Rolling In The Deep: Who’s Heaviest At The Top?

Greetings! Now that the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, and Presidents Day are in the rearview mirror, I think we all know what time it is… time for fantasy baseball draft season to ramp up in a big way. Instead of a deep dive looking at fringe players who can be had at the end of a long draft (and there will be plenty of that here at RITD soon enough!), I thought we’d zoom back out and take another general look at recent draft trends. I’ve been reading and commenting quite a bit already this year about which positions are most top heavy, but I decided it was time to look at the numbers a little more closely. I want to have a bigger picture of how positions, as well as specific players, are being valued by the fantasy community, rather than just in the vacuum of my specific drafts, before going back in the tank for more. I’m especially anxious to get a better look at the mixed league ADP landscape since it’s already time to start preparing for our very own RCLs (and if you’re not signed up for one or three of them yourself, what are you waiting for?)

Okay, so what we’ll look at this week is just how many players at each position are being taken in the first five rounds (based on a 12-team league like the RCLs, so 60 total picks) of drafts. We’ll use overall NFBC ADP (all style/formats of leagues combined) over the last two weeks, which is a total of 52 drafts. We’ll take a quick look at each position and see if we can use what we see to help inform us about how to plan for a 12-team draft, as well as to extrapolate it to other formats.

Starting Pitcher. 14 of the top 60 picks were starters, broken up fairly evenly by round (three in the first, one in the second, three in the third, four in the fourth, three in the fifth. No real surprises here, and I think everyone knows if you want a top starter you’re going to have to pay. Whether you do that, or follow Grey’s advice (this seems like an appropriate moment for a quick refresh of his 2026 top 100 rankings) is completely between you and your own personal fantasy baseball god.

Utility. Let’s turn things upside down a bit and start the offensive discussion with the last of the hitting “positions.” I think it’s worth noting that, since I’m counting Ohtani as a Utility, there are three of them being drafted in the top five rounds, with Schwarber in the second and Yordan Alvarez in the third. This is where I think league format and roster specifics make a particularly huge impact on your draft planning. Even a top hitter can feel like a bit of an albatross if you don’t have the proper roster depth, which can be a particularly tough ask in draft and hold and/or deeper leagues. The other reason I’m putting U up here is to point out now how few multi-position eligible hitters there are in the top 60 players being drafted; in fact, if you don’t count Ben Rice (and I don’t for this exercise since I don’t think anyone is taking him to play him at first), there is exactly one. More on that in a bit, but looking at it from a deep league perspective as we are wont to do here, I think it’s something that’s important to consider when planning your roster before diving in to a draft.

First Base. While I’d definitely consider first a top-heavy position, the group that I’d consider to be at or near the top is a little bigger than I first realized, and also fairly spread out in a typical draft. You’ve got Kurtz and Vlad in the second round, followed by Alonso usually somewhere near the second/third round turn, Harper and Olson in the fourth, and Devers in the fifth. Now, I’m also going to add Josh Naylor and Freddie Freeman to this group, for reasons explained below in my closer blurb. As I mentioned in my 1B post a few weeks ago, as much as I’d love to have Kurtz or Vlad on a team, I probably won’t because I’m usually targeting a power/speed guy this early, at least in most of my draft formats. In a vacuum, though, I can see rostering any one of these guys in most leagues, and they should all be able to help anchor your lineup if things go anywhere near according to plan for them. A quick warning, if you pass on them though, with the intent of drafting the Razzball-approved Vinnie Pasquantino here, just proceed with caution. He’s going near the end of the seventh (just about one full round after Naylor and Freeman), but if there’s another like-minded drafter that values him higher, you’ll need to be prepared for a potentially ugly pivot. The only other first basemen going in the first fifteen rounds by ADP are Michael Busch in the ninth and Yandy Diaz in the eleventh. (I actually like Busch a lot at that price, but if you miss him, it’s like being dropped from a plane with no parachute).

Second Base. We’ve got Jazz going in the second, Ketel Marte in the third, and Brice Turang in the fifth, and that does it for 2B in the top five rounds. Since Jazz, as alluded to above, also qualifies at third, I’m counting him there too. I’ve only rostered him once so far, but I wish it was more. In deeper leagues especially, I’m absolutely willing to gamble some on his health in exchange for that sweet, sweet MI/CI eligibility. That being said, second is a position I’ve found myself waiting on more often than not. Not only are there quite a few guys I don’t mind later, they tend to be sprinkled throughout a draft more than, say, first base is. So, it’s easier to go with the flow and adjust mid-draft to your roster needs, both in terms of statistical categories as well as risk management when deciding if you want to go with a high-floor veteran or shoot for an unproven but higher-ceiling youngster.

Third Base. I’m going to just cut to the chase and declare third the most top-heavy position this season, at least from my personal perspective. This makes me much more willing to gamble on Jose Ramirez turning in at least one more monster year, or more interested in paying what I think is a steep price for Junior Caminero even though I think it’s unlikely he’ll repeat his 2025 numbers. There are only four third basemen going in the top five rounds, with these two, Jazz, and then Manny Machado in round three. Machado has been my go-to third baseman for a few years now, to the point where I’ve probably moved him up a round or so in the past in order to lock in the guy I wanted at third. This year, however, it seems others are in on a similar plan, as I haven’t drafted him yet. This has led to a fair amount of panic a couple times, and I may have inadvertently more or less punted third in one draft. Outside the first five rounds, you’ve got Austin Riley in the sixth, and I’m not in on him at that price if it means passing on a guy I consider a #1 starting pitcher or a top outfielder in that round. Looking at rounds seven through nine, it’s just Maikel Garcia. I’m a fan and grabbed him in one league, perhaps a full round earlier than I needed to, but this is a similar situation to Pasquantino. If you whiff on Maikel, only four more third baseman are getting drafted in rounds eight through fifteen, and one of those is the now-injured Jordan Westburg. It’s Bregman or Suarez (both going on average early in the tenth), then we drop all the way down to Matt Chapman in the fourteenth.

Shortstop. I think we can comfortably declare short the deepest of the infield spots (again) this year. Eight of them are likely to be drafted in the first five rounds, nicely spread out with two in the first, second, third, and fifth rounds. There truly is something for everyone and every roster and league format here I think, and they’ll be well scattered throughout a draft. The top choices are appealing enough to grab early, but if you choose not to, you should have plenty of time and opportunity to fill the position no matter how you’ve constructed your roster up until that point.

Outfield. Outfielders are a different animal since there are so many more of them, both in terms of players available and spots to fill on a typical roster. While the position isn’t nearly as deep as it once was due to more platooning among other things, I’m finding myself waiting longer than I did last year. We’ve got five outfielders being taken in round one on average, three in the second, two in the third, one in the fourth, and two in the fifth. For me, there’s a pretty big drop off after the top eight (Judge, Soto, Acuña, Carroll, J-Rod, Tatis, Tucker, Chourio) are off the board. After that, you’ve got PCA and James Wood in the third, Wyatt Langford in the fourth, and Brent Rooker and Roman Anthony in the fifth.  I’ve got one Anthony share, and I’m pretty excited about it because who doesn’t love jumping on a good hype train, but I’ve found myself passing on OF in the third and fourth round. If I end draft season without any of PCA, Wood, or Langford on my teams I may come to seriously regret it. But, I’ve just found that I’d rather take an infielder or, gasp, even a top pitcher or a catcher at that point in my drafts. There are more outfielders I really like in rounds six through fifteen than there are infielders, and sometimes I just like grabbing one of my top SPs here even though I know there will be lots more available later.

Catcher. There are four catchers being taken in the first five rounds of NFBC drafts (starting with Cal Raleigh usually early in round two), and William Contreras,  Ben Rice, and Shea Langeliers tending to go off the board in relatively close proximity to each other somewhere in the fourth or fifth round. I’ve also seen Hunter Goodman and even Agustin Ramirez sneak into round five. Obviously, if you are following Grey’s rankings, you won’t be drafting a catcher here, but again, I think this is a position where league format matters. I’m not completely adverse to taking a catcher early in a draft and hold league, for instance, or really any ultra deep league with little to no free agent pool. I won’t judge if you want to go catcher heavy even in a shallower league, just know you’re gonna have to pay up in a big way to do it.

Closer. The folks at NFBC seem to regularly inflate the importance of closers compared to us SAGNOF-focused Razzballians anyway, and that is only magnified once you consider how many draft and hold style leagues they host. For what it’s worth, which is likely not much when translated to most leagues, there were six closers taken in the top five rounds (two in the third, three in the fourth, and one in the fifth). That one in the fifth was Bednar at spot #60, and right now Chapman is at #61, so this just shows you how high they are skewing compared to what I’m guessing we’ll see in RCLs once we have some data. There are two reasons I’m even addressing closer as a position for the purposes of this post. First is to point out just how gaga NFBC folks are for closers as a warning if you’re drafting over there. Second is to point out that if we were to remove, say four of the five closers that are being drafted in the top 60 and replace them with other players, those next four players up would be Freddy Peralta, Freddie Freeman, Josh Naylor, and Hunter Goodman. So my point is really that there’d be two more first basemen in the top 60. Do with that what you will.

Thanks for reading! May your drafts go as planned, and your players’ ACLs and UCLs stay intact!