Every NL Team’s Biggest Fantasy Bust

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.

Let’s review each National League team’s biggest disappointments. ADP is from NFBC Online Championship leagues drafted from March 1 – March 27, 153 total.

NL West

• Los Angeles Dodgers – (tie) Kyle Tucker, OF (13), Edwin Díaz, RP (33)
• San Diego Padres – Xander Bogaerts, SS (223)
• Arizona Diamondbacks – The Pitchers
• Colorado Rockies – Ezequiel Tovar, SS (209)
• San Francisco Giants – Too many to list

I certainly can’t fault anyone for rooting against the Dodgers, but many fantasy managers out there are able to remove their bias and make objective fantasy decisions. A healthy, second-round Tucker in that offense and arguably baseball’s most dominant closer (Díaz), available in the third round, on a team projected for most wins, seemed like reasonable draft targets. No one could have imagined that it would be this bad. Díaz has missed most of this season, having pitched just 13.2 innings, has a 11.85 ERA, and was demoted to a lower-leverage roll after coming off the injured list. The Tucker pain has been a slow burn all season. Other than a midsummer’s night back spasm, he doesn’t appear to be playing hurt, yet has continued struggling, with no explanation for his massive decline. Tucker’s typical .200+ ISO is down to .129, his 5.4% barrel rate is less than half of his previous career barrel rate, and his batting average is a career-worst .221, after mostly hovering in the .265-.295 range for most of his career. There will undoubtedly be a discount on both players next draft season, and it’s too early to confidently assess if they are worth targeting.

It’s been an all-around good season on the fantasy front for the San Diego Padres. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill have been stellar, Manny Machado (26 HR, 78 RBI) has bounced back from a horrific first half, and Ty France has been a FAAB godsend, finally settling in, in his hometown. On the pitching side, Mason Miller and Michael King have been worth every penny. The closest we have to a bust are Ramón Laureano, Xander Bogaerts, and Nick Pivetta. Laureano (ADP 225) played just 53 games and hit .203. Pivetta almost made it through four starts and missed most of the season. He was activated on Monday after a five-month delay and pitched five shutout innings and earned a win. Pivetta may be helpful over the next few weeks, but not to all managers who spent a top 100 pick and dropped him. Bogaerts has 20 stolen bases, but is hitting .219 — 40 points lower than the previous two seasons, and his .320 SLG is third-worst in baseball. Bogaerts drafters could have dropped him in April and not have blinked an eye.

At first, I had Ketel Marte as the Diamondbacks pick. It’s been a tumultuous season for his managers with his off-the-field drama and a slow first half, yet he is returning Round 10 value in 12-teamers at his Round 3 price and could heat up in these final few weeks. Corbin Carroll has been solid and Gabriel Moreno ($22.3, player # 36 on the Rater) has been incredible. Those of who thought it would be a good idea to target later-round D-Backs pitchers (ADP 200+) have been sorely disappointed. Zac Gallen had a 6.34 ERA with a meager 13.1% strikeout rate in 98 innings, Merrill Kelly and Ryne Nelson (out since June 15) have ERAs around 5.00, and Michael Soroka has missed two substantial chunks of the season. If we had any clue that Eduardo Rodriguez would be the star of the rotation, we probably would have been drafting him this preseason.

The Rockies big bust is Ezequiel Tovar, who ranks dead last among 140 qualified hitters in OBP (.258) and 135th in slugging percentage (.333).

The Giants have had several busts including Ryan Walker (142 ADP), Willy Adames (153), Matt Chapman (163). Even reliable starter Logan Webb (57) has been hurting managers of late, allowing between four and nine earned runs in five of his last 12 starts.

NL Central

• Milwaukee Brewers – Christian Yelich, OF (127)
• Chicago Cubs – Daniel Palencia, RP (87)
• Pittsburgh Pirates – Paul Skenes, SP (9)
• Cincinnati Reds – Eugenio Suárez, 3B (98)
• St. Louis Cardinals – Masyn Winn, SS (314)

Twelve-team NFBC OC drafters were slightly more bullish on Christian Yelich than 15-team Main Event drafters, where Yelich’s ADP was 145. His roto stat line of .239-60-10-50-11 is the antithesis of “production”. Worst of all, he has been borderline unstartable as a strong-side platoon bat the last couple of months, and he offers no lineup flexibility as a UT-only, having played just two games in the outfield this season. Freddy Peralta is no longer on the team, but he is easily an honorable mention as a bust at his 57 ADP. He did quite a lot of damage to fantasy squads this season as it was near impossible to convince ourselves to take him out of our lineups. I obnoxiously use the royal “we” here as I did not draft Freddy P.

Daniel Palencia did miss a giant chunk of the season, but is still my biggest bust for the Cubs due to his 87 ADP, which rose over the couple weeks of the WBC. Palencia has three saves this season and has allowed runs in four of his six low-leverage appearances since being activated from the IL on August 21. Shota Imanaga has a sub-4.00 ERA, but his managers will never forget that four-start stretch in the second half of May when he allowed 26 earned runs. The Cubs have three players in the top 50 of the Player Rater — Pete Crow-Armstrong (1), Seiya Suzuki (44), and Alex Bregman (50).

There is probably someone we all know, who isn’t the most savvy of fantasy managers, who will point to Skenes as an example and “remind” us how unwise it is to draft pitchers early, let alone the first round. His stats aren’t awful (10-11, 3.83 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 28.3% K, 7% BB), they’re just nowhere near first-round worthy. Moreover, Opening Day (9 H, 5 ER in 0.2 IP) was such a big disappointment and that cloud hung over his managers for the full season. Bubba Chandler (ADP 148) was much more polarizing and an easier pill to swallow. There will be fewer fans of Bubba among fantasy players next season when we all look at his walk rate and WHIP, currently 12% and 1.37, respectively.

Chase power with a declining profile and find out! That was the story for Suárez drafters, many of who knew the risks, but “really needed power” that round. Suárez ranks 312th on the Player Rater (PR), batting .209 and striking out at a 34.5% clip — the highest rate among hitters with at least 400 plate appearances. A strong honorable mention for Matt McLain (451 PA: .188-54-15-39-16) who is sure to suck some of us in again because of his 20/20 upside.

The Cardinals have been a bevy of fantasy goodness: Jordan Walker (343 ADP/5th on PR), Alec Burleson (174/20th), and Iván Herrera (182/31st) leading the way and JJ Wetherholt has been even better than advertised. Closer Riley O’Brien (265 ADP) leads the NL in saves. The only pickle someone could have gotten themselves into was drafting late-round Cardinals hitters like Masyn Winn (314) and Victor Scott II (324). At least Scott we dropped Scott early. Winn may have done some roto damage.

NL East

• Atlanta Braves – (tie), Ronald Acuña Jr., OF (5), Austin Riley, 3B (58)
• Philadelphia Phillies – Adolis García, OF (215)
• Washington Nationals – None
• Miami Marlins – Agustín Ramírez, C (88)
• New York Mets – Francisco Lindor, SS (25)

It’s a close call between Acuña and Riley. At least first-round drafters of Acuña knew exactly what we were getting into. I fully expected a big bounceback season from Riley, but he got Tuckeritis (or perhaps Tucker got Riloids). Riley is batting .223 with depressed power metrics, albeit still reasonable (12.3% BRL, 45% HH), but underlying metrics don’t pay the roto bills. At least he’s tripled his season-high in swipes, with nine and counting. If you believe in trends, then consider the fact that Acuña’s monster season comes every four years — 2019, 2023…2027? Please take it easy on me in the comments section, this is a joke. Unless it comes to fruition, in which case it’s serious.

We couldn’t really go wrong with drafting Phillies this year, unless it was a late-round outfielder not named Brandon Marsh, and even Marsh was only drafted in 20% of NFBC OCs. Adolis García’s season was over before it started and rookie Justin Crawford (.262-44-2-35-16) was barely start-worthy in 20-teamers or NL-only leagues.

Guess who knew that Nationals hitting coach Matt Borgschulte was a magician and that targeting Nats hitters was a goldmine strategy this year? No one! James Wood and CJ Abrams were certainly capable of being top hitters, but it was Borgschulte who unlocked it for them. Daylen Lile has increased his power production, smashing as many homers since the All-Star break (10) as before the break, in almost 200 fewer plate appearances. The closest we have to a bust is Clayton Beeter, who has just 12 saves as the team’s closer and has been beating ratios to death recently, allowing six earned runs in his last two appearances, ironically, not in save situations.

For the Marlins, it’s close between Agustín Ramírez and Jakob Marsee, but we’ll crown Ramírez here. Hindsight is 20/20, but many of us also chose to ignore exactly what was told to us — that he is a poor defensive catcher and that Joe Mack is their catcher of the future. We know Ramírez  can hit and can steal some bases, but doesn’t really have a position other than DH.

The Mets have a laundry list of busts, starting with Juan Soto (ADP 4), Lindor and most of the way down the line: Devin Williams (59), Luis Robert Jr. (106), Jorge Polanco (209), Marcus Semien (270) and Brett Baty (280). Carson Benge (ADP 259, 59th on PR) is the only truly profitable Mets player, while Nolan McLean and Bo Bichette have been hovering around their value line. Though a first-round Soto stings badly, the second/third-round Lindor is a slap in the face. He’s 370th on the Player Rater with a -$3.5 value. He’s batting .229 with a paltry 38 RBIs and three stolen bases after averaging 92 and 30 the last three seasons. Injuries have plagued Lindor, Soto and many members of this squad, which slightly excuses it, but should lead to an extra level of caution going into 2027 drafts.