While the NFBC Main Event garners most of the attention, there are a handful of leagues with even larger entry fees ($2.5K to $15K). They are named Elite leagues (previously called High Stakes Leagues), and there are nine of them. With so much money on the line, these fantasy managers try to gain every advantage. Most of the time, these managers will be a week or two ahead of everyone else on their adds. Here are the players and some information on the ones added in four or more leagues. Read the rest of this entry »
As we move on to the final stages of this fantasy season, one more splits chart could be beneficial for those looking for streaming options in a playoff run. This chart plots xwOBA vs left-handed pitching (LHP) and right-handed pitching (RHP) on each axis, with filter options for which teams to target depending on their split, with the biggest gap differentials also included. This is done using handedness split data since the break, which now has a big enough sample in its own right while capturing recent form that full-season data would dilute. This piece will identify which handedness offenses struggle with and also look at probable starters up until September 19th, for specific matchups for both pitchers and offenses. Bear in mind this is overall offensive production; there will be specific hitters within lineups that may do well against a certain handedness despite the overall offensive struggles, and vice versa.
At this point in the season, it’s about playing time and finding hitters that can produce in specific categories. Here’s a follow-up to a previous article on surprising starting pitchers who have been performing well since August. Today, it’s the hitter version, with seven players contributing in deeper leagues. We used a roster percentage cutoff of 50% or lower in Online Championships, with the exception of one catcher-eligible player.
We’ll examine seven hitters who have been contributing fantasy value over the past couple of weeks. Is it luck or skill? Or have they been earning more playing time down the stretch? Though these hitters won’t win weeks or leagues, they can be sneaky fantasy contributors for the final few weeks.
• Like here with Boston, teams are adjusting their rotations daily, with some guys getting starts skipped or limited. Payoff-bound teams are bringing starters back early and letting them throw a few innings. All that to say, don’t count on pitchers “scheduled” five or more days into the future. Something will come up.
Tanner Houck and Johan Oviedo are two other injured Red Sox pitchers who might yet have roles to play in the 2026 campaign, as McCaffrey said the duo are expected to begin minor league rehab assignments before the end of next week. Houck underwent Tommy John surgery in August 2025, while Oviedo pitched in one game in March before a flexor strain sent him to the 60-day injured list.
There’s no such thing as a perfect fantasy draft. Even national contest winners in fields of 3,000 teams will have drafted several busts or players who haven’t earned their value. We can still win our leagues despite making tons of mistakes in our draft. In fact, there will be leagues won by teams that drafted two busts in the first two rounds — the 2026 top 24 has been historically bad. A drafter could have started with Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh, but could have a monster lead on second place if they drafted Dillon Dingler, Jordan Walker, Miguel Vargas, Jacob Misiorowski, Cam Schlittler, and FAAB’d Jacob Latz, Parker Messick, Liam Hicks, and Kody Clemens.
Last week, I discussed Raleigh and the biggest busts on every AL team. You’ll note that some of my selections were players with a 200+ ADP. I didn’t want to force early-round busts just for the sake of it, especially for teams whose highest-draft-capital players were within a reasonable range of returning their fantasy value. That will be the case again for the NL group. An example for this week is Trea Turner. Though he ranks 91st on the 12-team Fantasy Player Rater and is not returning full value on his ADP of 27, Turner has been healthy all season, earning nearly $12 to date. He has scored 90 runs with 17 HR and 18 SB, and I would not consider him to be a bust.
Welcome to the Daily SP Chart, click here if you’re new to get an idea of what I’m doing with these rankings.
I had planned on an SP rankings update this week but as I thought about it more, I’m not sure it’s worth pouring hours into an update that is going to be so fraught with uncertainty due to innings limits & injuries, especially when a 1-to-whatever ranking isn’t going to be terribly useful in the final three weeks when everything is context-based at this point in the season. Instead, I’ll start putting energy into a 2027 list and get the first edition of that up earlier than normal (likely sometime in October). For now, I’m going to stay focused on the SP chart and being available to y’all in the comments to help with your very specific situations.
FYI – No chat from me today. I have a doc appointment, but I’ll gladly answer questions on this post (or tomorrow’s SP chart, of course)!
I cited CLE’s unappealing offense as a reason to run Brandon Young so of course they dropped 6 ER on him, but I’m still attacking this offense with anything close to competent starts. I trust Baz more than Young, so let’s run it back.
Zebby’s HR rate always leaves him susceptible, but he gets a DET team that’s dead-last in wOBA v. righties in the L30 days so I like him to bounce back from his 5 IP/4 ER/3 HR outing last time out.
Gausman gets MIL for the 2nd straight start and for years I’ve been citing an older study that said the first start had no major correlation on the second regardless of how it went and as such you can just make your decision based on the pitcher without letting that 1st start influence you too much. But I have an update thanks to my favorite team, the Tigers! They showed a graphic that shows SPs falling off substantially in the aggregate during that 2nd start this season. Obviously, it’s not 100%, but if you’re protecting ratios, I can see skipping Gausman in some spots. I’ve attached the graphic below.
ReyLo is coming off the IL, so I downgraded him to just 1-x. Y’all know I love him, but that doesn’t mean we have to get crazy and start him in a buncha spots v. TBR.
I know Kade Anderson is the hot new flavor of the month, but he’s been “meh” in his first three starts and TEX slams lefties, so let’s be careful here.
Those analyses, though, held one thing constant: the value of draft picks. To get those points across, I assumed a standard 12-team redraft setting, and flexed the value of players based on scoring scheme. Here, I’m doing the opposite: I’m messing with the timeline draft pool while keeping scoring scheme constant to show you how the value of a draft pick itself can change based on league size, keepers, and whether you use projections or actual realized dollar value.
When examining leaderboards over a small sample (say, the last two weeks or maybe a month), you find a mixture of high-end players and surprising ones. If you are looking for late-season adds, those high-end arms aren’t likely available, but what about some of the unexpected names? We’ll look at players rostered in less than 80% in Online Championships to identify and examine pitchers in these deeper, 12-team leagues.
This isn’t intended to be a deep dive into these pitchers because we have limited time for the rest of the season. Success can occur with strong skills, luck, or a mix of both. What have they been doing? Is it sustainable? How do we feel about the upcoming matchups? We’ll examine five starting pitchers who have performed well since August to see if they can be reliable down the stretch.
Sitting here in early September, with papery leaves beginning to find themselves underfoot and with the A’s and Angels getting ready for next season, things really do feel pretty normal.
There have certainly been some surprises, like the oddly Tucker-shaped hole in the Dodgers’ lineup, but for the most part, it’s been a season that has largely matched our expectations.
But there was a time, not all that long ago, when many of us were panicking. When our early round picks were faltering and our “sure thing” sleepers were seemingly still sleeping. Let’s call this time by a cute and breezy name, something deceivingly blissful and carefree like “May.”
In this article, I’ll look back at some of the hitters whose starts were so rough that fantasy managers may have overlooked them as they have rebounded this summer and may still undervalue them heading into next year’s drafts.
I want you to be sure to look at these players favorably when doing your draft prep. If you really trust me, maybe even bookmark this page to come back to during draft time, so that you don’t take one look at Rafael Devers and get a sour unripe picked-in-April-but-ripe-in-August orange taste in your mouth (I know this isn’t the citrus timeline, please forgive me).
