Formulating your own opinions on players in fantasy baseball is always welcome … yes, even the negative ones.
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After previously examining the players I’d most like to roster to my teams this season, let’s now turn the focus to the players I’m most avoiding in 2026 drafts. But first, as I often stress with this exercise, there’s always a point at which a player might fall in drafts where he becomes a relative value and absolutely draftworthy. So, don’t cross these guys off your lists before the draft begins — just make sure you’re sure about where you’re comfortable taking them before locking them into your 2026 rosters.
Based upon early expert-league results and ADP (average draft position), I’m fading the following 15 players:
The Giants might have baseball’s worst defensive right side of the infield, with Arraez at second and Rafael Devers at first (more on him later). Between Devers, Bryce Eldridge and Jerar Encarnacion, the team is overloaded with first base/DH types if it needs to make a change. Arraez’s contact is plenty useful in points leagues, but he has too much playing-time downside tied to his mediocre defense and speed. I see many pinch-runner/Christian Koss defensive replacement moves in his future.
A popular breakout pick, Bradish has nasty breaking pitches (slider, curveball) that heighten his statistical ceiling, but he’s also only 21 months and 54 professional innings removed from Tommy John surgery. He’s being drafted 18th among starting pitchers in NFBC (National Fantasy Baseball Championship) Main Event leagues, which is awfully generous for a pitcher who could face workload management. That’s the George Kirby/Jesus Luzardo/Dylan Cease tier and I’d take any of those other three first, easily.
How lucky do you feel? So much went right for Buxton in 2025, from his playing his most games (126) in eight years, to his hitting 35 homers, to his going a perfect 24-for-24 stealing bases. Still, he made two more trips to the injured list — this time short-term absences — so let those visits serve a reminder that even in the best-case scenario, he’s at risk of missing time. Randy Arozarena, Riley Greene and Taylor Ward are all considerably safer picks you should be making ahead of Buxton.
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Chapman’s 2025 was historically excellent, but what made it historic also makes it highly unlikely to be repeated (or even reasonably approach). Consider that Mariano Rivera is the only reliever ever with consecutive seasons of at least 30 saves and a 2.0 WAR after his 37th birthday, while only 14 pitchers have ever had one such season after turning 37. Chapman’s career-best .200 BABIP is unsustainable from year-to-year, and his ERA might well double (or worse), making his upper-tier closer price seem excessive.
Rafael Devers, 1B/DH, Giants
The playing-time threat isn’t as pressing with Devers as it is with Arraez (or Eldridge or Encarnacion), being that he’s one of two players (along with Aaron Judge) with at least 25 home runs and a 50% hard-hit rate in each of the past six complete MLB seasons. Devers’ problem is that he’s in one of the worst home environments for a hitter with his skill set, his strikeout rate has risen in both of the last two seasons, and he’s in the midst of a miserable spring training.
Few pitchers have exhibited as much of a decline in average fastball velocity as Estevez has this spring, as he registered only 87.1 mph in his first two Cactus League appearances and 90.7 in his lone World Baseball Classic game (March 9), down sharply from his 95.9 mark during the 2025 regular season. Velocity isn’t everything, and Estevez has a history of lower spring training numbers (93.8 mph average from 2023-25), but he has also vastly outperformed his peripherals in the past two seasons.
Goodman’s raw power is legit, but he’s unlikely to maintain a .278 batting average into 2026, even with Coors Field’s hitter-friendly environment helping his cause. He’s a notorious free swinger, with 225 whiffs on non-strikes last year (seventh most in the majors), and a 34-point gap between his actual and expected batting averages (highest among batting title qualifiers). Frankly, Yainer Diaz and Francisco Alvarez might both match Goodman’s production at a fraction of the price.
Helsley’s 2025 unraveled following his late-season trade to Flushing and out of the closer role, as his walk rate ballooned to 11.6% and he surrendered four home runs and 13 extra-base hits over his final 22 appearances. Now in Baltimore, he has more of a promise of save chances, though he’s in a loaded division and hitter-oriented home environment. Helsley’s fastball velocity is also down this spring (96.0 mph, down from 99.3 in 2025), heightening concerns he might not maintain the job.
A notoriously slow starter, Lindor is recovering from an early spring training hamate bone fracture, which appears unlikely to threaten his status for Opening Day but may still have lingering impact upon his power in the season’s early weeks. After averaging 32 homers and 30 stolen bases over the past three years, he’s currently going among the top 30 overall picks in both ESPN and NFBC drafts, which is too lofty a price in ESPN leagues for a player you might be able to trade for on the cheap around May 1.
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Marte is being drafted as a clear fantasy starter in both ESPN (199th overall ADP) and NFBC (175th) formats, and while he’s a 24-year-old with plenty of room to grow, he hasn’t shown nearly enough at the MLB level to warrant a hefty investment. He has played only a combined 187 games between the majors and minors over the past two seasons, underscoring his injury risk. Plus, his 2025 hard-hit rate (36.3%) and xwOBA (.304) were both worse than league average.
I want to believe Naylor can repeat last season’s 30 stolen bases. He has an 85.9% career stolen base rate, and his manager, Dan Wilson, issues green lights like the basepaths are a state highway at 2 a.m. All that said, banking on even 20, let alone 30, steals from a player who has finished in the 15th percentile or worse in Statcast’s sprint speed in all four of his full MLB seasons is folly. If Naylor regresses to 25/13 (homers and steals), he’s effectively Brandon Nimmo, who is going two or three rounds later.
Peralta has been a remarkably consistent strikeout artist, one of just two pitchers with at least 200 K’s in each of the past three seasons (Cease is the other), but his 2025 fantasy production was helped by good luck. He managed the highest left-on-base percentage of his career (85.5%), and his expected ERA was nearly three-quarters of a run higher than his actual number. Peralta is in a better home environment with the Mets this year, but that’s only inflating his price tag close to the position’s top 10.
I drafted him for $2 in Tout Wars this past weekend and even then didn’t feel great about it. For additional context, consider that he was an $18 player in that draft just one year ago. Sasaki’s first year in the U.S. was nightmarish, from his 17.4% strikeout rate to the 161 days he spent on the IL, and his performance this spring has done nothing to inspire a Yoshinobu Yamamoto-like second year rebound. Sasaki has walked nine out of 38 hitters while surrendering a 47.4% hard-hit rate.
Like Buxton, a bet on consecutive healthy seasons from Story isn’t an advisable one. Last year was Story’s first since 2018 in which he avoided the IL, and he finished in the 33rd percentile or lower in terms of walk, strikeout and chase rates as well as Statcast’s expected wOBA. He’s among the more reliant upon playing time to fuel big fantasy totals and, while his No. 2 lineup spot helps, he’ll need to have health closer to his 2021 or 2025 seasons than his 2022-24 years in order to repeat it.
Speaking of declining spring velocities, Strider’s might be the most troubling of any on the list. A 281-strikeout pitcher who averaged 97.2 mph with his fastball three seasons ago, the right-hander has averaged just 94.5 mph with the pitch in three Grapefruit League starts (after averaging 95.4 mph across his final 10 starts of 2025). After such a sluggish finish to his first year back from a second UCL surgery, he needed to show more than that in order to have any hope of being worth a top-30 starting pitcher pick.
