Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season<\/a>]<\/p>\nBased on 2025, you could make an argument for both Schwarber and Raleigh going higher than their current ADPs. Regression is baked in but what if we don\u2019t see much of that? There\u2019s a world where Raleigh duplicates his 2025 season (or comes close to it). It\u2019s naive to think such events can take place but not out of the realm of possibility. Even Springer finished as a first-round asset last season at age 35. Yet, he\u2019s going in the sixth round most of the time. Yelich was a top-24 bat, too!<\/p>\n
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We tend to ignore these veteran players as they get older, assuming we\u2019ll see some sort of falloff. Most assume that decline will always happen \u2014 but what if it doesn\u2019t? At least not in 2026. This team is very much the \u201cWhat If?\u201d All-Stars \u2014 a rag-tag bunch of former titans trying to hold on or reclaim greatness. This is only a mock, but I\u2019ll be honest, I might track this team for science.<\/p>\n
One more run on elite arms<\/p>\n
Could you build a more imposing yet terrifying 1-2 punch than Sale and deGrom up top at starting pitcher? Again, it becomes the tale of two seasons \u2014 which one will it be? The one where these vets struggle to stay healthy, or one in which they compete for more awards to add to the Hall of Fame resume? In my mind, both are being overdrafted but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean they won\u2019t pan out.<\/p>\n
With Sale, you get an elite pitcher for about 60-70% of the season. You can\u2019t be mad if he makes it to 20+ starts but doesn\u2019t get much past that mark. If Sale drops down a few rounds from his 38.9 ADP, don\u2019t be shy. Perhaps the best way to go about Sale if you draft him is to get a solid 3-4 months out of him and then offload the ace for an area of need if someone underperforms or an injury pops up.<\/p>\n
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As for the Rangers starter, deGrom bounced back after failing to start 30+ games in every season since 2019. Will we see another 30 starts from deGrom or will the injury bug hit again? His xERA was higher than the results and his strikeout percentage was the lowest it\u2019s been since 2016. I\u2019m concerned about regression, even if deGrom is able to stay healthy. But he\u2019s in a solid environment on the Rangers, who have a plus defense. With deGrom, it\u2019s another case of \u201cIs he being drafted too high?\u201d The answer is probably yes, given all the variables, but as long as he gets to 150+ innings, you should get a reliable option with upside.<\/p>\n
Old heads still getting it done<\/p>\n
This bench is a lot of fun. Admittedly, you\u2019ll probably want to snag another reliever at some point, so if one of those vets struggles, we\u2019d cut \u2018em loose. But I think Trout, Laureano and Stanton are all being undervalued based on last season. Laureano finished 37th in fantasy points among OFers last season but is being selected as the OF52 so far on Yahoo. If he regresses, I think you still get value there.<\/p>\n
Stanton played half a season and still put up over 500 fantasy points. It\u2019s tough to project the former MVP but there\u2019s a scenario in which he gets to around 100 games and lands somewhere in the top-36 OFers. Trout was OF27 last season in points and is the OF59 right now in drafts.<\/p>\n
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The math doesn\u2019t really add up unless you believe all three will get hurt or go back to struggling. Would I advise grabbing all three on the same team? Not particularly, but an argument can be made that they can still provide real value.<\/p>\n
Takeaways from the 10th pick<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t ignore these veteran players. Again, maybe don\u2019t go and comprise a team made entirely of them. But most are going well below where they should be in drafts because of this age bias. It\u2019s a gamble but isn\u2019t that what every draft is? You\u2019re going to have to pick your spots to be bold and there\u2019s also the likelihood that one of these vets plummets down your draft board. These are the types of players who can help contribute to winning a league. Especially low-risk moves like selecting Trout or Stanton for your bench. Worst-case is you cut them loose and pick someone up off waivers early in the season. Best case, they provide much-needed depth and put up similar numbers to last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 MLB season is almost here and that means you\u2019re likely prepping for your fantasy baseball draft.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2276],"tags":[58537,5,3297,1092,919,1301,733,38,39,28,815,311,310,113,84,403,5173,817,81,2291,386,620,379,603,4,1586,16505,31080,1028,40,1495,89,1268,1587,64809,1821,3716,142,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-623666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-draft","8":"tag-2026-mlb-season","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cal-raleigh","11":"tag-carlos-estevez","12":"tag-chris-sale","13":"tag-christian-yelich","14":"tag-dansby-swanson","15":"tag-diamondbacks","16":"tag-dodgers","17":"tag-fantasy-baseball","18":"tag-freddie-freeman","19":"tag-george-springer","20":"tag-giancarlo-stanton","21":"tag-j-t-realmuto","22":"tag-jack-flaherty","23":"tag-jacob-degrom","24":"tag-jameson-taillon","25":"tag-jose-altuve","26":"tag-kyle-schwarber","27":"tag-major-league-baseball-draft","28":"tag-marcus-semien","29":"tag-mariners","30":"tag-matt-chapman","31":"tag-mike-trout","32":"tag-mlb","33":"tag-mlb-draft","34":"tag-mock-draft","35":"tag-mock-drafts","36":"tag-nolan-arenado","37":"tag-phillies","38":"tag-ramon-laureano","39":"tag-red-sox","40":"tag-sean-manaea","41":"tag-sonny-gray","42":"tag-veteran-players","43":"tag-xander-bogaerts","44":"tag-yahoo","45":"tag-yankees","46":"tag-zack-wheeler"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623666","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=623666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}