Welcome to the first Position Player Playing Time Changes roundup of 2026! Normally, you can expect this to hit RotoGraphs on Tuesday afternoons, but we’re publishing here on Wednesday since there’s much more clarity with Opening Day rosters now than there was 24 hours ago. As a reminder for how this works, I use our database of playing time projections, managed by RosterResource wizard Jason Martin 마틴ez, to query significant changes over a certain period of time. Mostly, that’ll be over a weeklong period — between roundups — but I’m using March 1 as the cutoff for this first one. As for what qualifies as significant, this is every change of at least 10% (70 plate appearances) in either direction in that time period. So this’ll be a longer list than usual, chock-full of info:

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The Starting Pitcher episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Nick Pollack

Strategy Section

• Which pitcher types should be emphasized on your fantasy rosters?
• What statistics are most helpful in evaluating pitchers?
• Which pitchers are worth watching this year in spring training?
• How will the World Baseball Classic affect pitchers this season?
• Which pitchers are throwing new pitches or changing pitch mixes this year?
• Who are some potential breakout pitchers for 2026?
• Expectations for Tatsuya Imai
• Starting Pitchers
  • General player pool observations
  • Better to have an ace, or 2-3 1A starting pitchers?

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

ATC Undervalued Starting Pitchers

• Bryan Woo
• Logan Webb
• Nathan Eovaldi
• Zack Wheeler
• Sonny Gray
• Luis Castillo
• Ranger Suárez
• Matthew Boyd
• Kris Bubic
• José Soriano
• Cody Ponce 폰세

Deep league starting pitchers

Injury Update

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For the first time, we can now compare THE BAT X ERA forecasts to other projection systems. That’s because Christmas just arrived early — the pitcher version of THE BAT X has finally been released and is now available on our player pages. A shoutout goes to my friend Derek Carty for what I presume was a massive undertaking in developing the pitching side of his Statcast-driven THE BAT X model. Let’s all be selfishly thankful that he hasn’t been scooped up by a Major League team yet, allowing his analysis and projections to remain accessible.

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The Outfield episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Justin Mason

Strategy Section

• Diversification
  • Should you diversify your player shares?
    • At the top? In the middle? At the bottom?
• Kentucky Derby Selection (KDS)
  • What is KDS?
  • How should you set your KDS in 2026?
• Outfielders
  • General player pool observations
  • Which statistics should you look to draft from the OF position?
  • Differences between 3 OF leagues and 5 OF leagues

ATC Undervalued Outfielders

• Brent Rooker
• George Springer
• Teoscar Hernández
• Seiya Suzuki
• Andy Pages
• Taylor Ward
• Heliot Ramos
• Bryan Reynolds
• Chandler Simpson
• Mickey Moniak
• Willi Castro
• Brandon Marsh
• Other honerable mentions

Injury Update

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In a just released study, THE BAT X and Steamer were the two best original projection systems last year that were reviewed by FantasyPros and available on this very site. So let’s compare their individual hitter wOBA forecasts and discuss the hitters each is most optimistic on versus the other. Since most projection systems tend to produce similar results, especially the aggregates, it’s always fun to learn about the outliers in the original systems, as they could be the product of factors missed by the other systems or overvalued that leads to inaccurate forecasts.

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The Middle Infield episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Chris Towers

Strategy Section

• League format differences
  • How would your draft strategy change between?
    • Rotisserie (Roto) vs. HTH Points vs. HTH Categories
    • Waiver wire leagues vs. non-waiver wire (Draft Champions / Draft & Hold) leagues
    • Having IL slots vs. no IL slots
    • Large bench vs. small bench
    • Trading vs. non-trading leagues
    • Daily lineups vs. weekly lineups
• Middle Infielders
  • General player pool observations
  • Jacob Wilson as a fantasy starting shortstop
  • Which statistics should you look to draft from the MI position?

ATC Undervalued Middle Infielders

• Jeremy Pena
• Brice Turang
• Trevor Story
• Willy Adames
• Dansby Swanson
• Ezequiel Tovar
• Gleyber Torres
• Xander Bogaerts
• Masyn Winn
• Andrés Giménez
• Other honerable mentions

Injury Update

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The Corner Infield episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Mike Gianella

Strategy Section

• Multi-positional eligible players
  • Importance & use
  • Should you make a “do not draft” list?
  • Target multi-positional players? Or is it simply a tie-breaker?
  • How to value players who are expected to gain additional positional eligibility early on in the season?
• Colorado Rockies nostalgia
• Shallow vs. Deep positions
  • What is the weakest position this draft season?
• Narrow vs. Wide positions
• Corner Infielders
  • General player pool observations
  • Which statistics should you look to draft from the CI position?

ATC Undervalued Corner Infielders

• Freddie Freeman
• Yandy Díaz
• Alec Burleson
• Luis Arraez
• Alec Bohm
• Jake Burger
• Nolan Schanuel
• Miguel Vargas
• Andrew Vaughn
• Other honerable mentions

Injury Update

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The Player Analysis episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Lance Brozdowski

Personal History

• The future of Statcast broadcasts

Recent News

• Recent free agent signings
  • Kyle Tucker
  • Bo Bichette
• Will we see more short term / with opt outs / high AAV contracts going forward?

ATC Projections

• Accounting for fluke seasons
• Making adjustments to the projections
• Using the ATC Projections

Player Analysis

• Should we pay attention to players who “went to driveline?”
• Potential rookie pitcher breakouts
  • Trey Yesavage
  • Jonah Tong
  • Payton Tolle
  • Bubba Chandler
• Changes in pitchers’ pitch mix
  • Trends for 2026
  • The future of projections
  • Will pitchers focus on their best pitch, or spread around the mix more?
• Using Stuff+
• Using Bat speed
  • Minors vs. Majors

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The Catcher episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Ron Shandler

Fantasy Reconstructed

Strategy Section

• How do you prepare for fantasy baseball drafts?
  • Broad Assessment Balance Sheet (BABS)
    • BABS Risk Budget
  • Should you make a “do not draft” list?
• Risk
  • Precision vs. imprecision of fantasy baseball pricing
  • Evaluating player uncertainty
• Auction tactics – Ariel vs. Ron
  • DEBATE !
  • Pricing methods
  • Nomination strategy
• Drafting
  • “ADP Chicken”
  • How closely do you look at other teams’ rosters during drafts?
• Catchers
  • The catcher “bump” in pricing
  • This year’s catcher player pool and value distribution
  • Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
  • Where should you take Cal Raleigh in drafts?
  • Strategy differences between 2 catcher and 1 catcher leagues

BREAKING NEWS

• Kyle Tucker signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers

ATC Undervalued Catchers

• Salvador Perez
• Will Smith
• Alejandro Kirk
• Ryan Jeffers
• Bo Naylor

Injury Update

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The LIVE from First Pitch Arizona 2025! episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guests: Derek Carty & Tristan Cockcroft

Strategy Section

• Projections
  • Are projections more accurate in this more steady state of baseball?
  • Are projections more important to use than ever?
    • ADP is getting smarter
  • What are the best reasons to ignore projections?
  • Are postseason stats factored into projections?
• Outstanding rookies/prospects – 2026 outlook & drafts
  • Trey Yesavage
  • Cam Schlittler
• 2025 Postseason
  • World series wrap-up
  • Shohei Ohtani
    • All time game performance
    • 2026 outlook
• Stolen bases
  • Juan Soto & Josh Naylor
    • How many stolen bases will they regress to in 2026?
  • How can you identify players that will suddenly have a jump in stolen bases?
  • Do you have to “pay for steals” anymore in fanatsy baseball drafts?
    • Do you now have to “pay” for power in drafts?
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Aaron Judge
  • Are the Yankees wasting Judge’s best years?
  • Comparison to Albert Pujols
• Cal Raleigh
  • What round should Raleigh be drafted in?
  • What round will Raleigh be drafted in?
  • What rounds should you be drafting catchers in two catcher leagues?
• Injury Risk
  • Were we too low on the players that overcame injury risk in 2025 (Buxton, deGrom, Story, etc.)?
  • Yordan Alvarez & Spencer Strider – where should we be drafting them in 2026?
  • Expectations for pitchers who had a big innings jump in 2025
    • Yoshinobu Yamamoto
    • Bryan Woo
    • Garrett Crochet
  • How should last year’s innings totals be factored into 2026 innings projections?
  • Other injury risk pitchers for 2026

Audience Questions

2026 First Round

• Who is a player that will be drafted in the first round of 2026 that is undervalued?
• Who is a player that will be drafted in the first round of 2026 that is overvalued?
• Who is a player that will not be drafted in the first round of 2026 that should be?

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