For the 2026 fantasy baseball season, every team has about 12 games down and about 150 still to go after the first two weeks of the season. Since 12 games aren’t nearly enough to draw any conclusions, we will spend our first post of the season looking at the risers and fallers in fantasy baseball from an under-the-hood stats perspective.
Even over a long Spring Training and two weeks of games, that amount of production is not a lot of information to use when evaluating players for the rest of the season. That’s why it’s also important to look at usage, lineup placement, platoon splits, and other factors when trying to determine what to do with tough player choices.
This piece will look at some MLB fantasy assets that have seen their fantasy value rise and fall over the last few weeks. This will hopefully give us an idea of what to do with these players moving forward.
Fantasy Baseball Risers
Drake Baldwin (C), Atlanta Braves
Despite already being in the top third of hitters in batting run value, exit velocity, barrel rate, bat speed, and whiff rate in 2025, Baldwin has improved on every single one of those metrics in the small sample size of the 2026 season.
Baldwin is now in the 95th percentile or better in batting value, expected slugging percentage, strikeout rate, and bat speed. Those improved advanced metrics have directly led to his National League-leading five home runs and 13 RBI. He also has a .682 slugging percentage (eighth-best in all of baseball), and he has an OPS over 1.000.
And while it’s hard to think we could ask for more, it is possible we could get even more. Despite a .652 slugging percentage (heading into Wednesday), Baldwin’s expected rate in the slugging category is .707, according to Statcast.
Cam Smith (OF), Houston Astros
Anytime someone hits the longest home run of the season, the interest level in that player is going to turn up a few notches. But even if we remove Cam Smith’s 463-foot home run in Coors Field on Monday, he is still rounding into a complete hitter who is playing literally every day for the Houston Astros. After all the hand-wringing in the offseason about who would be in the outfield for Houston, Smith is showing those who believed in him were right all along.
So far, Smith is higher than the 80th percentile in expected wOBA, expected slugging percentage, walk rate, barrel rate, and bat speed. Like we said: complete hitter. Heading into Wednesday, only Cam Smith and C.J. Abrams have at least three steals and three home runs on the young season. For a player who was drafted after pick 300 in spring drafts, Smith is showing he will have no problem making a huge return on that investment.
Riley O’Brien (RP), St. Louis Cardinals
Riley O’Brien has now secured the Cardinals’ last three saves and looks to be the ascending top option in the bullpen. JoJo Romero and Ryne Stanek have valuable setup roles, but O’Brien looks to be the man for saves right now. Through six appearances in 2026, O’Brien has a 0.00 ERA, 0.63 WHIP, and seven strikeouts in 6.1 innings. For good measure, he also hasn’t walked a batter and has one win and two holds.
In many fantasy leagues, managers haven’t yet caught on to his production and role. In Yahoo leagues, for example, he is only rostered in 43% of leagues. If your league is like this, stop reading this and go pick up O’Brien and enjoy the 20 saves coming your way. The Cardinals’ offense isn’t as bad as was projected, so O’Brien should have plenty of save opportunities this season.
Fantasy Baseball Fallers
Joey Weimer (OF), Washington Nationals
Those 10 straight plate appearances where he reached base sure seem like a long time ago, doesn’t it? Since then, Weimer has had two 0-for games, sat out four of eight games (platoon split), and had two games where he got on base. Currently, he is the most-dropped player in Yahoo leagues, just one week after being the most-added.
It appears that he is not going to play all the time against right-handers and needs to be deployed when the Nationals face a Southpaw. On the surface, everything looks great, with a .440 average and two home runs. But all of that production is from the first week of the season, while the second week has looked absolutely horrific for the roller coaster player of 2026 so far.
Jac Caglianone (1B/OF), Kansas City Royals
In addition to a fantastic World Baseball Classic for Team Italy, Jac Caglianone had a phenomenal Spring Training. He hit .3o4/.448/.522 and started to tantalizingly tease the massive upside potential that made him a sixth overall pick in 2024.
In those spring warm-up games, he also walked 20.7% of the time and struck on just 24%. Signs were pointing to better plate discipline and better contact. But his walk rate has plummeted to 7.5%, and he is striking out 30% of the time. He has no home runs and just a .306 slugging percentage. Most disturbingly, Caglianone got taken out of the lineup on Wednesday for the first time against a lefty this season.
Mike Burrows (SP), Houston Astros
At least Mike Burrows isn’t injured. That we know of. That’s about the best thing we can say about the Houston Astros’ new pitching addition for 2026 after they lost Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier to injuries already. But he has sandwiched a decent start against Boston with two abysmal games that have blown up his ERA to 5.63 and handed him a 1.75 WHIP.
A common thought in the preseason was that the talented but erratic Mike Burrows would come under the control of the Houston pitching coaches, and they would “fix him,” whatever that means. Maybe they still will, but he has less than a strikeout per inning and already has six walks this season. He was only able to last 87 pitches in his last start in Colorado, and he could perhaps get a pass because of the park, but I don’t think I trust him in his next start against the Seattle Mariners.
