2026 Fantasy Baseball: Buyer beware — these players are risky picks at their current ADP

· Yahoo Sports

When drafting and playing fantasy baseball, it can align with how we invest in anything. If we are more risk-averse, we’ll avoid risky players because of injury and skill concerns. However, the average draft position (ADP) and market have been more efficient, where it becomes sharper. Risk can be relative, and the risk probability tends to be higher if the draft price is higher. Often, we’ll hear a high-risk, high-reward player, which indicates a player with a high cost who possesses tons of upside. 

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We’ll touch on a few players within different ADP buckets, including inside the top 50 picks, within picks 51-100 and picks 101-150, based on Yahoo Fantasy baseball drafts. For some, it will be mostly injury risk based on their injuries continuing in 2026, or we might expect some regression. Often, risky prices tend to be related to gut feelings, which come from plenty of offseason research. 

After missing two months in 2024 with elbow and hamstring injuries, Bryan Woo shoved those injury concerns aside in 2025 to log 186 innings with 21 quality starts. He dealt with a pectoral injury in late September that kept him out through the rest of the regular season. With the Mariners in the postseason, Woo was eventually added to the ALCS roster, pitching in relief for 4.1 innings. 

Once again, we have a late-season injury that could impact him in 2026, but the draft market is paying up for his peak season. There’s no denying Woo’s skills, with a 22% K-BB%, 32% ball rate and 13.2% swinging-strike rate. If Woo hadn’t had the pectoral issue to close the 2025 season, we might have confidence at his draft price in the first four rounds. 

Pete Crow-Armstrong made crucial plays, especially with his bat, in the World Baseball Classic, providing recency bias. It was a tale of two halves for Crow-Armstrong in 2025, with 21 home runs, 25 stolen bases and a .262 batting average in the first half. Then the production plummeted to 10/10 with a .228 batting average in the second half. When we dive deeper into Crow-Armstrong’s skills, he had a nearly identical contact rate (74% versus 73%), with a 14.2% barrel rate in the first half and a 10.8% barrel rate in the second half.

Here's a look at Cubs OF Pete Crow-Armstrong's 15-game rolling averages over the past two seasons.

The home run luck went from a 17% home run per flyball rate (HR/F) in the first half to 10% in the second half. Furthermore, Crow-Armstrong’s stolen base attempts went from ridiculously high (51%) in the first half to quite often (29%) in the second half. There’s a chance Crow-Armstrong is a 25/25 player with a .250 batting average rather than a 30/30 player.

The biggest flaw in Crow-Armstrong’s profile is the plate discipline. 

He chased pitches 45.6% of the time outside the zone, 14 percentage points above the league norm. Crow-Armstrong tends to be an aggressive hitter who swings 11-12 percentage points more than the league average in zone and overall swing rates. That type of profile can age poorly, but he makes up for it by the pull-heavy (49%), flyball (47%) approach to tap into his career 10.8% barrel rate. Crow-Armstrong remains a high-risk, high-reward option at his draft cost, so know your investment preferences. 

We could bucket Francisco Lindor with Corbin Carroll, as both had hamate bone surgery in mid-February. Lindor had surgery on his left hand and Carroll on his right hand. Both Lindor and Carroll expect to be on the Opening Day roster, but the return timelines vary. Last season, four hitters had hamate bone surgeries. Two hitters missed 1-1.5 months, with Zack Gelof missing over three months. Ozzie Albies had surgery in late September, so it’s unknown when he would’ve been ready to return. 

In the previous seasons, the average time missed was 1-2 months. Lindor and Carroll have been elite fantasy producers, so this is more of a risky pick to temper expectations to begin the season. Be mindful of taking on too many early risks, since this isn’t about Lindor or Carroll’s skills. The shortstop pool is relatively deep, and we could say the same for outfield, depending on the league depth. 

At some point in the draft, Oneil Cruz looks appealing. Cruz’s 20/30 upside can make us drool like those free samples at Costco, especially when we’re hungry. Don’t be hungry for power and speed in drafts by staying balanced. Cruz went from 21 home runs, 22 stolen bases and a .259 batting average in 2024 to 20 home runs, 38 steals and a .200 batting average in 2025. We could argue that luck was in Cruz’s favor by seeing his BABIP fall by 85 points in 2025.

Here's a look at Pirates OF Oneil Cruz's 15-game rolling averages from the past two seasons.

Cruz’s 67-68% contact rate over the past two seasons was 9 percentage points below the league average. Besides the contact rate concerns, Cruz hits plenty of groundballs (48%), but crushes the ball when he elevates it. That’s evident by Cruz’s 99.4 mph average exit velocity on flyballs and line drives (EV on FB/LD), ranking third behind Shohei Ohtani (100.4 mph) and Kyle Schwarber (99.5 mph). Cruz’s exit velocities align with the elite bat speed (78.8 mph) and fast swing rate (78.4%).

Late in the season last year, Cruz was being sat against left-handed hitters. He was awful against lefties, with an 18 wRC+, 35.2% K% and .400 OPS across 125 plate appearances. If Cruz can be serviceable like he was in 2024, with an 85 wRC+, 30.5% K% and .686 OPS, we could stomach the lefty issues. In shallower formats, Cruz’s profile might not be so rocky and detrimental. However, Cruz is a risky ADP in most medium and deeper leagues based on the plate discipline and platoon concerns. 

It’s mainly about the shoulder issue that’s projecting Blake Snell to start the season on the injured list, especially within the top-100 picks. Snell missed four months last season with shoulder discomfort, which seemingly lingered into 2026. Anything shoulder, elbow or arm-related for a pitcher should raise the alarms. The skills remain similar, with Snell’s 18% K-BB%, 37% ball rate and 15.9% swinging-strike rate in 2025, within 1-2 percentage points from the career average.

Maybe Snell can be an injured list stash in shallower formats, but those can add up in deeper leagues. I tend to be cautious when there’s a repeat injury from the previous season as we head into the following year. That makes Snell a risky ADP bet. 

With Nico Hoerner, the risk is about paying up for a hitter who has only touched double-digit home runs once while stealing around 30 bases around pick 100. Sure, Hoerner’s profile comes with a career .282 batting average. However, Hoerner needs around 90 runs, 30+ stolen bases, and a .290 batting average to make him worth it. 

Here's a look at Hoerner's earned value in his player rater card via FanGraphs.

We’ve seen it in the past, so there’s a good chance it can happen again. My gut says be cautious, but the numbers point toward Hoerner being worth his draft cost, given the earned value in 12-team leagues. With Hoerner’s lack of power, fantasy managers need to build around that, especially in rotisserie or head-to-head category leagues. If it’s a points league, Hoerner is money with his elite plate discipline and on-base skills. 

Before we get into it, it should be noted that Yesavage will start the year on the IL with right-shoulder impingement. Some fantasy managers will still look to stash him, but they should know that recovery times for this injury vary. Pitchers can miss around two months on average; some can miss longer, while others can miss only 2-4 weeks.

Proceed with caution.

This might be a moot point after the first month of the season, but there have been talks about limiting Trey Yesavage’s workload this year. Yesavage’s skills supported his outcomes with a 3.48 xERA compared to his actual 3.21 ERA. He had mediocre control (35% ball rate) with a near-elite swinging-strike rate (15.9%). Somehow, Yesavage had a 1.43 WHIP from his 33% hit rate and control issues.

Yesavage is a unique pitcher. He throws from a 64-degree arm angle with a splitter that elicits a 30.2% swinging-strike rate. Among pitchers with 100 pitches thrown, only Jeremiah Estrada and Chris Flexen had higher arm angles. Yesavage throws a high-spin splitter (over 1,500 RPM), leading to a mediocre movement profile like Tobias Myers’ splitter and arm angle. A high spin splitter means it doesn’t generate downward movement we typically want from the pitch to elicit whiffs, once again, making Yesavage a unique pitcher.

Here's a look at the Blue Jays SP's movement profile from last season.

He throws sliders 45.1% of the time to right-handed hitters, but they were hit hard, with a .397 wOBA (.400 xwOBA). Like the splitter, Yesavage’s slider doesn’t pop from a movement profile standpoint, so he’ll need to locate the pitch well. However, there’s a good chance that Yesavage might struggle to command and locate his arsenal. 

Blue Jays SP Trey Yesavage's four-seam heatmap from 2025.

Although Yesavage’s four-seam has over 19 inches (19.5) of induced vertical break, he lacks extension (33rd percentile), so the heater can have a steep vertical approach angle, causing it to be somewhat ineffective. That’s evident in Yesavage’s four-seamer having a .351 wOBA (.377 xwOBA) against right-handed hitters and a .392 wOBA (.337 xwOBA) against lefties.

Yesavage’s splitter has been carrying his arsenal, but that can be volatile. Maybe Yesavage throws the splitter more and adjusts some of his pitch shapes to find success again in 2026, but it’s a bit more concerning under the hood once we look beyond the whiffs and splitter stuff. 

Like Snell, Tyler Glasnow dealt with shoulder issues in 2025. That caused Glasnow to miss two-plus months on the injured list with shoulder inflammation. Glasnow spent a week or so beyond his expected return date in 2025. Furthermore, Glasnow had lower back tightness (two weeks) and a sprained elbow (1.5 months) in 2024. The injury issues for Glasnow have been extensive, though the skills exist on a per-inning basis.

Here's a look at Glasnow's swing and miss percentage by season.

With the shoulder issues last season, Glasnow’s control fell to a 39% ball rate after being at 34% in the previous two seasons (2023-2024). Furthermore, Glasnow’s slider (16.5%) and curveball (17.6%) dipped from a 19-20% swinging-strike rate throughout his career. Interestingly, Glasnow’s curveball was dropping over 57 inches in 2025, six inches more than in 2024, but similar to his career norms. The slider had a similar velocity and movement profile with an additional inch of downward movement in 2025, though that’s likely insignificant. 

Be careful investing in Glasnow as a 9th- or 10th-round pick in 10-12 team leagues. 

In a previous article covering one stat from every AL team, we talked about how Carlos Estévez surprisingly accounted for 89% of the team’s saves in 2025. James McArthur (44%) and Lucas Erceg (27%) shared saves in 2024, with Scott Barlow (46.4%) leading the way in 2023. Something to note, now that Estévez is with the Royals.

When a pitcher’s fastball velocity drops by five or more mph, that’s significant. It’s a small sample of 18 four-seamers, but Estévez’s heater fell to 87.1 mph in spring training after being at 95.7 mph in 2025. 

There haven’t been any reports of Estévez dealing with an injury, so he might be way behind in his program or there’s an unreported injury. Avoid Estévez at cost unless some optimistic news arises, though we’ll still be skeptical.

[Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem: Make your picks for $50K in total prizes]

Admittedly, I’ve been a sucker for Raisel Iglesias because of his consistent role, skills and team context. Iglesias was shaky in the first half, with nine saves, 5.28 ERA, 1.37 WHIP and a 14.8% swinging-strike rate. However, he turned up the heat in the second half, with 20 saves, 1.47 ERA, 0.68 WHIP and 15.8% swinging-strike rate. Iglesias still throws a nasty changeup that elicits a 25.1% swinging-strike rate, with the slider generating a 17.5% swinging-strike rate in 2025. That’s within 1-2 percentage points of Iglesias’s career norms in swinging-strike rate via the changeup and slider. 

Here's a look at Iglesias' 15-game rolling averages over the past three seasons.

Beyond Iglesias’ role and skill, there have been concerns about the Braves adding Robert Suárez, who saved 76 games over the past two seasons as the Padres’ closer. We don’t expect Iglesias to share save opportunities with Suárez to begin the season. However, we could speculate that Suárez could eat into the save percentage if Iglesias struggles again in 2026.

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