Rolling In The Deep: Not Much To Rave About

Greetings friends! If my calendar is correct, we’ve got exactly one month left in baseball’s regular season, and therefore exactly one month left in most standard format fantasy seasons. It’s been another week that’s felt somewhat like one step forward, two steps back, with some unfortunate injuries popping up, hitters going cold at the worst possible time, and a few bullpen meltdowns that may ultimately prove to be season-crushers. Soon we’ll go from scrambling to try to fill roster spots to reflecting on what went wrong and right this year, but for now we carry on trying to focus on finishing strong in 2026. This week we’ll do our regular thing checking in on lesser-owned players who’ve been surprisingly productive of late, at least compared to their Fantrax ownership percentages.

A quick search of the stats tells us that barely-rostered players who’ve made any positive fantasy contributions at all over the last two weeks are extra few and far between this week. Not surprising at this time of year, but still disheartening for those of us trying to gear up for the stretch run in even semi-deep leagues. So, we’ll just go with the straight numbers this week, and we’ll also dip into shallower waters to highlight a couple guys who aren’t deep leaguers per se but perhaps should be getting more attention even in standard mixed leagues. We’ll highlight the top AL and the top NL player in 5×5 value over the last two weeks who’s also less than 40% owned, then the most valuable player in each league over that period under 20% owned, followed by the two-week, under 10% owned MVPs in each league.

AL

Tristan Peters (40% rostered in Fantrax leagues). I’ll repeat myself from moments ago to reiterate that Peters isn’t a deep leaguer by definition; he made the All Star team for goodness sake. But he’s a guy that we all might want to take a closer look at in general over the last month of the season. He has not only provided the most fantasy value of a player who’s 40% rostered or less, but he’s actually produced the most 5×5 fantasy value of any hitter in baseball over that time. He’s hitting a silly .429, with 6 homers and 12 knocked in, to go with 10 runs scored, plus a stolen base for good measure. He’s the first of two lefties we’ll be talking about this week, and is 26 years old, so maybe a late bloomer. (I still think we may continue to see a few of them emerge, guys who lost a year or more of playing time in their late teens or early twenties due to Covid). The power wasn’t really there this year, until it suddenly was… but the average and OBP have been excellent on the season overall, and he’s been a sneaky big part of the White Sox success this year.

Kyle Isbel (14% rostered in Fantrax leagues). Isbel earns this nod after turning in a very solid two weeks of production, having outperformed the likes of Matt Olson in 5×5 value. He’s contributed a bit across the board despite finding himself at the bottom of the lineup more often than not. He’s hitting .286 for the Royals over that time, with 7 runs scored, 2 homers, 8 RBI, and a steal. Isbel is 29 now, and probably ultimately limited by his left handedness among other issues, but this impressive stretch is worth a check in, for now at least. If he can keep it up for the next month, he could be an underrated option as a stabilizer for anyone looking to maintain their place in the fantasy standings between now and the end of the season.

John Rave (3%). Didn’t see it coming that we’d be talking about back to back Royals here, but that’s exactly the outcome that crunching the numbers delivers. Rave’s numbers pale in comparison to Peters and Isbel, but what would we expect when it comes to a 3% owned, true deep leaguer? In 26 at bats over the last two weeks, Rave is hitting just .231, but his 7 runs scored, homer, 6 RBI, and 2 stolen bases are enough to land him as the AL MVP of the under 10% owned crowd this week when it comes to his 5×5 value over that stretch. Definitely better than nothing, if he’s available in your deep league and you need a warm body in the outfield.

NL

Connor Norby (32% rostered). Norby’s status as the most valuable NL fantasy hitter under 40% owned over the last two weeks surprised me, since I roster him in a couple leagues where I haven’t even been playing him. My mistake, evidently, as over the last 14 games he’s hitting .341 with 9 runs scored, 2 homers, 9 RBI, and 2 steals. He also qualifies at 1B, 2B, and 3B in many leagues at this point, so it may be time to give him a more serious look even in shallower leagues over the last month of the season. Right now he’s only 1B eligible for next year, which obviously would nerf his value substantially. But as I’m writing this, he’s got 14 games each at both second and third this year, so he could well gain multi-positional eligibility for next year over the next month in leagues that use a 20 game threshold. I was really high on Norby last year, and while that didn’t pan out, obviously Colorado was a great landing spot for him this year in terms of both home park and potential opportunity.

Drew Gilbert (18%). I feel like Gilbert is now the player this year that I’ve talked about the most, and picked up and dropped the most in deeper leagues, thinking he was finally about to turn a corner, only to be disappointed again. Since I’d basically given up and don’t roster him anywhere at this point, I didn’t realize he’d been performing relatively well at the plate once again. It seems like the Giants have completely fallen off both the real-life and the fantasy map, but sometimes that’s the best time to swoop in for fantasy. The story remains the same for Gilbert; he’s still sitting against lefties, but leading off against righties. Over the last two weeks he’s hitting .294 with 2 homers and 9 RBI, but if he’s not getting a chance to play every day over the last month of a lost season, I’m not sure he ever will.

Dane Myers (7%). Speaking of lost seasons, after a stretch where they were suddenly playing winning baseball, the Reds have once again tumbled to earth, officially dwelling at the bottom of the National League Central. It’s once again worth repeating that bad and disappointing teams can lead to deep league fantasy value, and Myers had done his part to provide some over the last two weeks. He’s another player who’s helped a bit across the board and could continue to if things break right; over the past 14 games, he’s hitting .279 with 6 runs scored, 2 homers, 3 RBI, and a steal.