I’ve been usurped!<\/p>\n
Every year for as long as I can remember, I’ve kicked off the second half with a redraft of the first two rounds. It’s become a tradition of sorts, a way to relish the midseason lull with something infinitely relatable but completely unnecessary, and while I doubt anyone else was eagerly anticipating it, I for sure was.<\/p>\n
Naturally, I’ve spent some time ruminating on it. I took a few days off work to organize my garage, but Jackson Chourio<\/a>, Pete Crow-Armstrong<\/a> and Junior Caminero<\/a> continued to seep into my thoughts. The more they did, the more I came to believe this might be the wildest, most divisive rendition of the first two-round redraft yet, what with Aaron Judge<\/a>, Jose Ramirez<\/a> and Ronald Acuna all still sidelined and Shohei Ohtani<\/a> banged up as well. And now Nick Kurtz<\/a> is hurt, too, while Bobby Witt<\/a> has merely been … fine. Forget No. 24. I’m here wondering who should be No. 1.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that these are intended to be rest-of-season rankings. Nothing a player has done to this point in 2026 is factoring into my decision (at least not consciously), and I’m also not ranking for some hypothetical scenario wherein everyone is healthy. I’m accounting for all of the facts on the ground, endeavoring to keep this fictitious redraft as down-to-earth as possible. The only calculation, then, is how productive a player will be from July 16 through Sept. 27.<\/p>\n So I had my mental outline going, and then when the organizing of the garage was done, I decided the organizing of my thoughts should begin, by which I mean it was time to write. But when I sat down to do it, logging in for the first time in 3-4 days to type out this midseason staple of mine, what I all too quickly discovered was that Chris Towers already had.<\/p>\n The nerve. The unmitigated gall. I’m talking about a betrayal so acute, an affront so perverse, that there can be no mending of hearts thereafter.<\/p>\n Or … maybe I don’t have to care. Maybe I can just do it, too? When I called this exercise “infinitely relatable,” the emphasis was on the first word, infinitely. A redraft should be just as enthralling coming from one guy as another. Chris and I aren’t going to have the exact same answers, right? I just got through saying that this year’s first two-round redraft is shaping up to be the wildest, most divisive rendition yet. Well, this will show it.<\/p>\n With the added benefit of not messing with tradition.<\/p>\n (Chris is great, by the way!)<\/p>\n For H2H points <\/p>\n Round 1
1. Juan Soto, OF, NYM
2. Yordan Alvarez, OF, HOU
3. Shohei Ohtani, DH\/SP, LAD
4. Bobby Witt, SS, KC
5. Junior Caminero, 3B, TB
6. James Wood, OF, WAS
7. Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF, CHC
8. Kyle Schwarber, DH, PHI
9. Ben Rice, C\/1B, NYY
10. Jacob Misiorowski, SP, MIL
11. Cristopher Sanchez, SP, PHI
12. Cam Schlittler, SP, NYY
Round 2
13. Ronald Acuna, OF, ATL
14. Corbin Carroll, OF, ARI
15. Elly De La Cruz, SS, CIN
16. Jackson Chourio, OF, MIL
17. Julio Rodriguez, OF, SEA
18. Jordan Walker, OF, STL
19. Tarik Skubal, SP, DET
20. Paul Skenes, SP, PIT
21. Zack Wheeler, SP, PHI
22. Nick Kurtz, 1B, ATH
23. Jose Ramirez, 3B, CLE
24. Matt Olson, 1B, ATL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve been usurped! Every year for as long as I can remember, I’ve kicked off the second half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[106,5,731,3398,3800,1207,18832,20455,1538,5143,1177,28,93476,227,3875,11714,565,4679,865,134,3992,4682,81,541,4154,459,877,74,35,468,382,2264,117],"class_list":["post-753304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-aaron-judge","tag-baseball","tag-ben-rice","tag-bobby-witt","tag-brice-turang","tag-bryce-harper","tag-c-j-abrams","tag-cam-schlittler","tag-corbin-carroll","tag-cristopher-sanchez","tag-elly-de-la-cruz","tag-fantasy-baseball","tag-fantasy-baseball-redraft","tag-francisco-lindor","tag-jackson-chourio","tag-jacob-misiorowski","tag-james-wood","tag-jordan-walker","tag-jose-ramirez","tag-juan-soto","tag-julio-rodriguez","tag-junior-caminero","tag-kyle-schwarber","tag-matt-olson","tag-miguel-vargas","tag-nick-kurtz","tag-paul-skenes","tag-pete-alonso","tag-pete-crow-armstrong","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-yordan-alvarez","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\/753304","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=753304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}