For the 2026 fantasy baseball season, every team has about 52 games down and about 110 still to go after the first eight weeks of the season. Since even 52 games aren’t nearly enough to draw any conclusions, we will spend our early posts 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 eight weeks of meaningful games, this amount of production is not actually 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
Colson Montgomery (SS), Chicago White Sox
One of the biggest reasons Colson Montgomery (13 home runs) looks like a great fantasy power source is his elite barrel rate. Entering 2026, he has posted a barrel rate of 14.5% in 2025, according to Statcast. In 2026, it’s up to 15.5%, one of the top 25 rates in the league. Barrel rate is one of the strongest predictive measurements for present and future home runs because it measures how often a hitter combines an ideal launch angle with strong exit velocity. He is doing things many 24-year-olds can’t do, with how hard he is hitting the ball.
As shown by Montgomery’s BABIP (.268), there is also reason to believe his counting stats could improve. The league average is about .290. If the batting average goes up, the rest of his fantasy stats (home runs, runs, RBIs) presumably go up as well. If he settles into a consistent middle-of-the-order role for Chicago, the RBI and run totals could jump quickly. Montomgery has hit third or fourth in the lineup in every game since April 29th and has sat out once since April 16. That’s incredibly valuable in fantasy baseball.
A.J. Ewing (OF), New York Mets
A.J. Ewing is one of the latest hot prospects promoted to the majors. Ewing was drafted 134th overall out of Springboro High School after hitting an astounding .415 with a .528 on-base percentage (OBP) in just 43 games. Since his draft selection, Ewing has quickly climbed through the Mets’ minor league system, and New York thought the time was right to call him up, even though he’s just 21 years old (he turns 22 in three months).
Ewing entered his professional career as such a dangerous hitter (especially for his age) because his batted-ball profile combines elite decision-making with great contact ability. Even when his stats have had peaks and valleys during his time in the minors, the underlying metrics have remained extremely strong. Ewing started by hitting eighth in the order for New York. But he could be a long-term, high-in-the-order batter who will hit for a high average, steal a lot of bases, and score upwards of 100 runs every season if he ever hits leadoff.
He doesn’t have much pop, but that’s alright for his profile. However, he did hit a 403-foot home run in his third game last Thursday. Pick him up for his elite abilities in average and speed.
Sean Burke (SP), Chicago White Sox
With Davis Martin and Noah Schultz up from the minors and pitching well, the White Sox have some promise in their rotation for the first time in a long, LONG while. Now, Sean Burke has come along at 26 years old (with parts of two Major League seasons under his belt) and has been phenomenal in the past few weeks. Burke has an impressive 4.10 ERA and 1.18 WHIP through 48.1 innings. A couple of mediocre starts have impacted Burke, as he was below a 3.00 ERA as recently as last week.
In a recent start against the first-place Padres, Burke went to San Diego and shut them down. He gave up no earned runs and struck out eight over six innings for a win. In that latest start, Burke did not give up a single extra-base hit and had a 0.83 WHIP. He is now approaching a strikeout per nine-inning rate of around eight strikeouts, and he had five in his latest five-inning start.
Fantasy Baseball Fallers
Austin Riley (3B), Atlanta Braves
After being finally healthy heading into 2026 after a lot of lost time the last two years, Austin Riley has struggled badly this season because the skills that once made him one of baseball’s most feared power sources at the hot corner have regressed across the board.
His strikeout rate has climbed to a career-worst level while his contact quality has dipped noticeably from his peak seasons. Riley is chasing pitches outside the zone more often and making less contact against fastballs. The result has been a sharp decline in both batting average and slugging percentage (his .376 slugging percentage is 50 points lower than any full season of his career). He also has far fewer barreled balls and fewer home runs than fantasy managers expected when drafting him as a top-tier third baseman.
Austin Riley is going to have to prove it to us before we can consider him a top-five third baseman anymore
Jackson Merrill (OF), San Diego Padres
Wasn’t this supposed to be the year Jackson Merrill bounced back after an injury-plagued 2025? Well, the nine stolen bases are nice, but his .202/.270/.324 slash line is borderline unusable in fantasy baseball this season. His strikeout rate is up to 26%. He only has four home runs and 19 RBI, and his groundball rate is up over 45%. Even his barrel rate has dropped from a strong 13.5% in 2025 to just 9.5% in 2026.
What has happened? Because of some poor contact and a tendency to chase outside the zone, Jackson Merrill has been dropped out of the leadoff spot in San Diego and has hit sixth in the last three games. That’s a lot of lost plate appearances for fantasy baseball, and that move should suck some of the value out of his potential to pile up counting stats.
Merrill might see some improvement when his .258 BABIP regresses to league norms, but right now his wRC+ is 30% below league average. Merrill is headed in the wrong direction after his stellar rookie season in 2024.
Vinnie Pasquantino (1B), Kansas City Royals
Vinnie Pasquantino has carried an extremely low .220 BABIP this season despite still making quality contact at a solid rate, so there is some hope his very slow start can turn around. A BABIP as low as he has (bottom-12 in the league) is difficult to sustain for a hitter with his profile, especially one who historically controls the strike zone well and consistently posts hard contact, but there are some things that just aren’t right after a breakout season with 32 home runs.
Pasquantino’s expected batting average (.227) and expected slugging rate (.377) are both noticeably better than his actual numbers, but still look putrid compared to what we saw in 2025. He also possesses a 9% barrel rate in 2026, which is just lower than the breakout power level he showed (10.5%) in 2025 when he hit 32 home runs.
Even though his surface stats have disappointed, hitters with strong barrel rates usually do not continue producing subpar slugging rates for an entire season. But as we approach one-third of the season complete and only about 100 games remaining, it is safe to wonder what is going to happen with Pasquantino. It’s no longer a guarantee he turns it around this season.
