oblique injury and he got banged up here and there throughout the season with various injuries. Despite going 30/30, he still finished 52nd overall on the Razzball Player Rater. A low BA is another risk that contributed to that with a .242 BA, a 27.9% K% and a 32.2% whiff%. I feel like I’ve straddled the line perfectly the last few years between his upside and his risk, and I’m going to continue to straddle that line. I can’t quite call him an elite dynasty asset despite the elite power/speed combo, but he remains in the tier right under that. – 2026 Projection: 78/28/82/.246/.330/.468/33
31) Ketel Marte – ARI, 2B, 32.6 – Marte wasn’t quite as good in 2025 as he was in 2024 (36 homers with a .932 OPS in 136 games vs. 28 homers with a .893 OPS in 126 games), and he wasn’t able to fully sustain the elite Hard Hit explosion (94 MPH EV with a 53.8% Hard Hit% vs. 90.8 MPH EV and 47% Hard Hit%), but he still solidified himself as one of the best hitters in the game. He made up for the reduced hard hit by lifting and pulling more than he ever has (14.8 degree launch with a 23.5% Air Pull%), and it actually resulted in an even better Barrel% (13.5%) and xwOBA (.400) than 2024. Combine those quality of contact metrics with an elite 14.9/11.5 K%/BB% and near elite bat speed (74.6 MPH), and you get one of the safest studs in the game at a position that has been causing dynasty manager fits for the last few years (2B). The only thing he doesn’t do is run with 4 steals, and he’s getting up there in age at 32. Marte is the safer choice over Jazz as the top 2B in dynasty, but Jazz has the upside and youth edge. – 2026 Projection: 95/31/82/.281/.371/.520/7
32) Kyle Schwarber – PHI, OF, 33.1 – You know the Baseball Gods smile down on you when you have a career year in your contract year. Soto was the chosen son last off-season, and this off-season, the torch has been passed to Schwarber. I don’t know what Kyle Tucker did mid-season to have the Baseball Gods smite him, but it must have been bad. Schwarber demolished a career high 56 homers with the career highs in EV (94.3 MPH), Barrel% (20.8% Barrel%), Launch (20.1 degrees), Air Pull% (31.1%) and Hard Hit% (59.6%) to back it up. His .414 xwOBA was 5th best in baseball behind Judge, Soto, Ohtani, and George Springer. Judge, Soto, and Ohtani are in a tier or their own above everyone else. The only other two hitters over the last few years with the ability to get in their tier has been Yordan and Acuna. That is just a reminder to treat Acuna and Yordan with the utmost respect this off-season. But back to Schwarber, we know his game well. He’s a low BA, high OBP slugger whose only risk is that the BA dips into the low .200’s, or even below the Mendoza line as he’s done twice in his career. He re-signed with Philly for 5 years, $150 million, so Philly is surely betting on him hitting tons of homers deep into his 30’s, as am I. – 2026 Projection: 104/46/111/.238/.361/.520/7
33) Yoshinobu Yamamoto – LAD, RHP, 27.7 – How the hell am I supposed to remain objective after the legendary playoff and World Series performance from Yamamoto? I am a mere mortal, and while I was pulling hard for Toronto, Yamamoto’s heroics couldn’t help but pull me in. I originally had Yamamoto as the 7th overall pitcher in the End of Season Rankings, but he’s now moving up to my 4th overall pitcher. After the Big 3, is there anyone else you would want to give the ball to in a big game than Yamamoto right now? It seems crazy to even think of saying any other pitcher but Yamamoto for this 4th spot. And it’s not like it’s just emotions. He had a strong case for it anyway with a 2.49 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, and 29.4/8.6 K%/BB% in 173.2 IP (1.45 ERA with a 22.9/4.2 K%/BB% in 37.1 IP in the playoffs). The 95.4 MPH 4-seamer is elite with a +17 Run Value, the splitter is devastating with a .193 xwOBA and 42.1% whiff%, and the curve is plus with a 36.7% whiff%. The cutter, sinker, and slider are all good pitches too. The annoying, party pooper, Debbie Downer side of me is saying maybe the long season, the career high 211 IP, the pitching in back to back games, and now pitching in the WBC will create a hangover effect in 2026, or even worse, gasp, an injury, but trying to predict which pitchers are going to get hurt year to year is mostly a crapshoot. I’ve long since stopped trying to predict it. I can’t give the ball to anyone else but Yamamoto right now with the 4th pitcher spot in Dynasty. – 2026 Projection: 14/2.91/1.02/204 in 175 IP
34) Logan Gilbert – SEA, RHP, 28.11 – We all know the Big 3 are the top dogs in both dynasty and redraft, however you want to order them (Crochet, Skenes, Skubal for me in dynasty and Skubal, Crochet, Skenes for me in redraft), but there is a hellacious tier right under them that is nipping at their heels. I originally had Gilbert leading that 2nd tier, but Yamamoto’s World Series heroics just couldn’t be denied. Maybe I’m a sucker. Maybe I’m a prisoner of the moment. But there is no shame in being the 5th dynasty pitcher in the game. Gilbert has a very elite 32.3/5.8 K%/BB% and 32.9% whiff% in 131 IP. The 95.4 MPH fastball is elite with a +10 Run Value, the control is elite, and he has 3 bat missing secondaries in his slider (34.5% whiff%), splitter (50.4% whiff%), and curve (38.6% whiff%). The only that is holding him back from actually entering the truly elite tier, is that he’s got a homer problem. He throws the ball over the plate and challenges guys to hit it, and in Seattle, they can’t, but on the road, they can. He put up a 2.24 ERA with 8 homers at home vs. a 4.74 ERA with 12 homers on the road. Seattle knows how to develop pitchers to thrive in their ballpark, but it can hurt them on the road. That homer flaw is what keeps him in Tier 2. – 2026 Projection: 14/3.29/1.04/226 in 185 IP
35) Hunter Brown – HOU, RHP, 27.7 – Brown’s 28.3/7.8 K%/BB% and 27.8% whiff% are excellent, but they aren’t in that truly elite of the elite tier to really make it all that tempting to elevate him to the 3 headed dragon tier (Crochet/Skenes/Skubal). I would say he had a huge 2025 breakout, but the truth is the breakout started in May/June of 2024 (he put up a 2.46 ERA with a 26.1/7.3 K%/BB% in his final 142.2 IP that year), and he just carried it over fully into 2025 with a 2.43 ERA, 1.03 WHIP and a 28.3/7.8 K%/BB% in 185.1 IP. The 96.6 MPH fastball is elite with a 28.8% whiff% and +17 Run Value. He has a wipeout secondary in the curve with a 39.2% whiff%. The changeup is solid with a +2 Run Value. And the sinker induces weak contact like crazy with a 78.6 EV against. He also mixes in a cutter and slider. There is no doubt he is a true ace, I’m just not ready to say he’s a true talent mid 2’s ERA guy. I trust the 3.11 xERA a tad more. – 2026 Projection: 14/3.08/1.06/207 in 185 IP
36) Hunter Greene – CIN, RHP, 26.8 – I nailed Greene’s ace breakout in 2024, calling him a major target, and then I doubled down in 2025, predicting that wasn’t even the peak. Who else predicts a random jump in control but me? Greene had a 9% BB% in 2022, a 9.6% BB% in 2023, and a 9.3% BB% in 2024, and I looked at that and said, you know what, I’m smelling improvement coming, writing in his Top 1,000 blurb last off-season, “His control/command remained below average, but I still think there is another level in here as he stays healthy and gains more experience. I don’t even think this is the peak, assuming he stays healthy, which who knows there honestly (he missed time with elbow inflammation this year). Greene had the ace breakout I knew was coming, and I’m going to continue to buy high.” … and then he went out in 2025 and proved me prescient with that huge jump in control I saw coming, putting up a 6.2% BB%. It wasn’t a “random” prediction of course. It was me betting on his athleticism and work ethic, and it resulted in the cementation of true ace status with a 2.76 ERA, 0.94 WHIP and a 31.4/6.2 K%/BB% in 107.2 IP. The 99.5 MPH 4-seamer put up a +20 Run Value which was tied for 5th best in baseball and the double plus slider put up a 46.9% whiff%. You can ding him for injury risk as he only pitched 107.2 IP and has never pitched more 150.1 IP in a season, but it was a groin injury that knocked him out for over 2 months this year, so I find it hard to really hold that against him too much. He also didn’t improve his third pitch at all, the splitter, with a negative 5 Run Value on the pitch. The negatives are enough to very clearly keep him out of the true top tier, but you know I’m going to keep betting on this kid. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.22/1.06/207 in 170 IP
37) Bryan Woo – SEA, RHP, 26.2 – I’ve been naming Bryan Woo a major Target since before the 2023 season and every year since then, and man is it awesome to see him fully blossom into a true ace. God, I love dynasty. Did I trade him away in one of my leagues after that 2023 season in a deal that included Henry Davis? Yes, yes I did. God, I hate dynasty … He throws one of the very best fastballs in baseball with a 95.7 MPH 4-seamer that put up a 28.8% whiff%, .270 xwOBA, and a 21 Run Value that was tied for 3rd best in baseball. He also throws the 15th most valuable sinker in the game with a negative 3 degree launch, while mixing in a slider (36.1% whiff%), sweeper (46.1% whiff%) and changeup (.282 xwOBA). It all led to a 2.94 ERA with a 27.1/4.9 K%/BB% in 186.2 IP. The 26.2% whiff% overall isn’t super impressive and he’ll give up plenty of homers (26 dingers) because of how much he throws the ball over the plate, but it’s crystal clear that he’s a true ace. He belongs in this Tier 2 of aces. – 2026 Projection: 14/3.23/1.01/191 in 180 IP
38) Kevin McGonigle – DET, SS/2B, 21.8 – You know I’m not shy to take a victory lap when I hit on a player that everyone else (or almost everyone else) was low on, so I also have to take my lashes when I miss on a player that everyone else but me was super high on. Truth of the matter is, when you rank with a mind of your own, which I pride myself on and preach to others (and preach to you as dynasty owners too), you are going to end up looking like a genius on your unique hits, and a moron on your unique misses, when in reality, you are probably not a genius or a moron. You are just trying to block out the noise and give a raw, unfiltered opinion. My favorite rankings, and the ones I find most valuable, are the ones that aren’t mostly the same as the consensus/general perception, and are also backed up by solid reasoning and analysis, whether you agree or disagree with the ranking. So with that as the backdrop, Kevin McGonigle is who I consider my biggest miss in 2025. I had him ranked 54th overall, which I mean, is a pretty good ranking in general, and I called him a souped up Steven Kwan, which is really still an accurate “comp,” but the vast majority of other spots had him in the Top 25 range at least, or higher. I’m generally lower on hit tool first guys for fantasy (I was also lower on Angel Genoa and Starlyn Caba, both of whom took steps back in 2025), but when a hit tool first guy hits his ceiling, it looks exactly like what McGonigle just did. He slashed .305/.408/.583 with 19 homers, 10 steals, and a 11.6/14.9 K%/BB% in 99 games at High-A and Double-A. He’s not a big guy at 5’10”, but he can lift and pull, and he hits it very hard with legit plus raw power potential. He’s less a souped up Steven Kwan, and more in the mold of Mookie Betts and Jose Ramirez, if you want to dream on his tippy top ceiling. He wasn’t good on the bases this year (10 for 17), and he’s not a true burner, but he was much better last year (22 for 24), so I would would expect a bounce back in 2026 there. You won’t hear me doubting him ever again. Konnor Griffin is my top dog, but McGonigle is my #2 prospect in baseball, and he might have a real shot to break camp with the team. – 2026 Projection: 63/15/54/.268/.337/.434/13 Prime Projection: 111/24/91/.290/.370/.485/20
39) Rafael Devers – SFG, 3B/1B, 29.5 – Devers is going to be a beast no matter the ballpark. When you hit the ball as hard as he does (93.5 MPH EV, 16% Barrel%, 56.1% Hard Hit%), you can play on Jupiter (Jupiter has the strongest gravity in our soler system at 2.5 times Earth), and you will still hit plenty of dingers. He cracked 11 homers in 48 games at Oracle Park in San Francisco. He hit 20 homers in 90 games after getting traded. His power isn’t going anywhere. But even for a beast, it’s still a ballpark downgrade. He had a .977 OPS at Fenway vs. a .825 OPS at Oracle. His strikeout rate spiked after the trade with a 22.8% K% and .272 BA with Boston vs. a 29.4% K% and .236 BA with SF. He said he wasn’t going to change his approach after the trade, but he started to lift and pull a lot more, which came at the cost of more swing and miss. I don’t know if he was feeling pressure after the trade, or if it was a conscious choice based on his new ballpark, or if it was the result of him relenting and finally giving 1B a try, or a combination of all of them, but there was a clear approach change after the trade. A full off-season to get mentally prepared for his new team, new ballpark and new position should only help him, and he has the type of special bat that I’m simply not betting against. If this change prompts him to lift and pull more, and if he can actually combine that with usually strong K rates, it could result in a monster season, especially since he also put up career bests in BB% (15.4%) and Chase% (25.5%). I would advise against discounting him too much, or at all. If he gets lukewarm love this off-season, I would jump on that value dip. – 2026 Projection: 92/33/104/.267/.355/.501/3
40) CJ Abrams – WSH, SS, 25.6 – James Wood had the scariest 2nd half in baseball. MacKenzie Gore had the most disappointing 2nd half in baseball for pitchers. And then there is Abrams, who also followed up a great 1st half with a sad 2nd half. What the hell happened in Washington in July? Did someone put a curse on them or something? So much promise in the 1st half, only to watch it poof and disappear. Abrams was having the power breakout I foresaw with 12 homers and his Hard Hit numbers way up in his first 70 games, but it completely disappeared in the 2nd half. He finished the year in the same place he was in 2024 with a 39.2% Hard Hit% and 19 homers (20 homers with a 40.7% Hard Hit% in 2024). The good news is that a 20/30 guy with above average contact rates (19.7% K%), above average bat speed (72.4 MPH swing), and plenty of lift (13.3 degree launch) and pull (22.2% Air Pull%) is a really good fantasy player with a very high floor. And entering his 25 year old season, I still have to believe more raw power is coming, giving him some very real upside in his prime man muscle seasons. His ascent to elite dynasty asset might have just been delayed by one year. – 2026 Projection: 88/22/71/.262/.321/.448/33
41) Cole Ragans – KCR, LHP, 27.4 – You should be all over any discount on Ragans with the quickness. He missed 3.5 months of the season with a rotator cuff strain (shoulder), limiting him to just 61.2 IP, and he put up a 4.67 ERA in those innings, so I’m hoping people get scared off, but I’m sure as hell not getting scared off. He returned from the injury in September and the stuff was all the way back, so other than the obligatory I guess there is some injury risk, I’m not really that concerned about it. And while he had a high ERA, it came with a 2.63 xERA and 38.1/7.8 K%/BB%, so I mean, what more needs to be said. The 34.8% whiff% is silly elite. He leads with the elite 95.3 MPH 4-seamer (28.6% whiff%) and elite changeup (50.4% whiff%), but the slider is a really good pitch too (43.4% whiff%) and the curve is solid. He also mixes in a cutter. I almost think this ranking of him is still underrating him. If he joins the true elite Tier 1, 3 headed monster during the 2026 season, I wouldn’t be surprised, but there is enough volatility (injury and average-ish control) to keep him out. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.27/1.16/220 in 180 IP
42) Bryce Harper – PHI, 1B, 33.6 – There are reasons to start fading Harper in dynasty, or at least consider selling if you want to cash him in before we really see the next level value dip. The most obvious one is that he’s 33 years old. He’s also been pretty banged up in his career and of late, averaging only 129 games over his last 5 seasons (132 in 2025). And he really doesn’t have one truly standout, elite category we can bank on in 5×5 BA. He hit .261 with 27 homers, 12 steals, 72 Runs, and 75 RBI. Those numbers are really not all that out of line with what he’s been doing of late, maybe with some bad luck on the BA. If he has another good but not truly standout season, the dynasty value drop will be extreme going into 2027. Right now the value is still pretty stable. I’m still 100% betting on him being a beast deep into his 30’s as his .379 xwOBA was still in the Top 9% of baseball, but if there is some decline, and if he keeps on missing 30 games a year, he might start to look like just a really good fantasy player rather than a great one. I’m just saying he wouldn’t be untouchable for me if the right deal came along and I wanted to kick start a rebuild, but of course I would still need a haul to move him. – 2026 Projection: 85/30/85/.277/.370/.510/12
Shadow42) Shohei Ohtani – LAD, RHP, 31.9 – This is where I would rank Ohtani as a pitcher only. Only Ohtani can come back from major elbow surgery and put up career bests in BB% (4.3%), xERA (2.45), velocity (98.4 MPH) and nearly K% (33.0%) in 47 IP. So many of these other Tommy John/internal brace returnees were fighting for their lives just to survive, but not Ohtani, who coolly notched an elite 2.87 ERA. He’s a true ace that probably deserves to be in Tier 1 with Crochet/Skenes/Skubal, but we know LA is going to baby him. He’s never thrown more than 166 IP in a season, and I don’t see why the Dodgers wouldn’t want to limit him to the 150 range, especially when they want to save bullets for the playoffs. The low IP projection keeps him in Tier 2. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.07/1.05/191 in 150 IP
43) Josh Naylor – SEA, 1B, 28.9 – We’re all gonna underrate Naylor again, aren’t we. I warned you last year that we were underrating him, writing in his Top 1,000 blurb, “He finished 30th overall on the Razzball Player Rater and is currently going 92nd overall in NFBC drafts, so that tells me that everyone is expecting regression, but I think there is a real chance he could put up a few really big seasons in these prime man muscle late 20’s years.” … and then in 2025 he went and finished 31st overall on the Razzball Player Rater. Why are we making this so hard on ourselves? Just take him 30th overall. We need to stop overthinking this. Granted, he took a different path to that outcome in 2025 than he did in 2024. Like many expected, he wasn’t able to come close to the 31 homers again (he hit 20), but he made up for it by hitting for a much higher average (.295 BA), and most notably, becoming Ricky Henderson on the bases with 30 steals in 32 attempts. He also ripped up the playoffs with 3 homers, 2 steals, and a .340 BA in 12 games. The double ballpark downgrade (first Arizona and then Seattle) didn’t faze him at all, and him re-signing with Seattle should not scare us at all considering the damage he did there already, including his dominant post-season. He’s a complete hitter with elite contact (13.7% K%), above average Hard Hit (41.9%), the ability to lift in the air (19.6% Air Pull%), and now base stealing ability too, despite being slow as dirt with a bottom 3% sprint speed. Even if we can’t count on close to 30 steals again, I don’t see why he would just stop running. He had another season where he stole 10 in 121 games, so this wasn’t quite completely out of nowhere. No matter how he gets to Top 30 overall (power, BA, steals), I’m not going to keep doubting that he is going to get there again. I am valuing this man correctly. – 2026 Projection: 80/23/92/.280/.340/.460/18
44) Riley Greene – DET, OF, 25.5 – Greene went from a 2.8 degree launch with 5 homers in 93 games in 2022, to a 6.6 degree launch with 11 homers in 99 games in 2023, to a 12.2 degree launch with 24 homers in 137 games in 2024, and now to a full blown game power explosion with a 15 degree launch and 36 homers in 2025. The 18.6% Air Pull% and 17.1% Barrel% were also career bests. The 111 RBI is elite. That is exactly what we asked for as fantasy players. We want dingers, and he gave it to us, but that is the only part of his game he’s been able to improve. He’s actually regressed almost everywhere else. He put up a career worst 30.7/7.0 K%/BB%, a career worst .620 OPS vs lefties, a career worst negative 8 defensive value and a de facto career worst 2 steals. It’s like he made a deal with the Devil for a power breakout and forgot to iron out the rest of the details. We’ll take that trade off for fantasy, and at a still young 25 years old, the hope is that he can improve his contact rates, but I don’t think we can truly count on it. Either way, I bet on this being a special bat last off-season ranking him 36th overall, and he had the breakout we wanted, finishing 41st overall on the Player Rater. I’m going to keep betting on that special bat (75.4 MPH swing). – 2026 Projection: 86/31/102/.260/.328/.487/4
45) Jackson Merrill – SDP, OF, 22.11 – Selling low on Merrill after the classic sophomore slump would be so silly. It’s just not how I play the game. You need to take the bird eye’s view in dynasty. Players have good and bad years. They have career years. They have disasters. If you overreact to the ebb and flow of a player’s career, you are constantly going to be buying high and selling low. You need to keep that steady hand in most cases, and Merrill is so clearly that case. It really wasn’t even that bad of a season. He fully locked in his ability to lift and pull with an excellent 15.2 degree launch and a solid 15.1% Air Pull%. He had a 13% Barrel% with a 89.7/94.9 MPH AVG/FB EV. I’m not worried about his ability to hit homers, and he made that clear to close out the season with 8 homers in his final 22 games including the playoffs. He stole only one bag in 115 games, but it seems like him being banged up all year was the major culprit for that. He had a hamstring injury in April, a concussion in June and an ankle sprain in August. It seems pretty clear he just never got in a place where he wanted to risk it, but with a 28.5 ft/sec sprint and 16 steals in 2024, I have a hard time believing he is done running. It does say that base stealing might not be his main focus, but we already knew that. The most concerning part of his season is the regression of his plate skills with a 27.1% whiff% and 37.8% Chase%, and that there is less of an excuse for. But that is where the patience for the ebbs and flows of a player’s career comes in, especially for a young one. He’s had a great feel to hit his entire career, and I’m betting on that track record of skills instead of panicking over just this one season. The .279 xBA vs. 264 BA also says he got unlucky. He’s the type that can survive with high chase too. I implore you to stay strong on Merrill. – 2026 Projection: 82/26/93/.281/.330/.480/15
46) Samuel Basallo – BAL, C/1B, 21.7 – Basallo is going to follow the Junior Caminero track to a T. I can feel it. Caminero came up and was horrific in his first little taste in 2023 (which I told you not even to look at those numbers) and then was mediocre in his more extended taste in 2024 (which I advised, “if there is any buy window based on the small, mediocre MLB sample, I would be all over it.”), before having a monster explosion this season. Basallo is going through that exact same adjustment period, looking mediocre in his pro debut with a .559 OPS in 31 games, but just like Caminero, please completely ignore those numbers. His 75.5 MPH swing is near elite, and while not as elite as Caminero, it’s still damn good. He demolishes the baseball like Caminero with a 94.2 MPH EV, 57.4% Hard Hit%, and 23 homers in 76 games at Triple-A, and also like Caminero, it’s always come with solid strikeout rates while being extremely young for the level. Even with some chase and whiff in their game, these are the type of bats where it really doesn’t matter. And Basallo lifts and pulls more than Caminero. It’s inevitable that Basallo is going to start raking his face off in the majors in the very near future. Whether it comes at catcher or 1B or DH or a combination of all of them, I don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s going to be one of the top young power hitters in the game real soon. – 2026 Projection: 67/25/81/.249/.317/.446/3 Prime Projection: 92/34/111/.266/.339/.522/4
47) Jesus Made – MIL, SS, 18.11 – Made was having a solid season at Single-A, especially when you took into account he was only 18 years old, but he wasn’t really blowing the doors off with a .267/.373/.388 triple-slash. For a moment there, I was like, maybe this isn’t quite the straight rocket ship we were promised … but then he got called up to High-A and he hit the after burners, slashing .343/.415/.500 with 2 homers, 5 steals, and a 17.9/10.6 K%/BB% in 27 games. I talk about this more in the Colt Emerson blurb, but there is no better sign than when a prospect gets called up to a higher level, and not only maintains their production, but actually takes it up a notch. That is the #1 sign of the rocket ship. Milwaukee obviously recognized this too, promoting him again to Double-A at the end of the season, and while he struggled in 5 regular season games (33.3% K% with a 86 wRC+), he made his mark in the playoffs, going the opposite way off the humongous billboard advertisement for Renova Roofing. “Mother Nature ruins everything. Renova Roofing can help.” They really got their money’s worth that night. How much do you think that goes for? Should I just put a huge Brick Wall up on that thing next year or something? hah … When it was all said and done, Made delivered on his unanimous off-season hype. The hit tool, approach, hard hit and speed (47 steals) were all there. He needs to lift and pull more to full tap into his raw power (only 6 homers in 115 games), but his profile can work without a ton of lift and pull, and it wasn’t in the danger zone or anything with a 43.7% GB% and 40.5% Pull%. There is zero doubt this is the elite prospect we were promised. – ETA: 2027 Prime Projection: 101/25/81/.278/.360/.481/28
48) Walker Jenkins – MIN, OF, 21.1 – I always find it interesting when there is a collective cooling on a prospect that seems to happen at the exact same time … and then I’m the only one left standing there, going, hey, where did everyone go? That is what happened with Jenkins in 2025. He sustained a high ankle sprain in the very beginning of the season, essentially missing the first two months, and all at the same time everyone decided he was irredeemably injury prone and dropped him in the rankings. But I held strong, because no way would I ever sell low on a potentially elite dynasty asset because he sprained his ankle. Then he returned as a 20 year old at Double-A and immediately performed well, but because he didn’t immediately have the power breakout we’ve been waiting for, everyone decided the power would never come and dropped him in the rankings. Again, I held strong, because there was no way I was betting against the power coming for the 6’3”, 210 pound sweet swinging lefty. And then the power came, jacking out 7 homers in his final 44 games. The final 23 of those games came at Triple-A where he put up a respectable 89.1 MPH EV and 43.8% Hard Hit%. I gave him the Kyle Tucker comp from the time he was drafted, and Tucker has a career 44.3% Hard Hit%. Jenkins is going to have enough power when you combine it with his excellent plate approach (18.7/14.5 K%/BB% at Double-A), base stealing ability (17 for 21 in 84 games), and ability to lift and pull (15 degree launch with a 16.7% Air Pull% at Triple-A). This is the type of high floor/high ceiling prospect that we love. At worst, he looks like a solid across the board contributor, and at best, he’s Kyle Tucker 2.0. – 2026 Projection: 29/7/31/.249/.322/.418/8 Prime Projection: 96/26/82/.271/.354/.478/20
49) Trea Turner – PHI, SS, 32.9 – Speed first players typically don’t age as well as power first players, but there are exceptions to every rule, and it sure looks like Turner is that exception. His 30.3 ft/sec sprint speed led all of baseball. I will repeat. He is the fastest man in baseball as a 31/32 year old. The next fastest 32 year old was Trevor Story at 104th overall. This is not your average “speed first” player. This is one of the greatest of all time, and it led to 36 steals which was his highest mark since 2018. He also hit .304 with a 16.7% K%. The 15 homers in 141 games is on the low end for what he’s done the last several years, but the 42.1% Hard Hit% looks good, so it was just a matter of not lifting and pulling quite as much. Maybe that hints at what the back nine of his career will look like. Still lots of steals and a high BA, but maybe he regresses more towards who he was earlier in his career before the perennial 20+ homer breakout. You buy him for the BA/steal combo though, and that doesn’t look like it’s dropping off anytime soon. – 2026 Projection: 96/18/73/.293/.343/.451/32
50) Chase Burns – CIN, RHP, 23.2 – Chase Burns is my #1 pitching prospect in baseball (at least in leagues that use the 50 IP threshold, like most of my leagues do, and not service time, because based on service time he’s not prospect eligible anymore). I was high on him in First Year Player Drafts last off-season, ranking him 4th overall, because I saw the type of true ace upside that was worth sticking your neck out for, and then he went out and proved it. He sliced through the minor leagues with a 1.77 ERA and 36.8/5.4 K%/BB% in 66 IP, and then he almost did the same in the majors with a 3.47 xERA (4.57 ERA) and a 35.6/8.5 K%/BB% in 43.1 IP. The 98.7 MPH 4-seamer is near elite with a 25.2% whiff% and +4 Run Value and the slider is also near elite with a .229 xwOBA and 43.7% whiff%. He only went to the changeup 5.6% of the time, mostly vs. lefties, but it was a solid pitch with a 33.3% whiff% and 75.7 MPH EV against. The control was really good too. He’s an athletic 6’3”, 210 pounds. I don’t see how it can get anymore obvious than this. This is a true ace waiting to happen, even pitching in Cincinnati. – 2026 Projection: 10/3.42/1.15/190 in 150 IP Prime Projection: 14/3.03/0.98/245 in 190 IP
51) Cristopher Sanchez – PHI, LHP, 29.4 – Sanchez broke out in 2023, proved it was for real in 2024, and then took it to an entirely different level in 2025. He adds velocity every year, going from a 92.1 MPH sinker in 2023, to a 94.5 MPH sinker in 2024, and then finally a 95.4 MPH sinker in 2025. It led to a true ace breakout with a 2.50 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and a 26.3/5.5 K%/BB% in 202 IP. The sinker is the most valuable sinker in baseball with a +19 Run Value and the changeup was tied for the 2nd most valuable changeup with a .208 xwOBA and 45.1% whiff%. The slider isn’t as good, but it’s useful with a solid 33.6% whiff%. The 30.4% whiff% overall is elite for a starter, he keeps the ball on the ground with a 3 degree launch, and the control is double plus. He’s an ace. Simple. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.18/1.10/194 in 190 IP
52) Mookie Betts – LAD, SS, 33.6 – We all know why Mookie had a down season. It’s not a mystery. He contracted a very serious stomach virus that caused him to lose 20 pounds right before the season started. That is so clearly the recipe for diminished power, and that is exactly what happened as he put up a career worst 35.8% Hard Hit%. The power outage not only impacted his homer totals (20 in 150 games), but also his batting average (.258), especially because of how much he lifts and pulls. The good news is that the hard hit numbers were already starting to come back up by the end of the season, putting up a 44.3% Hard Hit% in September. The 39.3% Hard Hit% in 17 playoff games was solid too even if he didn’t have the best post-season. He has a career 42.1% Hard Hit%. With a full off-season to regain the strength he lost, it sure seems like he should be in for a major bounce back in 2025, even at 33 years old, because the elite contact rates didn’t go anywhere with a career best 10.3% K%. He stole only 8 bags, and while it’s hard to expect huge steal totals in his mid 30’s, that should bounce back too when he gets on base as much as he usually does. I don’t see how we can consider this the start of a decline when we have a clear reason for the down season. All signs point towards a much better 2026. – 2026 Projection: 104/28/83/.279/.358/.487/14
53) Eury Perez – MIA, RHP, 22.11 – For all the talk of Eury’s Tommy John rust, you could actually argue his 2025 was better than his 2023 season, or if that is too much of a stretch, you can argue that is wasn’t far off. His 3.27 xERA in 2025 was better than his 3.61 xERA in 2023. His 1.05 WHIP in 2025 was better than his 1.13 WHIP in 2023. He had a 27.3/8.3 K%/BB% in 2025 vs. a 28.9/8.3 K%/BB% in 2023. I mean, almost identical (but not quite). He had a 118 Stuff+ in 2025 vs. a 111 Stuff+ in 2023. His fastball was better in 2025 with a +10 Run Value, 21.3% whiff%, and .327 xwOBA vs. a negative 4 Run Value, 18.7% whiff% and .382 xwOBA. His secondaries weren’t as good, and he didn’t go to them as much, but they were still pretty damn good with a 39.9% whiff% on the slider, 61.1% whiff% on the changeup, and a 46.4% whiff% on the sweeper. Point being, if you were all in on Eury after his dominant 2023, you should still be all in on him now, and I’m definitely still all in. He still has the potential to join that elite of the elite tier, and if his price dropped, I would be all over it. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.37/1.10/183 in 160 IP
54) Max Fried – NYY, LHP, 32.2 – Like Freddy Peralta (discussed below), Fried has often fell in that underrated ace tier that I love building my staff with (I got Fried in 2 of my dynasty leagues last year for a very reasonable price), and like Peralta, he probably pitched too well to remain in that underrated tier with a 2.86 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 23.6/6.1 K%/BB% in 195.1 IP. He hasn’t put up an ERA above 3.25 since 2020. He’s not an elite K/BB guy, but he has so firmly proven he’s a weak contact machine with a 6.9% Barrel% against in 2025 and a career 5% Barrel% against. He’s as consistent as they come. His price may get a little pricey this off-season though coming off career highs in IP and wins (19), but also like Peralta, he is worth that high price even if he will no longer be a great value. – 2026 Projection: 14/3.09/1.12/178 in 185 IP
55) George Kirby – SEA, RHP, 28.2 – There could be a good buy low opportunity on Kirby this off-season. Obviously his price isn’t going to dip too much, but a down and injured season like this can often make guys much more available than they would have been otherwise. He had the worst year of his career with a 4.21 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, and a 26.1/5.5 K%/BB% in 126 IP, but there are actually signs that he just might have the best year of his career in 2026. For one, shoulder inflammation delayed the start of his season until May and he gave up 11 ER in 8.2 IP his first 2 starts back. That definitely played a role in the down year. But what makes me most excited is that he’s finally missing some bats with his secondaries. He put up an above average whiff% for the first time in his career with a 26.7% whiff%. The 26.1% K% was also a career high. His curve put up a 38.6 whiff% (28.8% in 2024) and his slider put up a 31.2% whiff% (27.1% in 2024). He combined the improved secondaries with his usual elite 96.2 MPH 4-seamer (30.7% whiff%). With a full healthy off-season and with the ability to finally miss some damn bats with the secondaries, it sure seems like an explosion in 2026 is possible. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.48/1.10/197 in 185 IP
56) Matt Olson – ATL, 1B, 32.0 – Olson unsurprisingly bounced back from a down 2024 (117 wRC+) with his usual very good season in 2025 with a 136 wRC+ (career 133 wRC+). His career has been very choppy, alternating standout seasons with merely good seasons, but the only way to play it is to stay steady through the storm. I didn’t overreact to his career year in 2023, and I didn’t overreact to his down year in 2024. He’s simply one of the best power hitters in the game with consistently elite power metrics (93.3 MPH EV and a 53.3% Hard Hit%). The bounce back in 2025 actually didn’t come from homers (29 homers), it came from BA (.272), but he closed out the year by hitting 10 homers in his final 30 games, so it’s just year to year variance. He’s getting up there in age, but he’s a locked in, safe slugger. – 2026 Projection: 91/33/104/.268/.360/.510/1
57) Brent Rooker – SAC, OF, 31.5 – Rooker didn’t hit 39 dingers again, clocking in at “only” 30 homers, but in many ways his 2025 season makes me more comfortable moving forward than even his 2024 season. Most notably, he improved his contact rates again with a 22.2% K% (28.8% in 2024), 30.8% whiff% (34.1% in 2024), and a 26.4% Chase% (31% in 2024). The power is still undeniable with a 13.7% Barrel%, 90.7 MPH EV, 16.4 degree launch and 22% Air Pull%. And he gets another 2 years in that hitter’s haven in Sacramento. He might not be an elite power hitter, but he’s pretty locked in as one of the top power hitters in the game. – 2026 Projection: 87/33/99/.267/.342/.508/8
58) Corey Seager – TEX, SS, 31.11 – The injury bug got Seager again. He played only 102 games due to a hamstring injury that kept him out earlier in the year and then an emergency appendectomy that ended his season in late August. He underwent hernia surgery twice in 2024, both at the beginning and end of the season. How much core surgery can a guy take and still be an elite MLB hitter, because it’s wild that he’s still basically an elite MLB hitter with a .412 xwOBA that is in the top 2% of baseball. He crushes the ball with a 92.9 MPH EV, 53.6% Hard Hit% and 15.3% Barrel%, and the plate skills are excellent with a 19.6/13.0 K%/BB%. You know I’m one to take on extra risk for legit level upside, and this is certainly legit level upside, but I can’t lie, it’s starting to wear on me. He didn’t lift and pull that much this year with a 11.6 degree launch and 11.9% Air Pull%, and while the underlying numbers have been elite these last two years, the surface stats haven’t been quite as elite with a .860 OPS. At basically 32 years old and with all of the injuries, if he falls back to just a very good but not great fantasy player, it wouldn’t be surprising. And that’s assuming he can stay on the field. I’m buying as a win now team, but doing it with some caution. – 2026 Projection: 78/29/84/.280/.362/.499/3
59) Manny Machado – SDP, 3B, 33.9 – If Machado didn’t play in Petco, he would have probably put up more genuinely huge seasons than he has since signing there in 2019, but he does play in Petco, so we will have to settle for really damn good. He put up another really damn good season in 2025, hitting .275 with 27 homers, 14 steals, and a 123 wRC+ in 159 games. It was good for 38th overall on the Razzball Player Rater. He crushes the ball with a 51.5% Hard Hit%, he gets the bat on the ball with a 19.3% K%, he runs a bit and he can lift and pull. He’s getting up there in age and the ballpark does subdue the upside a tad, so I can’t fly him up too high, but he’s been a consistently excellent, reasonably priced win now bat for years now. – 2026 Projection: 84/30/96/.276/.338/.475/12
60) Joe Ryan – MIN, RHP, 29.3 – Ryan has a career 3.79 ERA in 641 IP. That is a large enough sample to say we probably shouldn’t expect those true ace level ERA’s that are in the low 3’s or even the 2’s. He’s also never thrown more than 171 IP in a season, so it’s hard to really expect those 180+ or even 200+ levels we optimally want our aces to hit. Granted, he had career bests in both ERA (3.42) and IP (171) in 2025, but it was starting to unravel a bit at the end with a 6.47 ERA and 10 homers in his last 32 IP. Like a lot of fastball heavy guys who throw the ball over the plate a lot, he has a homer issue that inflates the ERA. Speaking of that 93.6 MPH fastball, it’s an elite pitch with a 51.2% usage, +18 Run Value, .287 xwOBA and a 26.9% whiff%. He didn’t throw any other pitch more than 13.1% of the time with the sweeper as his standout secondary (.239 xwOBA with a 34% whiff%). At this point, we know what we are getting, and that is a mid 3’s ERA with an elite WHIP and a near elite K/BB (28.2/5.7 K%/BB%). Really damn good, but not quite good enough for me to go higher than this. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.51/1.05/189 in 170 IP
61) Freddy Peralta – NYM, RHP, 29.10 – Here’s how I closed out Peralta’s Top 1,000 blurb last off-season, ” I don’t like fully paying up for the hyped to death aces, but I also don’t want to have to build an entire staff solely from the bargain bin. So Peralta always seems to fall into that goldilocks zone of ace level upside without having to quite pay ace level prices. No matter the league, I always seem to end up with Peralta on a bunch of teams.” … and once again, he came through with a 2.70 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and 28.2/9.1 K%/BB% in 176.2 IP. He might have actually been a little too good this year to keep falling into that underrated “ace” tier, as the 3.47 xERA says he was definitely on the lucky side this year. If his price gets pushed too high because of the surface stats, which I’m guessing it will, I might have to break my streak of grabbing Peralta as one of my staff aces, but of course, he deserves that high ranking even with regression coming in 2026. The trade to the Mets doesn’t change his value at all. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.42/1.11/202 in 175 IP
62) Logan Webb – SFG, RHP, 29.5 – Webb’s 820 IP since 2022 leads all of baseball by a wide margin. Framber Valdez is 2nd at 767.2. And looking at the leaderboard of that list, most of those guys generally continue to stay healthy. We know no pitcher is safe, but the best predictor of staying healthy is past health. Leaning safety/floor over upside generally isn’t my thing, but Webb is sooooooooo much safer than the average pitcher it has to be a major factor. And not only that, his upside got taken up a notch in 2025 with a career best 9.74 K/9. The K% jumped 5.7 points to 26.2%, the whiff% jumped 3.9 points to 24.7%, and he kept it up all season with a 27.3% K% in his final 71.1 IP. The guy hasn’t put up an ERA above 3.47 since 2020. The only real issue is that the WHIP’s have been high the past two seasons (1.24 in 2025), but they were much lower the 3 seasons before that, so I think that is on the low end of his ability rather than his true talent level. Even without the true tippy top upside, Webb has to be considered a highly valuable dynasty asset. – 2026 Projection: 14/3.36/1.19/200 in 200 IP
63) Kyle Bradish – BAL, RHP, 29.6 – Sometimes guys never make it back from Tommy John. Sometimes they make it back in a diminished state. Sometimes they make it back fully healthy. And then there is Bradish, who somehow came back better than he’s ever been before. Bradish returned in late August and was immediately one of the best pitchers in baseball with a 2.53 ERA and 37.3/7.9 K%/BB% in 32 IP. He was in the midst of a true ace breakout before going down with the injury in 2024 with a 2.75 ERA and 32.5/9.2 K%/BB%, so there is some track record to look back on that says this isn’t simply a small sample fluke. And like I said, he was much better than he was in 2024 with his whiff% rising 7.9 points to an elite 34.8%. The slider was insanely elite with a .115 xwOBA and 44.4% whiff%, and the 94.8 MPH sinker was double plus with a +5 Run Value and 25% whiff%. The 4-seamer and curve aren’t as good, but they are both useful pitches with the curve notching a 45.5% whiff% and the 4-seamer putting up a respectable 23.8% whiff%, despite both getting hit hard. It’s a really, really good profile, but it honestly doesn’t feel like he should actually be this elite. I’ve said that for the last 3 years of his career though, and this was his 3rd year in a row of putting up an ERA below 2.83 and a WHIP below 1.07, so how long can I keep doubting this man. – 2026 Projection: 12/3.38/1.09/181 in 155 IP
64) Maikel Garcia – KCR, 3B, 26.1 – I don’t question the Baseball Gods. When they send me visions of Ketel Marte when I think about Maikel Garcia, I listen, and although it took one more year than I expected, that Ketel Marte like improvement came in 2025. He raised his launch 3.3 degrees to a respectable 9.7 degrees, and he increased his Air Pull% 5.4 percentage points to a respectable 16.2%, and it resulted in the game power breakout I foresaw with 16 homers in 160 games (7 homers in 157 games in 2024). His BABIP also normalized, which was obviously coming, bringing his BA up to his true talent level of .286. But not only that, he actually improved his elite contact with a career best 12.6% K% and improved his approach with a career best 9.3% BB%. And he continued to crush the ball with a 91.3 MPH EV. The only thing he didn’t do as well as 2024 was steal, but he still managed a strong 23 steals. And if his power is headed where I think it could be headed, that is more than enough. I don’t see why Garcia wouldn’t be emboldened by the success he had in 2025, and try to continue to build on that this off-season. Ketel Marte had that similar slow but steady rise in launch, barrels, and air pull, and I still see that same path for Garcia. Even if he doesn’t keep improving, this was a definite leveling up/breakout, and I think there could be more down the line especially with the new ballpark dimensions. I’m buying high. – 2026 Projection: 89/18/76/.278/.340/.446/26
65) Jarren Duran – BOS, OF, 29.7 – Duran wasn’t able to maintain his monster 2024 breakout, but there are actually more than a few signs in the underlying numbers that are screaming we should buy any dip in value. His quality of contact metrics improved everywhere you look. He raised his EV 1 MPH to 91.8 MPH. He raised his launch 2.5 degree to 12 degrees. He raised his Hard Hit% 2.9 points to 46.8%. He raised his Air Pull% 4.9 points to 15.2%. And he raised his bat speed 1.2 MPH to 74.8 MPH. It only resulted in 16 homers in 157 games, but that is so clearly the very bottom end of his true talent. He didn’t run as much this year either (24 steals vs. 34 steals), but with a 29.1 ft/sec sprint, that also feels on the low end of his true ability. Another 20/30 season seems well within his reach in his still prime 29 year old season. The plate skills have never been his strength, but the 24.3/8.6 K%/BB% remains solid. I’m buying any discount I can get here. – 2026 Projection: 92/20/84/.266/.335/.461/29
66) JJ Wetherholt – STL, 2B/SS, 23.7 – Wetherholt was exactly who we thought he was. It’s exactly who he’s been since his freshman year of college. It’s exactly who he’s been since his pro debut in 2024. And now it’s exactly who he’s been through the upper minors, slashing .306/.421/.510 with 17 homers, 23 steals, and a 14.7/14.5 K%/BB% in 109 games split between Double-A and Triple-A. He crushes the ball with a 91.4 MPH EV and 49% Hard Hit%, he’s got speed, and the plate skills are near elite. He’s not a huge lift and pull guy, but he doesn’t have to be for this type of profile. The 12 degree launch and 13.6% Air Pull% aren’t too bad, and he can easily improve on those over time. The 24.3 whiff% at Triple-A wasn’t quite as good as the K%, so he might not truly be an elite contact guy, but the hit tool is clearly plus at least. He was projected to be a .280/20/20 type coming out of the draft, and that is now cemented with his excellent first full year of pro ball. He’s also expected to break camp with the big league club as their starting 2B or 3B. Proximity, safety, upside … he’s got it all. – 2026 Projection: 76/16/68/.262/.331/.425/19 Prime Projection: 103/21/82/.284/.369/.473/24
67) Dylan Crews – WSH, OF, 24.1 – I don’t believe for one second that Dylan Crews is a true talent .211 hitter. That is his career BA in 116 games, which isn’t a small sample, but I just don’t buy it. The .248 BABIP is screaming bad luck, and so is the .248 xBA. He doesn’t have the type of profile that should lead to low BA’s with a 22.5% K%, an 89.5 MPH EV, and an all fields approach. And if you think that BA is going to come way up in 2026, like I do, then you can’t help but think Crews is going to be a fantasy beast with 13 homers and 29 steals in those 116 career games. He was starting to get hot and find his groove in 2025 with 3 homers and a .987 OPS in 9 games in mid May before hurting his oblique, knocking him out for 3 months, and he couldn’t get in that rhythm again after returning. But the good news is that creates one more buying opportunity for you to get before the breakout happens. He’s definitely not without risk as I don’t love the 30.7% whiff% in 2025 and he doesn’t lift and pull as much as optimal with a 8.5 degree launch and 11,5% Air Pull%, but his speed/base stealing has surpassed all expectations with a 29 ft/sec sprint and tons of steals, mitigating some of that risk. This is a young kid who is just getting his MLB career started and has yet to have that runway to really find his groove against MLB pitching, but I’m betting on that groove coming in 2026. – 2026 Projection: 82/20/76/.248/.320/.431/32
68) Jackson Holliday – BAL, 2B, 22.4 – The not knowing is the hardest part. Doing just enough to keep us on the hook, but not enough to actually make an impact. We want our prospects to either explode into elite dynasty assets immediately, or be so horrific that we have no internal struggle about moving on. But dynasty wouldn’t be so fun if it was so easy all of the time. Someone once said that Hell is a Utopia where every desire is instantly fulfilled. It’s the not knowing that makes life fun and interesting. So thank you, Jackson Holliday, for having the type of season that leaves us scratching our head if this guy is eventually going to be the elite dynasty asset that was promised to us, or just a solid across the board player who doesn’t make a huge impact. He improved massively from his rookie year, but he put up a 62 wRC+ with a 33.2% K% in his his rookie year, so that’s not saying much. Finishing 198th on the Razzball Player Rater was not exactly the big improvement we were hoping for, but he showed enough to keep us on the hook. The plate skills showed huge improvement, going from a 34.1% whiff% and 27.2% Chase% to a 24.5% whiff% and 22.3% Chase%. He still only hit .242 with a .251 xBA, so he’s not exactly Ichiro Suzuki out there, but much better than 2024’s .189 BA. And nothing else really improved. The Hard Hit numbers actually took a step back with a decent 40.8% Hard Hit%, he didn’t lift and pull more with a 8.9 degree launch and 10.7% Air Pull%, and he wasn’t good on the bases with 17 steals in 28 attempts. He was actually worse in the 2nd half than he was the 1st half, so we can’t say he was improving as the year went along. And he was bad vs. lefties with a .572 OPS. All of these numbers have to be taken with the context that this was a 21 year old kid though. If he went .242/17/17 at 21 years old, it seems pretty reasonable to say that will rise to at least 20+/20+ with a good BA when he’s in his prime. Is it guaranteed to happen? No. But there is a good enough chance it happens that you have to keep valuing him as an extremely valuable dynasty asset. He’s not making it easy on you, but you’re welcome. – 2026 Projection: 81/20/72/.264/.329/.427/19 Prime Projection: 95/25/80/.282/.358/.470/21
69) Max Clark – DET, OF, 21.4 – I’m not saying Clark is underrated, but doesn’t it feel like he gets so much less hype than he should? He was the 3rd overall pick in a stacked draft and has done nothing but rake in pro ball, but I don’t know, it just seems he doesn’t get people overly excited I guess. But you should be overly excited, because this year he proved it in the upper minors as a 20 year old, slashing .251/.360/.439 with 7 homers, 7 steals, and a 16.7/14.3 K%/BB% in 43 games. That was good for a 135 wRC+. He’s not Kevin McGonigle level of hit tool good, but that is still in the double plus range. He continues to grow into more raw power, and he started to get to a lot more of it by lifting and pulling a lot more when he got to Double-A. The power is good, not great right now, but the power is only going to get bigger and bigger as he ages. And while I wish he ran wild crazy, he was 19 for 21 on the bases, so he’s an excellent base stealer with at least plus speed. He has a great combination of floor and upside right now, with 15/25 and a solid BA/OBP being the floor, and 25/40 with a great BA being the upside. He’s an elite dynasty prospect. – ETA: 2027 Prime Projection: 96/20/78/.278/.359/.451/30
70) Sebastian Walcott – TEX, SS, 20.1 – Sorry Sebastian, but the also 19-year-old Konnor showed up to the Double-A party late in the season and made your solid but unspectacular season look even more unspectacular. And then the 18-year-old Leodalis rolled up and just straight made it look easy. We were giving Walcott a ton of leeway before those two showed us how it was really done, and while that does put Walcott’s season in better perspective, it shouldn’t come close to completely taking away what he did. He put up a 111 wRC+ with 13 homers, 32 steals and a 19.6/12.7 K%/BB% in 124 games. Considering the hit tool risk was a legitimate concern, seeing that K/BB as a 19 year old at Double-A is insanely encouraging. And being 11% above league average at his age is still impressive. Sure the .255/.355/.386 triple slash doesn’t jump off the screen, and sure Konnor and Leo blew him out of the water, but we are still looking at a potential fantasy stud. We know the talent by now. He’s an elite athlete at 6’4” with a potentially elite power/speed combo. He’s not a finished product, and it would definitely be nice to see him destroy a level, which he’s never done yet, but it’s not stopping me from still calling him a truly elite prospect. Texas has already hinted that while they have promoted him aggressively, they aren’t planning on just handing him an MLB job next year. I can see him spending the entire season, or vast majority of it, in the minors unless he leaves them no choice with complete destruction. – ETA: 2027 Prime Projection: 93/27/84/.268/.345/.478/24
71) Shea Langeliers – SAC, C, 28.4 – Langeliers gets the small nod over Rice because we still have to sweat out how long Rice will actually retain catcher eligibility. In dynasty, having that stability that you know you are locked in at the catcher position for several years is valuable, if for nothing else than peace of mind. And Shea has a case for it even taking defense out of the equation. He had a breakout season on the back of much improved contact rates, bringing his K% down 7.5 points to 19.7% and his whiff down 4.1 points to 25.1%. It led to a .277 BA vs. a .224 BA in 2024. It didn’t impact his power at all either, jacking out 31 homers in 123 games (he missed some time with an oblique) with tons of lift/pull (16.3 degree launch with a 21.9% Air Pull%) and good Hard Hit (90.8 MPH EV with a 44.8% Hard Hit%). He put up a 1.018 OPS post break in 57 games, so the breakout was actually ramping up as the season went along, and it wasn’t just the result of his minor league home park with 19 homers on the road vs. 12 at home. It’s a little scary putting Langeliers 3rd when the .328 xwOBA is much worse than his competition, but we know Statcast underrates lifting and pulling, and the xwOBA was much better in the 2nd half (.351). If anyone’s profile here mimics Cal Raleigh’s career path, it’s Langeliers, and Raleigh just had an all time season at 28 years old. Maybe Langeliers can follow in his footsteps. – 2026 Projection: 74/33/84/.256/.319/.498/6
72) Ben Rice – NYY, 1B/C, 27.1 – Last off-season, when it looked like Rice had nowhere to play, when it looked the Yanks didn’t fully believe in him, when he was coming off a season where he hit .171 … one man stood in the face of all that adversity and said, eff it, I’m still targeting him whether you like it or not, writing in his Target blurb, “Listen, I don’t have the slightest clue how he ends up with a full time job either. Even with Goldy only on a one year deal, the Yanks could so easily acquire another vet next off-season. And he’s already 26 years old. But sometimes I just want to bet on the bat, and let things shake themselves out, and that is how I feel with Rice. He’s obliterated every stop of the minors, and while he was always on the older side, you can only dominate the competition put in front of you. Then in his very first taste of the bigs, the man put up a 15.6% Barrel% in 50 games. All he does is rake. Is it not great that the surface were so bad with a .269 wOBA, yea, it’s not great, but that is where the value comes in. I don’t know how. And I don’t know when. But I do know who. And that who is Ben Rice.” … and then Rice went out in 2025 and rewarded my faith in him in more ways than I even expected. Not only did the big offensive breakout come with 26 homers and a 133 wRC+ in 138 games, but he also caught 36 games, giving him catcher eligibility for 2026. That is a major bonus I wasn’t even planning on. The funny thing is, the surface stats still didn’t come close to matching the underlying numbers with a .358 wOBA vs. .410 xwOBA, but when the underlying numbers say you are the 7th best hitter in the baseball, you can underperform them and be just fine. He improved everywhere you look from his rookie year with a 93.3 MPH EV, 56.1% Hard Hit%, 21.5% whiff%, and an 18.9% K%. He’s a lift and pull machine, so it’s not even like he has the type of profile that should underperform Statcast this much. He’s underperformed it considerably for two straight years, so I wouldn’t expect anything different in 2026, but there is definitely a chance he was just unlucky two years in a row. I wouldn’t rule out another level of offensive performance in 2026. And defensively, it sure seems like he will once again rack up full time at bats at catcher, 1B, and DH, giving him a good shot to retain catcher eligibility for at least a few more seasons. I was buying hard when the price was cheap last off-season, and I’m still buying high this off-season. – 2026 Projection: 84/30/81/.265/.348/.511/4
73) Byron Buxton – MIN, OF, 32.4 – Byron Buxton is the reverse Mike Trout. The Baseball Gods work in mysterious ways, and with a little patience, they reward those who have been faithful to them. Trout was blessed with an immaculate front nine of his career, only to be riddled with injuries in the back nine, while Buxton was riddled with injuries in the front nine, and now the back nine looks to be his time to shine. He never gave up. He never shook his fist at the heavens. He just put his head down and put the work in, maintaining his absolutely elite talent through everything. He was 31 years old, been through the ringer, and he was still the tied for 2nd fastest man in baseball with a 30.2 ft/sec sprint. The fastest man was the 32 year old Trea Turner. What the hell is going in on baseball? Shouldn’t the young legs be faster? He also still swings an elite 75 MPH bat. Age be damned, the talent that made him one of the most hyped prospects in our generation is 100% there, and he used that talent to explode in 2025, slashing .264/.327/.551 with 35 homers, 24 steals, and a 27.3/7.6 K%/BB% in 126 games. Those GP were the 2nd most of his career, and that built off the 3rd most games played in his career in 2024 (102). He’s learning how to stay more and more healthy. The 53.8% Hard Hit% was a career high and he’s been a lift and pull machine his entire career. He was a perfect 24 for 24 on the bases! In his career he has 117 steals and has only been caught 12 times! That is the 2nd best success rate of all time, behind only … you will never guess it … Josh Lowe! Kyle Tucker is 3rd and Oneil Cruz is 4th. His injury luck is starting to even itself out just a bit, and I’m smelling it evening out even more as he gets deeper into his 30’s. I think we are on the precipice of a super weird reverse career arc and I’m in for it. I’m taking on the extra injury risk. Buxton is a target if people are still scared of him. – 2026 Projection: 91/32/82/.260/.326/.521/20
74) Trey Yesavage – TOR, RHP, 22.8 – It’s a 3 man race between Burns, Yesavage, and McLean for the #1 pitching prospect in baseball. None of them should really be considered prospects anymore with all of them throwing over 40 IP (including the playoffs), so it’s an unfair fight, but they all proved their high end skills will transfer to the majors, and that gives them a leg up over everyone else. I thought I was about to be the high guy on Yesavage like I was in the End of Season Dynasty Rankings, but that was before the playoffs, and well, Yesevage absolutely dazzled the baseball world. He put up a 3.58 ERA with a 35.8/10.1 K%/BB% in 27.2 IP (3.21 ERA with a 25.8/11.3 K%/BB% in 14 IP in the regular season). It came with a stupid 40% whiff%, which is genuinely insane. It sat 35.4% in the regular season, and it was 37.7% at Triple-A. These are really nearly unheard of, off the charts numbers. Starters just don’t have whiff rates that high even if you are in the elite tier. Those are closer to all time whiff rates. He generates those whiff rates mainly with the elite splitter (58.4% whiff%), but the slider is really good too with a 39.8% whiff%. So why is he my #2 pitching prospect and not #1 pitching prospect? It’s because of the fastball and below average walk rates. I don’t think the 4-seamer is bad, but it’s not that bulletproof, elite 4-seamer we often see from the very best pitchers in the league. It doesn’t have that elite velocity (94.3 MPH), it got hit really hard with a .367 xwOBA and 94.2 MPH EV against including the playoffs, and it doesn’t miss an elite amount of bats with a decent 19.8% whiff%. The pitch was better at Triple-A and it has 19.5 vert with a unique release profile, so I think it has the potential to be a good pitch, but it’s not like Burns’ 98.7 MPH 4-seamer. Burns also has average to potentially plus walk rates, while Yesavage’s are firmly below average. I wouldn’t blame you for going Yesavage over Burns (Yesavage has the ballpark advantage), and it’s close for me, but I just can’t shake wanting that super elite fastball (and also that elite slider) from Burns. Yesevage is #2. – 2026 Projection: 12/3.48/1.19/202 in 165 IP Prime Projection: 14/3.13/1.10/250 in 185 IP
75) Spencer Schwellenbach – ATL, RHP, 25.10 – Schwellenbach was going full true ace breakout before fracturing his elbow in early July, putting up a 31.7/3.2 K%/BB% in his last 49.1 IP before the injury. And it’s not like he was bad before that dominant stretch with a 3.09 ERA and 24.9/4.1 K%/BB% in 110.2 IP on the season. Not only was he fully backing up his 2024 breakout, but he was taking off into another stratosphere before the injury bug got him again. The 97.1 MPH fastball is elite with a 27.1% whiff% and +10 Run Value. The splitter is dominant with a 42% whiff% and .232 xwOBA. The breakers aren’t quite as good, but both the slider and curve are solid with a 34.4 and 31.1% whiff%, respectively. And he also throws a good cutter (+3 Run Value) and a good sinker that has a negative 7 degree launch. That is a legit 6 pitch mix (he throws all of them over 10% of the time), with elite control/command, a dominant fastball, and a dominant secondary. He’s a true ace … if healthy, and health was always an issue in his career. It’s the only thing I was worried about last off-season, writing in his Top 1,000 blurb, “He’s an easy #2 with true ace potential … as long as he stays healthy. He missed the entire 2022 season with Tommy John surgery, and he really hasn’t pitched very much in his career. It’s a major question if he can truly put up a true MLB starter workload year after year. I tend to be less risk averse with pitchers, because all of them are risky, but I am factoring in some experience/injury risk here, keeping him in that 2nd tier of young aces.” … and that is basically exactly how his season played out. It seems like he should be good to go for 2026, but once again, we have to factor in some injury risk. Without injury risk, he’s a Top 50 dynasty asset, but with it, I can’t go higher than this. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.30/1.05/160 in 150 IP
76) Jacob Misiorowski – MIL, RHP, 24.0 – Misiorowski never needed to have plus control to breakout. He didn’t even need to get to average control. Shit, even below average control was unnecessary. He just needed to get to not “cover your eyes horrific” control, and he did indeed improve from “cover your eyes horrific control” to just bad control in 2025. That was all he needed. He put up a 2.13 ERA with a 31.6/12.3 K%/BB% in 63.1 IP at Triple-A, and then he got the call to the majors and put up a 3.32 xERA (4.36 ERA) with a 32.0/11.0 K%/BB% in 66 IP (1.50 ERA with a 34.8/6.5 K%/BB% in 12 playoff IP). The 99.3 MPH 4-seamer is elite with a 55.2% usage, .298 xwOBA, and 42.5% whiff%. But I have to say, that is really the only elite thing he has, or even close to it. The slider wasn’t good with a .340 xwOBA and 20% whiff%, and it wasn’t that good at Triple-A either. The curve is better, but not much better with a .297 xwOBA and 30.7% whiff%. And the changeup is actually really good, but he barely goes to it with a 5.9% usage. So he has an elite fastball, and everything else is below average. It’s making me slightly hesitant to really go too insane on his ranking, but only slightly. His career is only getting started, and further improvement to his control and secondaries should be coming down the line. The fastball is also so elite that it really does overshadow any other weaknesses. I’m certainly buying. – 2026 Projection: 11/3.52/1.21/197 in 160 IP Prime Projection: 13/3.36/1.14/230 in 180 IP
77) Emmet Sheehan – LAD, RHP, 26.5 – Betting on Tommy John/internal brace returnees is a total roll of the dice. We have no idea which ones are going to come back fully healthy and which ones aren’t, but one thing I noticed in 2025, is that you can tell which ones are fully back extremely quickly. Conventional wisdom would say we should give guys time to shake the rust off, but that wasn’t the case at all in 2025. The guys who came back and looked great from literally their first rehab outing, were the guys who kept on looking great. And the ones who looked rusty out of the gate, more or less remained rusty all season. I still buy into the conventional wisdom somewhat, but I think it’s worth mentioning that in practice it didn’t work that way at all. And it’s a lesson I’m taking with me for 2026. Basically buy hard on a guy who dominates in their first rehab outing, and at the very least don’t buy on a guy who doesn’t look back to 100%. And I have to say, I was all over Sheehan the second he started dominating at Triple-A, calling him a major target over and over again and ranking him extremely high on the in season dynasty rankings from mid-season on. He was bordering on elite pitching prospect status before the injury, and he immediately re-established that level with a 2.18 xFIP and 45.6/2.5 K%/BB% in 19.2 IP at Triple-A in his rehab outings. It’s hard to break into LA’s rotation for a young pitcher, but LA clearly saw what I was seeing and gave them no choice. And when he did get that shot, he looked like a young ace with a 2.82 ERA and 30.6/7.6 K%/BB% in 73.1 IP (I’m trying my best to ignore the horrific post-season because I have no idea what to do with that). The 95.6 MPH fastball was a bat missing weapon with a 26.5% whiff%, the slider was straight elite with a .198 xwOBA and 43.6% whiff%, and the changeup was excellent with a .200 xwOBA and 30.2% whiff%. The control is above average and the 32.9% whiff% is in the elite of the elite for a starter. There is nothing not to like (other than the playoffs, woof). Sheehan is one of the most exciting young pitchers in the game. – 2026 Projection: 12/3.37/1.14/171 in 145 IP
78) Nolan McLean – NYM, RHP, 24.8 – I talked about it in the Yesavage blurb, but it’s a 3 man race for the top “fake” pitching prospect in baseball between Burns, Yesavage and McLean. I say “fake,” because these guys have already demonstrated dominance in the majors, which means, there is nothing prospective about them. They are known entities. But using the under 50 IP threshold that most dynasty leagues use (based on my experience), they are still considered prospects. And the reason I have McLean 3rd in that group can honestly be boiled down to mostly one thing, which is that he doesn’t miss as many bats as Burns and Yesavage. I am a sucker for whiffs, and McLean’s whiff% was 28% at Triple-A and 28.4% in the majors, while Burns went 33.7% at Triple-A and 31.9% in the majors, and Yesavage went 37.7% at Triple-A and 35.4% in the majors (even higher at 40% in the playoffs). I also didn’t love that the famed sweeper, his best and most used pitch in the minors, got utterly shelled in the majors with a .448 xwOBA and 20.3% whiff%. That isn’t just bad, that is crazy horrific. I’m obviously nitpicking here, but I find it more interesting to give my reasons for why he’s 3rd overall and not 1st overall. I clearly still love him as he dominated the majors overall with a 2.06 ERA, 3.56 xERA and 30.3/8.5 K%/BB% in 48 IP. Sure the sweeper wasn’t good, but his 5 other pitches were awesome, putting up plus Run Values ranging from 1 to 4. The sinker was the best pitch with a negative 12 degree launch, which is nuts. The curve put up a 50% whiff%. The 4-seamer missed bats and the change and cutter were solid against lefties. If you wanted to put him 1st overall, I wouldn’t argue with you (I actually probably would argue with you a little as I love Burns so much), but you get the point. McLean is awesome. – 2026 Projection: 13/3.45/1.17/183 in 170 IP Prime Projection: 15/3.22/1.10/212 in 190 IP
79) Chris Sale – ATL, LHP, 37.0 – The decline has to come at some point, but it’s not even close to being here, and the upside is so insanely elite that I don’t even care about his age. He put up a 2.58 ERA with a 32.4/6.3 K%/BB% in 125.2 IP, and while a fractured rib knocked out a large portion of his season, he returned for 6 starts to close out the year and was just as dominant. The fastball sits 94.8 MPH whish is basically exactly where it’s sat his entire career and the slider was the most valuable slider in baseball with a +23 Run Value. I’m riding this thing into the ground as a win now team. I’m not selling. – 2026 Projection: 14/2.88/1.09/198 in 155 IP
80) Jacob deGrom – TEX, RHP, 37.10 – Like so many other Tommy John returnees, deGrom actually did come back diminished, but that just meant he went from one of the greatest to ever do it, to merely just a true ace. He put up a 2.97 ERA with a 27.7/5.5 K%/BB% in 172.2 IP. It was the most innings he pitched by far since 2019, which is really the most important thing, and he’s been very conscious of pulling back just a bit in order to stay healthy, which is obviously the right thing to do. Even him pulling back means throwing 97.5 MPH though, ha. The slider, changeup, and lesser used curve were bat missing machines, leading to a still elite 30.2% whiff% overall. Prime deGrom put up a 45.1/3.4 K%/BB%, so he’s not prime deGrom, but that level of prime deGrom never pitched more than 92 IP in a season. The deGrom that puts up around 30/5 K/BB percentages stays healthy, and hopefully that is the one we will see for at least the next few years. He’s an elite win now piece. – 2026 Projection: 14/3.13/0.99/170 in 155 IP
CLICK HERE TO JOIN MY PATREON FOR THE REST OF THESE RANKS & TONS OF EXCLUSIVE CONTENT ALL OFF-SEASON & SEASON, INCLUDING:
-TOP 1,000 2026 DYNASTY BASEBALL RANKINGS
-TOP 500 2026 DYNASTY FANTASY BASEBALL PROSEPCTS RANKS
-TOP 161 2026 FIRST YEAR PLAYER DRAFT RANKS
–2026 DEEP POSITIONAL RANKS: Top 80 C–Top 91 1B–Top 97 2B–Top 101 3B–Top 161 SS–Top 288 OF–Top 335 SP–Top 83 RP
–2026 FYPD TARGET & STRATEGY GUIDE
-HALP’S DYNASTY BASEBALL PODCAST: END OF SEASON MAILBAG!
–SPREADSHEETS
-Plus so much more coming like Position by Position Targets, Predicting Future Prospect Lists, Top 10 2027 FYPD Rankings, Spring Training Rundowns …
By Michael Halpern (@MichaelCHalpern)
Email: michaelhalpern@imaginarybrickwall.com
Twitter: Imaginary Brick Wall (@DynastyHalp)
Blue Sky: Dynasty Halp (@ImaginaryBrickWall)