Last week I reviewed the best fantasy picks in the 2026 season based on which players returned the most value at their cost. It’s only fair that we look at the flip side and discuss some of the players who gave our teams the least value compared to where we acquired them.
Just a reminder from that previous article: to measure what a player’s return on investment was, I took the FanGraphs Player Rater dollar values for 12-team leagues and used the Player Rater’s ADP, which is derived from NFBC formats. I compared what each player earned with what his draft position should have earned. The “should have earned” part, I needed some help with, so I had Claude average the 2026 earnings of every player drafted within a reasonable range (about 22%) of the ADP for that pick. So, for example, if the player was the 100th pick, I looked at the value produced by players drafted 78th through 128th. That felt like a fair way to say, “this pick should have produced a value around this amount.” I referred to that below as their “Slot Cost,” which you’ll see below.
So who were the players who lost the most value in 2026?
Least Valuable Fantasy Baseball Picks - Injury Group
| Player | Team | POS | ADP | Actual $ | Slot $ | Profit |
| Addison Barger | TOR | 3B/OF | 193 | -$28.2 | $0.2 | -$28.4 |
| Jorge Polanco | NYM | 2B/DH | 209 | -$28.0 | $0.0 | -$28.0 |
| Brent Rooker | ATH | OF/DH | 42 | -$16.4 | $10.9 | -$27.3 |
| Roman Anthony | BOS | OF/DH | 51 | -$18.2 | $8.7 | -$26.9 |
| Edwin Díaz | LAD | RP | 33 | -$14.2 | $10.9 | -$25.1 |
| Trevor Story | BOS | SS | 111 | -$18.8 | $4.7 | -$23.5 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | NYY | OF/DH | 251 | -$21.9 | $0.0 | -$21.9 |
| Carlos Correa | HOU | 3B/SS | 281 | -$21.6 | $0.0 | -$21.6 |
| Zac Gallen | ARI | SP | 223 | -$21.3 | $0.0 | -$21.3 |
| Carlos Estévez | KCR | RP | 120 | -$15.6 | $4.7 | -$20.3 |
| Dennis Santana | ARI | RP | 151 | -$15.6 | $4.1 | -$19.7 |
| Maikel Garcia | KCR | 3B/SS | 63 | -$12.6 | $6.9 | -$19.5 |
| Nick Lodolo | CIN | SP | 128 | -$14.8 | $4.7 | -$19.5 |
| Luis Robert Jr. | BAL | OF | 106 | -$14.7 | $4.7 | -$19.4 |
| Garrett Crochet | BOS | SP | 12 | -$7.7 | $10.9 | -$18.6 |
| Cole Ragans | KCR | SP | 48 | -$7.6 | $10.9 | -$18.5 |
| Andrew Vaughn | MIL | RP | 272 | -$18.1 | $0.0 | -$18.1 |
| Ryan Helsley | BAL | RP | 86 | -$10.3 | $6.9 | -$17.2 |
| Jordan Lawlar | ARI | OF | 262 | -$16.9 | $0.0 | -$16.9 |
| Ramón Laureano | SDP | OF | 224 | -$16.8 | $0.0 | -$16.8 |
| Daniel Palencia | CHC | RP | 91 | -$9.1 | $6.2 | -$15.3 |
| Matt Chapman | SFG | 3B | 164 | -$12.3 | $3.0 | -$15.3 |
| Aaron Judge | NYY | OF/DH | 2 | -$3.8 | $11.3 | -$15.1 |
| Francisco Lindor | NYM | SS | 25 | -$4.2 | $10.9 | -$15.1 |
| Devin Williams | NYM | RP | 59 | -$7.7 | $6.9 | -$14.6 |
| Spencer Strider | ATL | SP | 125 | -$5.6 | $4.7 | -$10.3 |
On one hand, it’s not fair to say these guys were bad picks since injuries were the main reason they didn’t return value for us. On the other hand, of the 26 names, at least 13 had clear recent injury-history flags that we didn’t appropriately factor into our drafts. Carlos Correa had a previous contract rescinded because of concerns about previous lower leg injuries. Luis Robert Jr. is one of the most injury-prone players out there, but Jordan Lawlar is quickly coming for that title. Trevor Story is seemingly always banged up, and Giancarlo Stanton was coming off a season where he had tennis elbow in both elbows.
Yet, the costliest sub-group of this larger group was the high-ADP aces with known injury risks. Garrett Crochet had previous UCL surgery, Cole Ragans had two Tommy John surgeries, Nick Lodolo has battled blisters and countless other injuries, and Spencer Strider has had two elbow surgeries; yet, they were all drafted in the top 130 picks. Even if we’ve started to think that a pick outside the top 100 isn’t an “early pick,” we’re still seeing that it’s possible for those picks to lose you tons of fantasy value when compared to other players you could be drafting. Meanwhile, a 2–3 round ADP discount on those 13 names I mentioned above with long injury histories would have saved roughly $200 in losses.
As I mentioned in my article recapping the first two rounds of 2026 drafts, Crochet and Aaron Judge were the two biggest misses in round one, and they happened because of injuries. Yet, they both have had long-term injuries in recent seasons. Crochet had just completed one year after Tommy John surgery and had made his first full workload jump as a starter. The shoulder injury that ended his season could be seen as a continuation of the risk that surgery history predicts. Judge also has a recurring pattern of toe/oblique/wrist/hip IL stints. We were still willing to pay the 2nd overall pick price because we know how talented he is, but given that he is a huge person, we should maybe have accounted for his body not being able to hold up over a full season.
Reliever fragility is just as stark as starting pitcher fragility but talked about less often. Edwin Díaz, Carlos Estévez, Ryan Helsley, Daniel Palencia, Dennis Santana, Pete Fairbanks, and Devin Williams account for seven relievers who hit the IL or lost effectiveness due to nagging injuries. Of that group, we know Fairbanks (who I actually listed below because he was pitching poorly even when healthy) deals with Reynaud’s Syndrome. We also know Williams had a previous major back injury, and Díaz missed an entire year after his Achilles injury. Now, that’s not to say that we should have known all of them would get hurt, but their previous injury history does add a bit of risk to taking them as early as they were. Compounded with the added risk of simply being a pitcher and being a closer.
Least Valuable Fantasy Baseball Picks - Non-Injury Group
| Player | Team | POS | ADP | Actual $ | Slot $ | Profit |
| Ryan Walker | SFG | RP | 145 | -$19.8 | $4.7 | -$24.5 |
| Noelvi Marte | CIN | 3B/OF | 148 | -$20.1 | $4.2 | -$24.3 |
| Jordan Beck | COL | OF | 233 | -$23.6 | $0.0 | -$23.6 |
| TJ Friedl | CIN | OF | 265 | -$23.5 | $0.0 | -$23.5 |
| Luis Castillo | CHW | SP | 171 | -$20.0 | $3.0 | -$23.0 |
| Adolis García | PHI | OF | 214 | -$19.6 | $0.0 | -$19.6 |
| Mike Burrows | HOU | SP | 238 | -$17.5 | $0.0 | -$17.5 |
| Kodai Senga | NYM | SP/RP | 224 | -$16.3 | $0.0 | -$16.3 |
| Brenton Doyle | CHW | OF | 166 | -$12.5 | $3.0 | -$15.5 |
| Kyle Bradish | BAL | SP | 73 | -$8.2 | $6.9 | -$15.1 |
| Edward Cabrera | CHC | SP | 175 | -$12.7 | $2.3 | -$15.0 |
| George Kirby | SEA | SP | 65 | -$7.6 | $6.9 | -$14.5 |
| Andrew Abbott | CIN | SP | 222 | -$13.9 | $0.0 | -$13.9 |
| Matt McLain | CIN | 2B/SS | 144 | -$8.3 | $4.7 | -$13.0 |
| Bubba Chandler | PIT | SP | 150 | -$8.6 | $4.1 | -$12.7 |
| Josh Lowe | LAA | OF | 297 | -$12.1 | $0.0 | -$12.1 |
| Sal Frelick | MIL | OF | 216 | -$11.8 | $0.0 | -$11.8 |
| Taylor Ward | SEA | OF/DH | 148 | -$7.4 | $4.2 | -$11.6 |
| Pete Fairbanks | MIA | RP | 111 | -$6.8 | $4.7 | -$11.5 |
| Shane Smith | CHW | SP | 246 | -$11.1 | $0.0 | -$11.1 |
| Framber Valdez | DET | SP | 81 | -$4.1 | $6.9 | -$11.0 |
| Agustín Ramírez | MIA | C/DH | 87 | -$4.5 | $6.5 | -$11.0 |
| Jack Leiter | TEX | SP | 231 | -$10.8 | $0.0 | -$10.8 |
| Kyle Manzardo | CLE | 1B/DH | 253 | -$10.8 | $0.0 | -$10.8 |
| Jackson Holliday | BAL | 2B | 203 | -$10.4 | $0.2 | -$10.6 |
| Freddy Peralta | TBR | SP | 56 | -$3.6 | $6.9 | -$10.5 |
The non-injury busts seem to connect back to a mistake that I mentioned in my article on lessons I learned from the 2026 fantasy baseball season: The market priced too many earlier-round players at their best-case outcome. In my article, I mentioned that when I discussed pitchers coming off injuries like Kyle Bradish, Kodai Senga, Edward Cabrera, and Eury Perez. Every one of those arms except for Perez made this list above. We also drafted young hitters without a long MLB track record too high, like Noelvi Marte, Jackson Holliday, and Jordan Beck. On average, young hitters without 300+ MLB PA are volatile. Yes, their ceilings are high, but this research showed me that 40% of those picks were busts based on the value they should have produced at their ADP.
On the pitcher side, healthy starting pitcher decline is a sneaky category because these pitchers look “safe” on draft day, which means many of us kept them on our teams and in our lineups despite their poor performance. George Kirby and Framber Valdez were two of the biggest culprits, but Freddy Peralta, Luis Castillo, Bradish, and Andrew Abbott fit that as well. Perhaps we need to be a bit more cognizant of year-over-year strikeout rate declines or declining velocity.
The second issue was expecting growth from pitchers who hadn’t yet shown it and, as mentioned with the starting pitchers coming off injury above, drafting them as if the jump in skill was a given. All of Bubba Chandler, Jack Leiter, Mike Burrows, and Shane Smith had minimal MLB track records and very little success at the big league level in the way that suggested a huge step forward (good strikeout rates or swinging strike rates, solid contact rates allowed, etc.). None of those young arms broke out this season, and both Smith and Burrows were demoted to Triple-A at some point during the year.
A few of the hitters on here (Brenton Doyle, TJ Friedl, Sal Frelick, Josh Lowe) are speed-based players that need to play a full season in order to return value. While some of them dealt with injury, they were also in playing time battles or demoted or traded, and the limited playing time gave them essentially no value since it crushed their chances to steal bases. Also, for the record, I’m aware Adolis Garcia got hurt this season, but his production in 67 games was so poor that he was likely headed for this list regardless, so I decided to keep him on as a warning against aging power hitters who are already showing a decline in hard contact.
Least Valuable Top 50 Fantasy Baseball Picks
| Player | ADP | Actual $ | Slot $ | Profit |
| Wyatt Langford | 38 | $2.1 | $11.4 | -$9.3 |
| Andrés Muñoz | 41 | $2.1 | $11.4 | -$9.3 |
| Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | 18 | $3.1 | $11.4 | -$8.3 |
| Gunnar Henderson | 13 | $4.4 | $11.4 | -$7.0 |
Lastly, we have the players who didn’t really bust but also didn’t deliver the return on investment we were hoping for at their draft slots. They were startable all year, or we believed they were, so none were dropped, but they didn’t offer much for our teams.
I covered Henderson in the same article on the first two rounds of drafts and mentioned that, if you remove every Round 1 pick whose shortfall could be linked to injury, the two names left are Gunnar Henderson and Kyle Tucker. Still, Tucker produced just under $10 of value, so he wasn’t a total loss, but Henderson was down at $4.4, which is far lower than you needed or wanted at his ADP. With Henderson, the market bought his pedigree as a former Rookie of the Year and face of the Orioles franchise, but we ignored the softening trend in his 2025 numbers. The market also bought pedigree and the illusion of past production by taking Vladimir Guerrero Jr. over upside players who had flashed elite ceilings in 2025 like Pete Crow-Armstrong (pick 32, $49.20) and James Wood (pick 40, $26.74). There were warning signs for both Vlad Jr. and Gunnar that their previous peak seasons wouldn’t be repeatable, but we kept drafting them as if that weren’t the case.
Wyatt Langford is a young player with an injury history that we keep seeming to ignore. He had played exactly 134 games in his two previous seasons, and had shown flashes of the power/speed combination that we love for fantasy, but drafting him inside the top 40 overall picks was assuming he would be healthy. That was not an assumption we should have made. Lastly, Andrés Muñoz was an elite reliever who didn’t get enough save opportunities to justify his cost. This was more bad luck than anything. The Mariners had 35 saves as a team, and he had 28 of them. This wasn’t like previous seasons when he was sharing the role; the Mariners were just surprisingly bad this year. Although we should note that Muñoz himself had a 4.24 ERA on the season, and while some of that was poor BABIP luck, it also wasn’t a good year from a guy you drafted to be your top closer.
