{"id":603848,"date":"2026-03-03T16:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/603848\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T16:31:15","slug":"fantasy-baseball-2b-and-ss-sleepers-colson-montgomery-ozzie-albies-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/603848\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy baseball 2B and SS sleepers: Colson Montgomery, Ozzie Albies and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our team has picked their favorite 2026 fantasy baseball sleepers among starting pitchers<\/a> and corner infielders<\/a>. We\u2019re staying in the infield to cover 2B and SS this week, which may be the most important group, given the scarcity of top-end options.<\/p>\n

Our sleeper selectors include Eno Sarris, Derek VanRiper, Andy Behrens, Owen Poindexter, Michael Salfino, John Laghezza, Chris Welsh, Al Melchior and Dalton Del Don.<\/p>\n

Make sure you return next week for our final position \u2014 outfielders.<\/p>\n

Average draft position (ADP) data listed in the bullets below is courtesy of FantasyPros<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Middle Infield SleepersOzzie Albies, ATL<\/p>\n

The pool of middle infielders may feel deep at first, with 22 players going off the board in the top-140 picks, but don\u2019t let it lull you into positional complacency. Once that initial wave disappears, there\u2019s over a 30-pick gap without a single MI being drafted before ADP 200 \u2014 when playing time concerns arise. With that, I\u2019m doing my best to scoop all three middle infielders before panic sets in.<\/p>\n

Enter Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies. Outside of Ronald Acu\u00f1a, Atlanta\u2019s offense has dropped across the board in ADP due to last season\u2019s letdown. Enough is enough. Just two years removed from a top-15 fantasy finish, Albies plays every day in a top-3 projected run-scoring offense with eerily similar projections to Mookie Betts, who is being drafted about 100 picks earlier.<\/p>\n

Albies steals bases, brings an excellent approach, and compensates for underwhelming raw power metrics with an elite pull profile. A 20\/20 season is incoming. \u2014 John Laghezza<\/p>\n

Ezequiel Tovar, COL
\nHitter: 141; Overall: 232<\/p>\n

Tovar was a fantasy bust last year, when he suffered hip and oblique injuries as well as a dramatic drop in performance. However, he\u2019s just one season removed from being the 11th-most valuable fantasy middle infielder as a 22-year-old. Tovar set career bests in K% (25.1) and BB% (5.4) during his down year in 2025, and his .209 BABIP on the road is sure to regress. Tovar\u2019s elite defense helps solidify his role in Colorado\u2019s lineup, where he\u2019s slated to hit second to open the season. Tovar has his warts, but Coors Field remains a cheat code that will continue to pad his stats.<\/p>\n

ATC\u2019s aggregate projections value Tovar as fantasy\u2019s No. 15 shortstop entering 2026, and he\u2019d be the No. 4 second baseman; this highlights both the extreme depth of shortstop and Tovar\u2019s egregiously low ADP that somehow sits outside 225. \u2014 Dalton Del Don<\/p>\n

Luis Garcia, WSH
\nHitter: 156; Overall: 252<\/p>\n

Garcia is not an obviously good player in real life, but our objective here is not to fix the Washington Nationals. We\u2019re simply building fantasy rosters. Garcia is just one year removed from an 18\/22 season in which he delivered a batting average of .282. Those numbers will certainly play in any standard fantasy league. Last season, Garcia again produced respectable power\/speed totals (16\/14), but he wasn\u2019t particularly fortunate on balls in play (.270 BABIP, .285 xBA). He figures to serve as a heart-of-the-order hitter for Washington, and he\u2019s still only 25 years old. It\u2019s not as if he\u2019s on the downside of his career. He\u2019s available well outside the top-200 picks at the moment, yet he\u2019s perfectly capable of a 20\/15 campaign with a .280-plus average. Garcia is off-limits in OBP leagues, but he can be an asset anywhere else. \u2014 Andy Behrens<\/p>\n

JJ Wetherholt, STL
\nHitter: 159; Overall: 256<\/p>\n

The Cardinals\u2019 rookie middle infielder is currently going outside the top 250 in NFBC Draft Champions drafts, and ranks as the 24th SS according to FantasyPros ECR. Wetherholt spent the 2025 season at Double and Triple A, hitting a combined .309 with 17 home runs, 23 stolen bases, and a .931 OPS. According to Prospect Savant, among Triple-A bats, Wetherholt had a 87th percentile barrel percentage of 12.4%, an 86th percentile hard hit percentage of 48.4%, and extremely elite walk and low chase rates. Wetherholt has an advanced feel for hitting, with an approach that has reminded me of Corbin Carroll lite, in how he can attack with bat speed across his body, and lift the ball for real power. The sell-off of Nolan Arenado and Brendan Donovan has created an opportunity for him to break camp with the Cardinals. His current draft range will look comically bad if we see a full season out of the top prospect. I am ignoring the current range and making him a must-draft as a prime Rookie of the Year candidate. \u2014 Chris Welsh<\/p>\n

Colson Montgomery, CHW
\nHitter: 108; Overall: 179<\/p>\n

Montgomery slugged 21 homers in his first half-season of MLB action, and backed up that power with a top-shelf bat speed (77 MPH), barrel rate 14.5%, and pull air rate (27.2%). At 23, it\u2019s easy to imagine aspects of his game improving, at least marginally, whether that\u2019s his chase rate or his ability to manage off-speed stuff. The monstrous power means small improvements in his approach could lead to big gains in his production. With 600+ plate appearances, 35 homers is well within his reach. He\u2019ll be a batting average liability, but we\u2019re still talking about a Taylor Ward\/Jo Adell season going 60 picks later than those two. \u2014 Owen Poindexter<\/p>\n

Jorge Polanco, NYM
\nHitter: 124; Overall: 209<\/p>\n

I filtered all qualified hitters in five key Statcast categories, and only 17 made it through. Polanco was one. Two hitters ahead of him in the Mets lineup (he bats cleanup) also made the cut (Juan Soto, of course, and Francisco Lindor). Last year is being discounted as a fluke, but it\u2019s not a fluke to reduce your K% by the greatest number of percentage points in recorded history. And even since 2019, Polanco\u2019s OPS+ is 17% over average. The switch-hitter\u2019s pulled fly-ball percentage was 25.2% (average is 16.7%). At 115 OPS+, he knocks in 100 runs, and at 130 OPS+, he\u2019ll plate 120. \u2014 Michael Salfino<\/p>\n

Andres Gimenez, TOR
\nHitter: 184; Overall: 304<\/p>\n

Everything old is new again. The price has fallen so far on this veteran that you\u2019d expect he was 33 and coming off an obvious decline season. Instead, Andres Gimenez is 27 years old and was mostly just hurt last year. Maybe the Blue Jays won\u2019t steal a bunch of bases, or maybe healthy quads will let him get back to near-30 totals in that category. It almost doesn\u2019t matter. His projections are modest \u2014 10 homers, .251 homers, and 20 steals if you average them out \u2014 and the cost is so low that Gimenez has become a bargain way to fill your deep league middle infield slot. If he hits a peak season at his peak age and socks 15 dingers and steals 30 bases, aging curves wouldn\u2019t be surprised, just the market. \u2014 Eno Sarris<\/p>\n

Willi Castro, COL
\nHitter: 187; Overall: 310<\/p>\n

When people talk about a Statcast page having \u201clots of red,\u201d that means a player grades out well across a broad range of skills. Castro\u2019s page is nearly devoid of red, and that may have something to do with him being drafted outside of the top 300 on most platforms. Aside from his 33-steal season in 2023 with the Twins, Castro has never wowed the fantasy world with eye-popping stats or an enviable skill profile. Yet he did well enough across the board in both \u201823 and \u201824 to have generated positive value for standard 12-team Roto leagues. A third straight season of Roto relevance was within reach until the Twins traded Castro to the Cubs just before last year\u2019s trade deadline, and his production and playing time subsequently dried up.<\/p>\n

Castro signed with the Rockies this offseason, and he figures to be a key part of the Colorado lineup. His line-drive approach ought to serve him well at Coors Field. Castro\u2019s new home park gives him a good shot at getting his batting average back above .250 while potentially recording his first 15-15 season. \u2014 Al Melchior<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our team has picked their favorite 2026 fantasy baseball sleepers among starting pitchers and corner infielders. We\u2019re staying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,28,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-603848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-fantasy-baseball","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116166202859976383","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}