Since July, several fantasy-relevant hitters have been barreling the ball less often. Some have been recovering and returning from injuries. With others, the power seems to have just disappeared recently.
The table below shows the hitters with a three-percentage point drop in their barrels per plate appearance since July, minimum 50 PA.
Brother Luis Luis Luis!
He sure does look good in orange.
On the Agenda:
There is no such thing as the 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 numerous mistakes in the draft. In fact, leagues will be won this year by teams who may have even 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.
Though in-season free-agent pickups will not always save us, take a look at my worst of four NFBC Online Championship (OC) drafts, a 12-team national contest:
If you’re a nineties baby playing in the majors, I think your time has passed. Make way for Gen Z. The 2000’s babies. Even the 2005 babies are starting to make a real impact.
Bye bye Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and hello Junior Caminero. So long Juan Soto and welcome Pete Crow-Armstrong. Sal Stewart, yes you’ll be taking over for Mr. Manny Machado. And Fernando Jr. of Tatis fame? The McGonigle and Wetherholt party will take it from here.
So many of our favorite young stars from the last five years have aged out of rising stardom and seem to be either plateauing or, even worse, skiing down the final hill, and fast.
Here’s a quick collection of players I’d consider consensus picks to become generational stars a few years ago who are currently between 27 and 29 years old. To me, this captures the players many of us would have confidently said were entering the primes of their careers as recently as two years ago. Not yet on the hill, and surely not over it. Read the rest of this entry »
As I type this, we’re just a day away from roster expansion day, when we get a flurry of minor league callups. This is always an exciting time for fantasy leaguers, especially keeper leaguers who could speculate on some of these players at minimal cost in the hopes they open next season with a starting job. But although rosters haven’t expanded yet, there are still five recent promotions worth discussing. Let’s get to it.
On Saturday, Sal Stewart hit his 30th HR and Sarah Langs pulled yet another fun stat:
Sal Stewart is the 14th rookie in MLB history with 30+ homers and 100+ RBI in a season the 9 previous players to do it since the rookie of the year award began (1947) all won it
— Sarah Langs (@slangsonsports.bsky.social) 2026-08-29T19:07:32.184Z
That sent me scampering to the FanGraphs Rookie Leaderboards where you would see that Stewart, for all the fun counting stats, is the 7th best offensive rookie by fWAR (and is behind some (pitchers, as well), and the 9th best by wRC+.
But this article isn’t about Stewart, it is about the two fine young gentleman who top that wRC+ rookie leaderboard Esmerlyn Valdez and Munetaka Murakami. There are no many debuts more fun that those two. Murakami is going to have 30 HR any day now (I am writing Saturday, so maybe he already does?) and Valdez is on pace for 40, if only it were for those pesky months in Triple-A.
But Murakami and Valdez share something beyond prodigious power: a prodigious inability to make contact.
Pablo Robles-Imagn Images
Note: Any noted rostership rates come from the NFBC RotoWire Online Championship, the same rates we use on the FanGraphs Player Rater. For reference, these leagues are 12-team Roto leagues with 30-man rosters (2 C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, MI, CI, 5 OF, UT, 9 P) and weekly add/drops. This rate can be compared to other rostership rates found in this article.
Angels
• Over the last six games, Vaughn Grissom moved up to hit either third or fourth.
• Jose Siri (vs LHP) and Gustavo Campero (vs RHP) were in a platoon, but Campero is now on the IL, so Siri may get full-time at-bats.
• Christian Moore (.639 OPS since being recalled) started five straight games at second base. Read the rest of this entry »
Rumbling, bumbling, stumbling…Zac Veen tumbling
On the Agenda:
Earlier this week, some of you joined me on a jaunty little trip down through Fantasy Seasons Past, stopping to admire some of the plucky league winners that never seemed to amount to much afterwards.
From Nolan Jones who burned you the next year to Shed Long who you can only remember fondly, there have been league winning hot hands for as long as there has been fantasy baseball.
This year, shouldn’t you be the one to add the league winning Joe Schmo? Or should I say, “Schwindel”?
Well done, Mr. Schwarber
That’s 40 or more home runs in four of his last five seasons. Schwarber and Aaron Judge are tied with the most homers (227) since 2022.
On the Agenda:
