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Ohtani is quite simply one of the greatest baseball players to ever walk the planet. If a shred of doubt remained, he did away with it with two all-time postseason performances: a three-homer game against the Brewers to clinch the NLCS that included six scoreless innings on the mound, likely the greatest single-game performance of all time, before he reached base a major-league postseason record nine times in Game 3 of the World Series. His 2025 regular season was a slight step backward from 2024, as he didn't go 50-50, managing 55 homers and a mere 20 stolen bases in 158 games. Still, he posted an OPS over 1.000 for the third consecutive season and cruised to his third straight MVP award (second straight in the National League). By the end of the campaign, he looked fully back in form on the pitching mound, though those that draft Ohtani in weekly leagues will still want to plan to use him in the UT spot most of the time.

The Mets missed the playoffs, but the first season of Soto's record 15-year, $765 million contract with the club has to be considered a resounding success, at least from an individual standpoint. He smacked a career-high 43 home runs, his second straight season clearing 40, and led all of Major League Baseball in walks with 127 during the regular season. Most surprisingly, Soto tied for fourth in the National League with 38 stolen bases, more than triple his previous career high of 12. The season was not free of adversity, as Soto hit below .220 in May and July, and he had former hitting coach Eric Chavez in his ear trying to get him to be more aggressive. Soto stuck with his approach and in the end was a finalist for NL MVP while earning his sixth career Silver Slugger. The steals seem largely fluky and a return to single digits is even possible given his bottom 13th percentile sprint speed, but everything else appears ultra safe, cementing one of the highest production floors on the board. Keep in mind Soto is still just entering his age-27 season.

The veteran shortstop has traditionally been a slow starter throughout his MLB career, but he came out of the gate hot in 2025 with an .886 OPS through his first 41 games. Lindor cooled off after that, however, and posted a .208/.278/.379 slash line in the next 74 contests before again catching fire in August and September. All told, he finished the regular season with 31 homers, 31 steals, 86 RBI, 117 runs and a .267/.346/.466 slash line in 732 plate appearances. Despite the in-season ups and downs, it was another highly productive campaign for Lindor, who has batted between .254 and .270 in each of the past four seasons while averaging 30 homers and 27 stolen bases during that span. Now entering his age-32 campaign, Lindor should push for another 30-30 season in 2026 and has plenty of upside for run production while batting atop a strong Mets lineup. He underwent a cleanup procedure on his elbow early in the offseason but should be ready to go for the start of spring training.

Carroll endured a disappointing 2024 campaign after being named the National League Rookie of the Year the prior season, but he bounced back in 2025 to deliver a career-high .884 OPS. The 25-year-old also posted career highs in homers (31) and RBI (84), along with 32 stolen bases and 107 runs scored. Carroll missed some time in the middle of the season due to a chip fracture in his wrist, but he still played in 143 games and was one of seven players to post a 30-30 season. In addition to the offensive production, he was one of the better defensive outfielders in MLB with plus-8 Defensive Runs Saved and plus-10 Outs Above Average. The increased power output appears to be sustainable since Carroll doubled his barrel rate to 14.5 percent and improved his hard-hit rate nine points to 49.9 percent in 2025. Now entering his fourth full MLB season, Carroll is a safe bet to deliver a third straight 20-20 campaign and has a realistic chance of repeating the 30-30 performance.

Whether fair or not, De La Cruz's 2025 season will be remembered by fantasy players for one thing above all: a 74-game stretch from late June to mid-September in which he hit just one home run. He still reached 22 homers for the season despite that power outage, but as a whole it was a step backward from his excellent sophomore campaign with the Reds. De La Cruz once again led the league in errors, leading to questions about his future at shortstop, and while he finished seventh in MLB in steals with 37, that was down from 67 the year prior. He showed some improvement with his strikeout rate, although he gave back some of those gains in the second half as his struggles mounted (28.2 K%, .666 OPS after the break). De La Cruz is an incredible athlete playing in a band-box park who's already established a sky-high ceiling entering his age-24 season, but there is now a new wave of questions surrounding him; did he simply bottom out down the stretch or was it indicative of something more? Will he make the next round of adjustments? Could a positional change affect his hitting?

Freeman reflected back on his 2024 season and liked it so much, he replicated most of it in 2025. It is uncanny how similar many of his statistics are between the two seasons. He remains a five-category producer from first base, although his days of stealing double-digit bases are essentially over due to his age and the ankle concerns from 2024. He has now hit 20-plus homers in each of the last nine full seasons of baseball while driving in at least 70 runs and scoring at least 80 runs in each of those seasons. He hasn't hit below .275 since 2012 and has hit .295 or better in nine of the last 10 seasons. His 114.1 mph maxEV, 10.4 Barrel% and 45.7 HardHit% were all up from 2024 and in line with his career norms. The closest thing to a red flag is that Freeman's 13.4 percent swinging-strike rate and 20.4 percent strikeout rate were abnormally high, so he appears to be sacrificing a little contact for bat speed. Freeman has two more years on his contract with the Dodgers, and while age-related decline could come at any point for the 36-year-old, that possibility is sufficiently factored into his redraft cost.

The veteran outfielder was sidelined for nearly the first two months of 2025 while finishing up his rehab from ACL surgery, and he hit the ground running with three homers in his first eight contests after making his season debut in late May. Acuna also missed some time midseason due to a calf strain but returned for the final six weeks of the campaign with no apparent issues. Acuna ended up playing in 95 games and totaled 21 home runs, nine stolen bases, 42 RBI and 74 runs scored with a .290/.417/.518 slash line. The steals total is particularly notable given that Acuna tallied 73 stolen bases during his last full season in 2023, but it's not a major surprise that he was limited on the basepaths in his first year back from knee surgery. Availability remains a bit of a concern since the outfielder has played 100 games in a season just twice in the past five years. Acuna is entering his age-28 campaign and could be one of the top fantasy players in baseball in 2026, but he'll need to stay healthy and ramp his activity on the basepaths back up.

Marte continued to be the most productive second baseman in baseball during 2025, with his 145 wRC+ leading qualified players at the position for a second straight year. The 32-year-old's run production (87 runs and 72 RBI) was a bit depressed since he played in just 126 games due to a hamstring injury that sidelined him for most of April, but he still clubbed 28 homers with a .283/.376/.517 slash line while posting a career-best walk rate (11.8 percent). Marte's batting average bottomed out at .240 in 2022, but he's hitting .283 over the past three years and is averaging nearly 30 homers per season. Marte is typically good for one stint on the injured list, but he's still averaging 137 games played across the past four seasons. That's worth keeping in mind as he enters his age-32 campaign, but Marte is still a safe bet to be one of the top second basemen in MLB again in 2026.

Machado saw his homer total decrease for a fourth straight campaign in 2025, though his 27 long balls still gave him 10 straight full-length seasons with at least 25 homers. The veteran third baseman was more active on the basepaths with his highest number of steals (14) since 2018, while his .275/.335/.460 slash line was almost exactly what he posted in 2024. Machado produced an .855 OPS across his first four years with San Diego, but over the past three years he has a .792 OPS. His 123 wRC+ in 2025 still ranked fourth among qualified third basemen, but it's worth noting the drop-off as he heads into his age-33 campaign. His durability remains a strength, as Machado has missed 12 games or fewer in 10 of the past 11 seasons. Additional regression doesn't appear to be imminent given his 51.4 percent hard-hit rate and 12.9 percent barrel rate last season, so Machado is a safe bet for another strong season in 2026, even if he isn't quite the MVP-level contributor he was earlier in his career.

Betts won a third straight Silver Slugger in 2024 in his first season working as a full-time shortstop, but he took a step back during the 2025 regular season with a .258/.326/.406 slash line in 150 games. He clubbed 20 homers during his age-32 campaign for the eighth time in his MLB career, though his eight stolen bases are the first time he's failed to reach double digits since playing just 52 games as a rookie in 2014. Betts batted leadoff or second for the Dodgers all season, which helped him rack up 82 RBI and 95 runs scored, but it was still the least productive year of his career. Betts struggled defensively at shortstop the previous two years, but he found his footing in 2025 and finished with plus-17 DRS and plus-5 OAA. He'll have single-position eligibility in 2026 after making just one appearance in the outfield. Betts' hard-hit rate dropped to a career-low 35.8 percent, though a .258 BABIP, .276 xBA and .435 xSLG indicate he may have deserved some better offensive results. Now entering his age-33 campaign, Betts has a decent floor for counting stats given Los Angeles' elite lineup, but he no longer appears to be the player that was a consistent MVP candidate.

Tatis finally produced a full season of results in his sixth year of playing at the big league level. Shoulder injuries and suspensions robbed him of playing time in previous seasons, but Tatis avoided those maladies in 2025 in an effort to get the Padres deep into October baseball. Those aspirations did not materialize, as the Padres were quickly eliminated from the postseason, but Tatis set new career highs in steals with 32 and runs with 111. The increased time on base (.368 OBP) helped both of those marks, as Tatis rediscovered his presuspension plate discipline and got back to accepting the walks to utilize his base-running abilities. The 42 homers from 2021 already were looking suspicious with the hindsight of his PED suspension, but 2025 saw Tatis hit at least 20 homers for a third consecutive postsuspension season as well as for the fourth time in his career. While he seems a little older, he turns 27 over the winter and will once again hit either first or second in the San Diego lineup. A repeat of his 25-25 season absolutely is possible and a 30-30 season is a stretch goal for this profile, but envisioning above and beyond that would be greedy.

After being limited to 73 games in 2024 due to lingering back issues that required surgery, Yelich played in 150 contests last season and finished with 29 homers, 16 steals, 103 RBI and 88 runs scored. His .264/.343/.452 slash line was a drop from the previous two seasons, but he offset that decrease with the improved counting stats, including his second career season of 100-plus RBI and his first year of more than 20 homers since 2019. Yelich primarily served as a designated hitter, but he could still have outfield eligibility for 2026 in some fantasy leagues since he made 19 appearances in left field. Despite the solid health in 2025, Yelich's durability remains somewhat of a concern as he enters his age-34 campaign, though he has played at least 140 games in three of the past four seasons. The MVP-level production is likely well behind him at this point, but Yelich has a solid floor as an above-average run producer, and seeing more time at designated hitter like he did in 2025 should help him to stay available.

Sale won the NL Cy Young Award in 2024 with arguably the best year of his career, but early in 2025 it looked like Father Time may have caught up to him in his age-36 season. The left-hander had a 6.17 ERA in his first five starts, but he quickly found his footing from there and gave up just nine earned runs in his next 10 starts before a ribcage fracture resulted in a two-month absence. Sale returned for the final month of the campaign and pitched well, finishing the season with a 2.58 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 165:32 K:BB across 125.2 innings. The numbers are comparable to his Cy Young campaign, which is remarkable given how poorly he pitched early on. He can obviously still sling it, but availability is a major concern, especially considering that he turns 37 years old in March. Sale has made more than 20 starts in a season just once since 2019 and hasn't had a 30-start season since 2017, so fantasy managers should expect him to miss time at some point in 2026.

Sanchez followed his breakout 2024 campaign with an even stronger effort in 2025. Paul Skenes, in another year, would have been a unanimous choice for NL Cy Young, but Sanchez as well as Yoshinobu Yamamoto peeled away a few votes once everything was tallied. Sanchez was one of just three starters to work at least 200 innings while posting the fifth-best ERA of all qualified pitchers and ninth-best K-BB percentage. He had as many scoreless outings (four) as he had outings in which he allowed four or more earned runs while also striking out 11 or more batters in four other contests. A more stabile Philadelphia bullpen likely would have helped Sanchez win more than just 13 of his 32 starts, but only free agents get to choose their teammates. Sanchez won just two of his final nine starts despite a 2.83 ERA and 61 strikeouts to just nine walks over 57.1 innings, as the Phillies struggled down the stretch. Sanchez has missed one start over the last three seasons and should once again be in contention for the NL Cy Young Award in 2026. Next time someone says the Rays win every trade, remind them the club gave away Sanchez for Curtis Mead, and walk away laughing (or crying.)

Pivetta truthers were finally able to rejoice in 2025, as the enigmatic pitcher finally put together the season prognosticators and fans believed Pivetta could put together on an annual basis. The hurler crossed the country in free agency and found a home in San Diego, where he set career highs in wins, ERA, quality starts, strikeouts and, most importantly, his lowest home run total as a starter. Pivetta has long teased about his potential with strikeouts and control, but command issues in the strikezone along with the unforgiving run environments of Philadelphia and Boston led to too many home runs and annual ERAs over 4.00. Petco Park and the marine layer helped him put it all together, as Pivetta was able to avoid everything that had ailed him in the past. He adjusted his repertoire to include seven pitch types, and now throws at least five different pitches to both righties and lefties. The .235 BABIP and 79 percent LOB percentage are both career bests, so it would be wise to bake in some regression for 2026 and at least look for something halfway between 2024 and 2025 results.

Webb continues to be one of the most reliable starting pitchers in baseball, as he delivered his third consecutive 200-inning campaign in 2025, and he's the only pitcher in baseball to reach that threshold multiple times in the past three years. Across 34 starts last season, he finished with a 3.22 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and 224:46 K:BB. The ERA was his best since 2022, and he produced a career-high 9.7 K/9 (up from 7.6 in 2024) while also tying his career high with 15 wins. The boost to strikeouts and the win column was a welcome sight for fantasy managers since those two areas are Webb's weakest. He's entering his age-29 campaign and doesn't offer quite as much upside as other ace-level pitchers given that he's less reliant on strikeouts, but Webb's durability still makes him an elite starting option in an era without many dependable, high-volume arms.

Gray reached the 200-strikeout plateau in 2025 for the second straight season and third time in his career. His 21.6 percent K-BB rate was the second-best mark in the National League, trailing only Paul Skenes. Unfortunately, Gray underperformed relative to his ERA indicators for the second year in a row, finishing with a 4.28 ERA that was nearly a full run worse than his 3.29 SIERA. A .329 BABIP can be partly to blame, as it's the first time since 2018 that Gray's BABIP wasn't under .300. The 36-year-old's four-seamer velocity dipped to a career-low 91.7 mph, and the pitch was responsible for a bloated .439 xwOBA. The good news is Gray has such a varied arsenal that he doesn't need a standout heater, and his sweeper remains an elite pitch. Gray might get traded to a contender, which would likely be a ballpark downgrade but an upgrade for wins potential.

The 2025 season was an odd one for Senga. He got off to a superb start, collecting a 1.47 ERA and 70:31 K:BB across 73.2 innings covering his first 13 outings. Senga strained his hamstring in that 13th outing, which held him out of action for a month, and he looked lost upon his return, posting a 5.90 ERA over nine starts before being shockingly demoted to Triple-A Syracuse. The smart money is on the hamstring issue throwing Senga's mechanics off and him being unable to right that ship, but even when Senga was healthy early in the season, the strikeouts were down and the control was iffy. The Ghost Fork remained a deadly pitch for Senga in 2025 (.210 xwOBA, 41.8 percent whiff rate), but the league didn't have trouble with the rest of his repertoire. He'll likely be better in 2026 if he can stay off the injured list, but Senga might have peaked in his rookie season.

Schwellenbach made modest improvements to his ERA (3.09), WHIP (0.97) and walk rate (4.1 percent) in 2025, but he was limited to just 17 starts due to a season-ending elbow fracture he sustained in late June. The right-hander was back to throwing before the end of the season and should be healthy to open 2026, but the injury derailed a campaign with high expectations coming off a breakout rookie season in 2024. The encouraging news going forward is that Schwellenbach dealt with a fracture rather than a ligament issue, especially considering that the right-hander already underwent Tommy John surgery a few years ago. He has yet to establish himself with a full season in a big-league rotation, but Schwellenbach has about as much upside as any pitcher with a 3.23 ERA through 38 career starts. If he can stay healthy in 2026, he should be a top-end starter in Atlanta's rotation.

Contreras played through a left middle finger fracture for much of the 2025 season, which may have contributed to his downtick in production. The veteran backstop won the Silver Slugger in 2023 and 2024 but saw his slash line drop to .260/.355/.399 last season, with that slugging percentage being a reduction of over 50 points from the previous two years. He finished with 17 home runs, 28 doubles, 76 RBI and 89 runs, all of which were notable drops from his 2024 production. Despite the injury, Contreras finished third among qualified catchers with 659 plate appearances, and he's likely to have one of the heaviest catching workloads in the league again in 2026. He's entering his age-28 campaign and seems likely to return to his prior level of production once healthy, since Contreras had near-identical OPS's of .825 and .831 in 2023 and 2024, respectively. He'll likely begin 2026 as the No. 1 catcher in the National League.

Every season, one hitter breaks out in Colorado. Nolan Jones did so in 2023 and Brenton Doyle did so in 2024. Few people had Goodman as the 2025 breakout, but the masher was one of the lone bright spots for an otherwise dreadful Colorado club. We knew Goodman had power as he hit 36 home runs in 2022 and 34 homers in 2023 in the Colorado farm system, but a lot of that came in friendly parks and his abysmal showing at the big league level in 2024 scared many away. The thing about Colorado is the depth chart is very fluid, which is how these breakouts continue to happen. Goodman got off to a hot start with 5 homers and a .268 average in the first mont of the season and hit between 5-7 homers every month but May over the course of the season. he slightly improved his strikeout rate while drawing a few more walks while hitting 18 of his 31 homers away from Coors. His big improvement in batting average was helped by him hitting .307 at home compared to .248 on the road, and by season's end, only Cal Raleigh was more valuable at the catching position than Goodman was for fantasy managers. The thing about these Colorado breakouts is both Jones and Doyle flopped the following season, so it will be interesting to see what Goodman does as a follow-up as well as who is next in Denver.

Kelly got off to a scorching hot start in 2025, which put him squarely on the fantasy radar, though he did fall off as the year went on. The catcher was sporting a 1.347 OPS with seven home runs and 21 RBI through the end of April, and the scintillating numbers forced the Cubs to keep Kelly in the lineup over Miguel Amaya on a regular basis. Not surprisingly, Kelly slowed down with an OPS below .700 in four of the next five months to round out the season. However, Amaya couldn't stay healthy and only ended up playing in 26 games, which allowed Kelly to match his career high of 111 games played as Chicago's clear No. 1 backstop. The veteran is under contract with the Cubs again in 2026, so he should once more have a sizeable role, particularly if Amaya continues to deal with injuries. That will give Kelly some fantasy appeal, though he's a career .229 hitter with a .696 OPS, so the first month of 2025 looks like an outlier and not a preview of what's to come.

The Cardinals did not set out to have Pages lead them in starts at catcher each of the last two seasons, but that's what happened. In 2025, Willson Contreras made a full-time move to first base and Ivan Herrera spent most of the year either injured or at designated hitter, leaving Pages to shoulder the catching load. He earned a plus-6 in Statcast's Catching Runs and managed to pop 11 home runs across 389 plate appearances, but Pages' .272 on-base percentage and wRC+ of 77 wasn't pretty. The Cardinals' plan, again, is to feature others ahead of Pages at catcher in 2026, but you know what they say about best-laid plans.

Davis is heading down a path former teammate Austin Hedges blazed before him. Davis is now 660 plate appearances into a major league career and has a .181/.262/.294 line to show for it with terrible strikeout rates for the return on investment in his production. His stolen base prevention keeps Davis around because, like Hedges, Davis can throw frozen ropes to the bases. The struggles hitting major league hitting continue to be frustrating as Davis hit .337 in college for Louisville and .290/.407/.529 in over 800 minor league appearances. The bat speed remains for Davis, but the results must still be lost on the side of the road between Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh depth chart at catching includes himself, Endy Rodriguez, and Joey Bart, the last of which is out of options. Unless Bart is dealt somewhere, Davis feels destined for a return to Indianapolis to work on his swing. Something needs to change in a hurry for the chasm between the expectations for Davis and reality grows too far to bridge.

Freeman reflected back on his 2024 season and liked it so much, he replicated most of it in 2025. It is uncanny how similar many of his statistics are between the two seasons. He remains a five-category producer from first base, although his days of stealing double-digit bases are essentially over due to his age and the ankle concerns from 2024. He has now hit 20-plus homers in each of the last nine full seasons of baseball while driving in at least 70 runs and scoring at least 80 runs in each of those seasons. He hasn't hit below .275 since 2012 and has hit .295 or better in nine of the last 10 seasons. His 114.1 mph maxEV, 10.4 Barrel% and 45.7 HardHit% were all up from 2024 and in line with his career norms. The closest thing to a red flag is that Freeman's 13.4 percent swinging-strike rate and 20.4 percent strikeout rate were abnormally high, so he appears to be sacrificing a little contact for bat speed. Freeman has two more years on his contract with the Dodgers, and while age-related decline could come at any point for the 36-year-old, that possibility is sufficiently factored into his redraft cost.

Harper once again failed to reach the 150-game plateau, having last done so in a full season back in 2019. He has suffered a variety of injuries from one requiring Tommy John Surgery to dealing with a left thumb fracture, a left forearm injury, a left hamstring injury, and, most recently, wrist inflammation, which kept him out most of the month of June. Despite the injuries, Harper remains a five-category producer, although the missed time limits how much he excels in any one of those categories. The 2025 season was more about quantity than quality, because Harper did not excel in any one offensive category as much as he did even in 2024. The wrist soreness was no doubt a factor in the decline at the plate, but his approach and discipline remained intact even if his ability to hit the ball as hard as he normally would waned. There is little reason to believe that 2025 is a warning of a slowdown for Harper, because had he remained on the field as much as he did in 2024, he would have likely exceeded that season's production. He remains one of the better options at first base in fantasy baseball as long as you do not yearn for his pre-Covid production levels.

Contreras opted to stick around in 2025 during the Cardinals' rebuild, and in order to do so he agreed to move to first base. The hope was that a full-time move off of catcher could unlock more offensively from the 33-year-old. It didn't exactly happen, at least from a rate stats perspective, as Contreras' OPS dipped below .800 for the first time in four seasons. However, part of the benefit of not playing catcher anymore meant better health and more playing time for Contreras, who netted career highs in RBI (80), doubles (31) and runs (70). Unfortunately, he no longer has catcher eligibility, and at first base Contreras is more of an average fantasy option, especially when factoring in his pitcher-friendly home park and middling supporting cast.

Last year was a big win for those in dynasty leagues betting on Stewart's high-end hit tool eventually unlocking above-average or better power. He closed the year hitting 15 home runs in 56 games across Triple-A and the majors, logging a .315 ISO in the International League and a .291 ISO in MLB as he logged career-best groundball rates below 38 percent at each stop. He has been a remarkably strong hitter throughout his pro career, logging strikeout rates below 18 percent, a batting average over .275 and a wRC+ over 125 at every minor-league stop en route to his big-league debut Sept. 1. He slashed .255/.291/.545 with a 5.2 percent walk rate and 25.9 percent strikeout rate. His xSlash of .296/.412/.651 and 52.5 HardHit% portend a strong sophomore campaign, as he'll likely strike out less and walk more in his age-22 season. Stewart, who enters the year eligible at first base, can play third, second and first, although it's possible he gets a good deal of run at designated hitter in 2026. He has stolen between 10 and 17 bases each of the last three years in the minors, but he didn't attempt a steal in the majors and is an average runner at best.

Marte continued to be the most productive second baseman in baseball during 2025, with his 145 wRC+ leading qualified players at the position for a second straight year. The 32-year-old's run production (87 runs and 72 RBI) was a bit depressed since he played in just 126 games due to a hamstring injury that sidelined him for most of April, but he still clubbed 28 homers with a .283/.376/.517 slash line while posting a career-best walk rate (11.8 percent). Marte's batting average bottomed out at .240 in 2022, but he's hitting .283 over the past three years and is averaging nearly 30 homers per season. Marte is typically good for one stint on the injured list, but he's still averaging 137 games played across the past four seasons. That's worth keeping in mind as he enters his age-32 campaign, but Marte is still a safe bet to be one of the top second basemen in MLB again in 2026.

Hoerner hasn't embraced a slugging mentality like many MLB players have in recent years, but he still has a place in fantasy lineups. That's largely due to his speed, as Hoerner swiped 29 bases in 2025, and he now has 103 steals over the past three years. The infielder has also been a consistently good contact hitter. He batted .297 last year and is a career .282 hitter. The Cubs don't always put Hoerner atop the order, opting instead to roll with Michael Busch regularly in 2025, at least against righties. However, Hoerner profiles as a traditional leadoff option, and his ability to get on base, tally steals and score plenty of runs makes him an intriguing player from any spot in a strong Chicago lineup. Drafting Hoerner means looking for power elsewhere, but the 28-year-old has plenty of fantasy appeal heading into 2026, and his outlook would get a boost if he manages to bat first most days.

Turang's main fantasy value in 2024 came from steals (50) while also providing a solid batting average (.254) and runs (72), but he was a much more well-rounded contributor last season. The second baseman posted a .288/.359/.435 slash line with 18 home runs, 24 stolen bases, 81 RBI and 92 runs in 156 games in 2025, with the power output being especially surprising after hitting just seven long balls the previous season. That power production was mostly limited to one month, however, as he caught fire in August with 10 homers and a .343 average. Still, Turang made significant strides in quality of contact and improved his hard-hit rate nearly 18 points to 47.4 percent and his average exit velocity over four ticks to 91.1 mph. The improved contact may have been due to taking harder swings (his bat speed went up more than four mph to 70.7 mph), though his strikeout rate also increased almost six points to 22.8 percent. The increased swing-and-miss was certainly worth the tradeoff for more power, and it positions Turang to potentially becoming one of the most productive second basemen in MLB. Even if he doesn't become a regular 20-homer guy, he'll still offer a ton of fantasy upside as a speedster with a high average, especially if he can get his steals back up to his elite production in 2024.

Albies could at least partly blame his disappointing 2024 season on injury. He didn't have that excuse in 2025, however, and he was even worse, finishing with just a .671 OPS and wRC+ of 87. After reaching the 30-homer mark in each of his previous two full seasons, the 29-year-old hit only 16 long balls across 667 plate appearances before his year ended with a fractured hamate bone during the final week of the season. Albies' batted-ball data has always been underwhelming, but his hard-hit rate (30.7 percent), barrel rate (4.9 percent) and average exit velocity (87.5 mph) in 2025 were all easily his lowest over the past three campaigns. He'll be recovered from hamate surgery well ahead of Opening Day, and Albies should be too young to be entering a decline phase of his career. That would seem to point to a bounce-back year in 2026, but it's hard to believe that with conviction for a guy who has disappointed in three of the last four seasons.

Donovan got off to a terrific start last season, slashing .329/.390/.469 with four home runs and three stolen bases through the first two months. He then suffered a turf toe injury in early June that nagged at him, and a groin strain in the second half was blamed on compensating for the toe issue. The 29-year-old wound up hitting a pedestrian .251/.321/.381 over the final four months before eventually being shut down late in the year after the groin issue resurfaced. Donovan then had offseason surgery to repair a sports hernia. His final numbers in 2025 were right in line with his career norms, but it's fair to wonder if injury prevented Donovan from his best offensive season. Even if that were the case, Donovan is mostly a batting average specialist for fantasy purposes, as he doesn't run and his power is limited.

Machado saw his homer total decrease for a fourth straight campaign in 2025, though his 27 long balls still gave him 10 straight full-length seasons with at least 25 homers. The veteran third baseman was more active on the basepaths with his highest number of steals (14) since 2018, while his .275/.335/.460 slash line was almost exactly what he posted in 2024. Machado produced an .855 OPS across his first four years with San Diego, but over the past three years he has a .792 OPS. His 123 wRC+ in 2025 still ranked fourth among qualified third basemen, but it's worth noting the drop-off as he heads into his age-33 campaign. His durability remains a strength, as Machado has missed 12 games or fewer in 10 of the past 11 seasons. Additional regression doesn't appear to be imminent given his 51.4 percent hard-hit rate and 12.9 percent barrel rate last season, so Machado is a safe bet for another strong season in 2026, even if he isn't quite the MVP-level contributor he was earlier in his career.

A player, young or old, is healthy until they are not. Riley was a model of consistency with health his first three full seasons in the majors, as he avoided the injured list from 2021 through 2023. He has, however, made up for lost time each of the past two seasons by missing 110 games with a fractured hand in 2024 and three separate core injuries in 2025, which required him to have sports hernia surgery in August that ended his season. Riley still stings a baseball as well as any hitter in baseball and has power to all fields as a solid four-category producer from the hot corner. Strikeouts limit the possibility of his batting average getting back over .300 as it did in 2021, but his hard contact also helps his batted balls find safe spaces, limiting his batting average floor. The missed time over the past two season has impacted Riley's market value, and he should no longer require a third-round pick to get on your roster, but he retains the ability to produce like a top-30 overall pick if he can avoid the injured list this season.

The Cardinals' attempts to trade Arenado last offseason failed, and then Arenado failed to bounce back from a disappointing 2024 season with an even worse showing in 2025. For the second year in a row, Arenado finished with an xwOBA below .300, and his average exit velocity also ranked in the bottom-10 percentile for the second straight year. He remains an elite contact hitter, but not even an 11.2 percent strikeout rate could buoy Arenado's batting average, which tumbled to a career-low .237. A shoulder injury limited Arenado to only 23 games in the second half and likely hampered him before that, but it would be a stretch to assign much blame for Arenado's downfall to that injury. He simply looks like a player who no longer has much juice in his bat in his mid-30s.

While there were definite growing pains during Shaw's rookie season in 2025, there were also plenty of flashes of promise. The young infielder started slowly and was batting just .172 at the end of April, which got him sent back down to Triple-A Iowa, but he was recalled in early May and batted .359 in the month. However, Shaw wouldn't bat above .240 in a month again the rest of the year, which highlighted his volatility as a player just getting his feet wet in the majors. When he did make contact, the 24-year-old displayed an encouraging mix of power and speed, and he finished with 13 home runs and 17 stolen bases. Shaw batted .284 with a .379 on-base percentage across two minor-league stops in 2024, and if he can carry more of that over to the MLB level in 2026, a big step forward is possible in his sophomore campaign, potentially pushing toward 25 homers and 25 steals if everything breaks right.

Questions about his hit tool have always followed House around, and those questions won't go away after the third baseman's poor showing during his first stint in the big leagues. House's wRC+ of 56 represented the sixth-lowest mark out of 309 players to accrue at least 250 plate appearances. He was uber-aggressive - which is nothing new for the young infielder - sporting a 57.2 percent swing rate and a whopping 50.7 percent swing rate at first pitches (the league average was 30.1 percent). A 28.5 percent strikeout rate and 2.9 percent walk rate wasn't pretty, and while House did sport a healthy 46.3 percent hard-hit rate, his 4.3 percent barrel rate and 89.8 mph average exit velocity were less impressive. The big power remains, but it's a low probability that he'll get on base enough for it to matter. Working in House's favor is that he won't turn 23 until June, he's a good defender at third base and the Nationals have time to be patient with him.

The veteran shortstop has traditionally been a slow starter throughout his MLB career, but he came out of the gate hot in 2025 with an .886 OPS through his first 41 games. Lindor cooled off after that, however, and posted a .208/.278/.379 slash line in the next 74 contests before again catching fire in August and September. All told, he finished the regular season with 31 homers, 31 steals, 86 RBI, 117 runs and a .267/.346/.466 slash line in 732 plate appearances. Despite the in-season ups and downs, it was another highly productive campaign for Lindor, who has batted between .254 and .270 in each of the past four seasons while averaging 30 homers and 27 stolen bases during that span. Now entering his age-32 campaign, Lindor should push for another 30-30 season in 2026 and has plenty of upside for run production while batting atop a strong Mets lineup. He underwent a cleanup procedure on his elbow early in the offseason but should be ready to go for the start of spring training.

Whether fair or not, De La Cruz's 2025 season will be remembered by fantasy players for one thing above all: a 74-game stretch from late June to mid-September in which he hit just one home run. He still reached 22 homers for the season despite that power outage, but as a whole it was a step backward from his excellent sophomore campaign with the Reds. De La Cruz once again led the league in errors, leading to questions about his future at shortstop, and while he finished seventh in MLB in steals with 37, that was down from 67 the year prior. He showed some improvement with his strikeout rate, although he gave back some of those gains in the second half as his struggles mounted (28.2 K%, .666 OPS after the break). De La Cruz is an incredible athlete playing in a band-box park who's already established a sky-high ceiling entering his age-24 season, but there is now a new wave of questions surrounding him; did he simply bottom out down the stretch or was it indicative of something more? Will he make the next round of adjustments? Could a positional change affect his hitting?

Betts won a third straight Silver Slugger in 2024 in his first season working as a full-time shortstop, but he took a step back during the 2025 regular season with a .258/.326/.406 slash line in 150 games. He clubbed 20 homers during his age-32 campaign for the eighth time in his MLB career, though his eight stolen bases are the first time he's failed to reach double digits since playing just 52 games as a rookie in 2014. Betts batted leadoff or second for the Dodgers all season, which helped him rack up 82 RBI and 95 runs scored, but it was still the least productive year of his career. Betts struggled defensively at shortstop the previous two years, but he found his footing in 2025 and finished with plus-17 DRS and plus-5 OAA. He'll have single-position eligibility in 2026 after making just one appearance in the outfield. Betts' hard-hit rate dropped to a career-low 35.8 percent, though a .258 BABIP, .276 xBA and .435 xSLG indicate he may have deserved some better offensive results. Now entering his age-33 campaign, Betts has a decent floor for counting stats given Los Angeles' elite lineup, but he no longer appears to be the player that was a consistent MVP candidate.

It was mostly more of the same for Swanson in 2025, which resulted in another solid fantasy campaign for the veteran shortstop. The 31-year-old hit 24 home runs, and he's now reached the 20-homer plateau four times over the past five seasons. He also tallied 77 RBI and posted a .717 OPS, both of which were in line with his typical numbers. Perhaps the most promising aspect of Swanson's 2025 campaign was his career-high 20 stolen bases. Since the start of the 2024 season, he's swiped 39 bases, which is more than he had in the prior three years combined. There are certainly shortstops with higher ceilings, and Swanson isn't getting any younger, but there's still plenty here to like. He plays nearly every day, and as long as Swanson approaches 20 homers and steals again in 2026, he should remain a useful fantasy option with a fairly reliable floor.

Winn did not take the step forward offensively in 2025 that many were hoping to see, instead watching his production tick down across the board. The question is how much of a role a right knee injury played in his offensive struggles. Winn reportedly began feeling soreness in the knee in late May/early June, and he finished the first two months of the season with a healthy .276/.352/.435 batting line and six home runs. The 24-year-old then slashed just .240/.287/.324 with three long balls the rest of the way before eventually succumbing to meniscus surgery in late September. Winn is expected to be ready to roll for the 2026 campaign, and with health he should bounce back to some degree. He could be more accumulator than upside play, however, as Winn's power has always been middling, and he hasn't been much of a stolen-base threat since Double-A in 2022.

The Mets missed the playoffs, but the first season of Soto's record 15-year, $765 million contract with the club has to be considered a resounding success, at least from an individual standpoint. He smacked a career-high 43 home runs, his second straight season clearing 40, and led all of Major League Baseball in walks with 127 during the regular season. Most surprisingly, Soto tied for fourth in the National League with 38 stolen bases, more than triple his previous career high of 12. The season was not free of adversity, as Soto hit below .220 in May and July, and he had former hitting coach Eric Chavez in his ear trying to get him to be more aggressive. Soto stuck with his approach and in the end was a finalist for NL MVP while earning his sixth career Silver Slugger. The steals seem largely fluky and a return to single digits is even possible given his bottom 13th percentile sprint speed, but everything else appears ultra safe, cementing one of the highest production floors on the board. Keep in mind Soto is still just entering his age-27 season.

Carroll endured a disappointing 2024 campaign after being named the National League Rookie of the Year the prior season, but he bounced back in 2025 to deliver a career-high .884 OPS. The 25-year-old also posted career highs in homers (31) and RBI (84), along with 32 stolen bases and 107 runs scored. Carroll missed some time in the middle of the season due to a chip fracture in his wrist, but he still played in 143 games and was one of seven players to post a 30-30 season. In addition to the offensive production, he was one of the better defensive outfielders in MLB with plus-8 Defensive Runs Saved and plus-10 Outs Above Average. The increased power output appears to be sustainable since Carroll doubled his barrel rate to 14.5 percent and improved his hard-hit rate nine points to 49.9 percent in 2025. Now entering his fourth full MLB season, Carroll is a safe bet to deliver a third straight 20-20 campaign and has a realistic chance of repeating the 30-30 performance.

The veteran outfielder was sidelined for nearly the first two months of 2025 while finishing up his rehab from ACL surgery, and he hit the ground running with three homers in his first eight contests after making his season debut in late May. Acuna also missed some time midseason due to a calf strain but returned for the final six weeks of the campaign with no apparent issues. Acuna ended up playing in 95 games and totaled 21 home runs, nine stolen bases, 42 RBI and 74 runs scored with a .290/.417/.518 slash line. The steals total is particularly notable given that Acuna tallied 73 stolen bases during his last full season in 2023, but it's not a major surprise that he was limited on the basepaths in his first year back from knee surgery. Availability remains a bit of a concern since the outfielder has played 100 games in a season just twice in the past five years. Acuna is entering his age-28 campaign and could be one of the top fantasy players in baseball in 2026, but he'll need to stay healthy and ramp his activity on the basepaths back up.

Tatis finally produced a full season of results in his sixth year of playing at the big league level. Shoulder injuries and suspensions robbed him of playing time in previous seasons, but Tatis avoided those maladies in 2025 in an effort to get the Padres deep into October baseball. Those aspirations did not materialize, as the Padres were quickly eliminated from the postseason, but Tatis set new career highs in steals with 32 and runs with 111. The increased time on base (.368 OBP) helped both of those marks, as Tatis rediscovered his presuspension plate discipline and got back to accepting the walks to utilize his base-running abilities. The 42 homers from 2021 already were looking suspicious with the hindsight of his PED suspension, but 2025 saw Tatis hit at least 20 homers for a third consecutive postsuspension season as well as for the fourth time in his career. While he seems a little older, he turns 27 over the winter and will once again hit either first or second in the San Diego lineup. A repeat of his 25-25 season absolutely is possible and a 30-30 season is a stretch goal for this profile, but envisioning above and beyond that would be greedy.

It took four seasons, but Suzuki finally came through on the power numbers fantasy managers and Chicago fans have been pining for since the slugger came over from the JPL prior to the 2022 season. Suzuki leaned into a heavier elevate-and-celebrate approach as career highs in Pull percentage and FlyBall percentage led to career-best totals in home runs and RBI. The new approach came with the tax of his batting average, which declined nearly 40 points from where it had been the two seasons prior, which simply dropped his batting average down to a league-average level.The trade-off for increased run production was likely worth it to many fantasy managers who also enjoyed Suzuki avoiding the injured list for the first time in his major league career. He now enters the final year of his initial contract with the Cubs, so if you are a believer in contract year magic, especially after watching what Kyle Schwarber just did in his walk year, this is a 2026 target for you. Realistically, his 2025 performance is repeatable, while 40 homers would be a super stretch goal.

Hernandez re-signed with the Dodgers last winter after clubbing 33 homers with an .840 OPS in 2024, but he regressed in 2025 and finished with 25 home runs and a .738 OPS, with the latter mark being the worst since his rookie campaign. He still drove in 89 runs and set a career-best 24.6 percent strikeout rate, but the outfielder scored just 65 times as his walk rate cratered to a career-low 4.8 percent. Hernandez's batted-ball numbers were largely the same as the previous season, with a .260 xBA and and .462 xSLG in 2025 indicating he could be due for some better results in 2026. He has seven consecutive seasons of 20-plus homers (discounting the shortened 2020 campaign), but he's otherwise been a bit inconsistent year-to-year. However, Hernandez has a solid floor for counting stats while batting in the middle of Los Angeles' potent lineup -- especially given his solid .261 average since the start of 2022 -- and he has clear 30-homer, 100-RBI upside.

Nimmo's transformation from table setter to middle-of-the-order slugger appears to be complete. His walk rate fell to a career-low 7.7 percent in 2025, and it dragged his on-base percentage (.324) along with it. However, Nimmo also set new career highs in home runs (25) and RBI (92), and his batting average returned to a respectable .262 following a major dip in 2024 (.224). Additionally, while Juan Soto's 38 steals understandably drew most of the headlines, Nimmo quietly reached double digits in stolen bases for the second year in a row under the guidance of baserunning coach guru Antoan Richardson. Nimmo dealt with plantar fasciitis in 2024 and still felt it last offseason, but he wound up playing more than 150 games for the fourth season in a row. He's firmly established as a five-category contributor and will have a good supporting cast again in 2026.

The veteran Happ has turned into a consistent fantasy performer who can contribute a little bit of something across the board. The 31-year-old outfielder batted just .243 in 2025, which was in line with his career .247 mark, but he reached base at a .342 clip. Happ also chipped in 23 home runs, 79 RBI and 87 runs scored. He topped it off with six stolen bases, which was a step back from the 13 steals he posted in 2024. Happ's ability to get on base, hit for some power and occasionally swipe a bag has made him a regular leadoff option for the Cubs the past few seasons, which has given his fantasy value a boost due to a strong lineup around him, particularly last year with the addition of Kyle Tucker and the emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong. Happ also rarely misses time, as he's played in 150 games or more each of the last four years. There are certainly more exciting fantasy options on the board, but you should at least know what you're getting with Happ, and there is room for the veteran on many rosters.

Merrill's 2025 was not as much of a sophomore slump as it was a visit to the School of Hard Knocks. Merrill had a rough 2025 with an early hamstring strain that cost him a month, a concussion in mid June that returned him to the injured list for another 10 days, and a left ankle sprain in mid-August that resulted in a third trip to the injured list. Merrill, despite the setbacks, still finished the season with a solid 116 wRC+ and a .264/.317/.457 triple-slash line, but it came in just 115 games. He was pacing to meet or exceed his run production statistics, but the ankle sprain and hamstring injuries essentially shut down his running game, as he attempted just three steals all season after stealing 16 of 19 in 2024. Merrill's increase in strikeout rate also could be written off as being due to the concussion and injury recoveries. His acquisition cost in most leagues should be lower this year because of the injuries, but Merrill's upside remains strong. He does not even turn 23 until a few weeks into the season. Stretch goal: A 25-25 season.

The II in Harris's legal name represents the two seasons he had in 2025. Harris came into the season being drafted inside the top 40, but went into the break hitting .210/.234/.317 and ended up being dropped in some leagues in mid-July. When a player hits rock bottom, he enters survival mode and does whatever he can to keep his job, and Harris made some adjustments to his swing in July that resulted in him being a new man after the break. He went onto hit .299/.315/.530 in the second half with 14 home runs, 33 runs and 42 RBIs, nearly besting all three run categories in the 67 games after the break compared to his meager production in 92 games before the break. Note that Harris's OBP was still rather low for someone hitting that well, because he was as adverse to walks as Atlanta thoroughfares are to smooth-flowing traffic. Harris finished the season with one of the worst walk rates and chase rates of all qualified hitters. His defense keeps him on the field, but his slumps are pronounced. His OPS by month: .614, .608, .426, .850, .885, .635. Proceed with caution or ensure your earlier picks can absorb the ebbs and flows of this streakiness.