One of the biggest storylines of the upcoming offseason is absolutely going to be the collapse of the early rounds in 2026 Fantasy Baseball drafts. Here's how bad it is: Fernando Tatis didn't homer until nearly June, and he was probably the best first-round pick you could have made this year.
With less than three weeks left, there's not a ton anyone can do to change their overall outlook, but you'd still like to see some of those disappointing superstars close out the season strong. And not just for their 2027 outlook – if you're still alive in the playoffs, or playing in a Roto league through the end of the season, these games do still matter!
And two of the biggest names in Fantasy are looking to make a big impact down the stretch. One, Shohei Ohtani, was back in the lineup Monday after missing four straight with lingering knee and biceps injuries; the other, Aaron Judge, will make his long-awaited return from a rib injury Tuesday.
Given how long he's been out – Judge hasn't played since May 31 – you might think Judge is the bigger question mark down the stretch. But I'm not sure that's the case. The Yankees have taken their time with the stress fracture in his rib, and though he ended up skipping a rehab assignment, I mostly expect him to hit the ground running. There isn't a ton of time left for Judge to get back up to speed, but when he missed nearly two months back in 2023, he returned without a rehab assignment and still managed 18 homers in his final 57 games while putting up a .965 OPS. There are no guarantees, but if Judge is healthy, he should be dominant. Get him back in your lineup.
You're getting Ohtani back in your lineups, too, of course. But that "if he's healthy" part feels a lot more speculative here. Ohtani has been battling through multiple maladies while trying to get back on the mound, and it seems like he's had to put his plans to return to the mound completely on hold for the time being. Ohtani was clearly limited by his injuries in the games before his shutdown this weekend, and it's fair to wonder if he's ever going to get back to being 100% healthy this season; in hitting just .242/.322/.472 in August, it's clear he hasn't been for some time.
As I've stated before, you're still starting Ohtani in all leagues. But while the biggest question with Judge is whether there will be rust upon his return, Ohtani just feels like a much bigger question mark. He's been struggling for a while (at least by his standards), and the Dodgers have enough of a cushion to shut him down if they need to. Hopefully, he's fine, but if not, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get more extended time off. After all, the Dodgers are playing for a World Series, not postseason seeding. And having a fully healthy Ohtani is the best way to make sure they can contend when they need to.
Those are the two biggest storylines around MLB coming out of Labor Day Weekend, but they certainly aren't the only ones. In the rest of today's newsletter, we're going to try to catch you up on the biggest performances from the long weekend, plus the latest news to help you get back up to speed for the stretch run.
Pre-game Lineup Card
Here's what you might have missed from CBSSports.com's MLB coverage in recent days:
What can Kristian Campbell teach us about modern baseball?. Julian McWilliams went down to Triple-A to find out how Campbell's career got sidetracked, and in the process looked into the data revolution powering offenses around baseball. This is one of the best and most exhaustively reported stories I've seen in baseball all year.
Yankees questions. With Aaron Judge back, what questions face the Yankees down the stretch?
Hitting the Wire
The top waiver-wire targets from Monday's action:
Jared Jones, SP, Pirates (61%) – You can already see how Jones is going to be one of the more popular breakout picks among starting pitchers in 2027. He throws hard and has three different secondary pitches with a whiff rate over 38%, which is a pretty bonkers arsenal to build on. He'll have to stay healthy and prove he can do more than flash upside, so that's what the next few starts can help him do – he leaned on the slider 49% of the time in his start over the week and it was dominant, generating 19 of his 21 swinging strikes. The rest of the arsenal is still searching for consistency, and he's been doing this all while on a pretty limited pitch count this season, so caveats apply. That being said, the Pirates let him get to a season-high 91 pitches in this start, and with the playoffs pretty much entirely out of the picture, I wonder if they'll keep giving him a longer leash moving forward. They're gonna have to do it eventually, maybe it'll be the next three or so starts.
Emmet Sheehan, SP, Dodgers (35%) – Sheehan is going to go down as one of the bigger disappointments among starting pitchers, no matter what he does the rest of the way, but even amid the struggles, there's no doubt he still has plenty of upside. He looked excellent after a demotion to Triple-A, and he was dominant in his return to the rotation Monday, limiting the Reds to one earned run over 5.2 innings while striking out 10. It's not entirely clear if he has a role in the rotation moving forward, but if he locks in, he can definitely be a very useful Fantasy option, so why not see if he can do it here?
Nick Pivetta, SP, Padres (63%) – Pivetta returned from the IL Monday and tossed five shutout innings against the Nationals, so it's time to add him everywhere, right? Well, not so fast. Pivetta's velocity was down 0.5-1.5 mph across the entire arsenal and had just two strikeouts and one swinging strike on 63 pitches while allowing a 90.8 mph average exit velocity. The final line was pretty good, and Pivetta is obviously a very good pitcher when healthy, but I didn't see enough in this first game back to think he needs to be
Michael Arroyo, 2B, Mariners (8%) – As a hoped-for playoff spot continues to slip further from their grasp, the Mariners are at the point where they're willing to try stuff out. First, it was with the promotion of outfield prospect Lazaro Montes, and now with infielder Arroyo. I'm not sure how much Arroyo is going to play – he started just one of his first three games after being recalled – but he's an intriguing prospect, coming off a season in the minors where he had 18 homers and 17 steals in just 117 games. He'll make a decent amount of contact and has a nice, well-rounded skill set, though Arroyo's raw power is pretty average despite the decent power production. It would make sense for the Mariners to give him an extended look down the stretch to see if he can be part of the long-term answer in the infield, especially with J.P. Crawford heading into free agency.
Mickey Gasper, C, Red Sox (34%) – He just keeps hitting. Gasper went deep yet again Friday and is now hitting .327 with eight homers and 15 RBI in his past 19 games. That includes a stretch where he has started eight straight games with Willson Contreras on the IL, and with how he's hitting, why wouldn't he keep playing? It's not clear when Contreras will be back anyway, so just keep using Gasper as a catcher on your Fantasy teams until the playing time dries up or the hot streak runs out.
Brayan Rocchio, SS, Guardians (59%) – Rocchio is both having a career-best season and also generally doesn't make enough of an impact to matter in Fantasy. But he's had useful stretches this season and seems extremely locked in right now, with three homers in his past five games to go along with a couple of steals in that same span. He's going to end up with something like 15 homers and north of 20 steals and is a useful hot-hand play in deeper leagues, at least.
Three Up, Three Down
*Four big performances that have players trending up from the holiday weekend, and four that have the arrow pointing in the opposite direction.
Three Up
Ronald Acuña is looking like himself again
It's been a tough go for Acuña for much of the season. He's been on the IL two separate times with hamstring injuries and has struggled enough that his status as an early-round player in the coming years has taken a real hit. But the season isn't over and Acuña's story isn't written yet. He started heating up at the end of August with seven hits in the final four games and he hasn't let up so far in September, opening the month with multiple hits in four of his first six games with three homers. In total, he's 17 for 40 with three homers, three doubles, and even a couple of steals in his past 10 games. The speed aspect of his game has been coming back (four steals in August), and now the bat is coming back around. There's little Acuña can do to make his 2026 season anything but a disappointment, but if he keeps this hot streak up, it'll be a lot easier to justify making the upside bet required to make him a top-20 pick in 2027. I think that's where I'll rank him.
Parker Messick is cruising
Messick made it to the majors with little hype. Despite a successful cup of coffee late in 2025, he entered 2026 with little hype. And even after nearly 170 innings of a 2.53 ERA, it seems like he might enter 2027 without much hype, either. For Sunday/Monday's Fantasy Baseball Today episode, we talked about the very first real draft for 2027 with KC Bubba of FantasyPros and Baseball HQ, and one thing that went unremarked upon during that episode was Messick's price: He was just SP29 as the 102nd pick! It's just one draft, but I think it highlights the fact that there is still some lingering skepticism around Messick and his success in the majors.
And to a certain extent, I get it: He doesn't have hugely overpowering stuff, even for a lefty, and he wasn't a big-time prospect, either. He was a bit of a late bloomer in the minors and he gets by on pitchability and command more than dominant stuff. But he's been dominant, with a 2.57 ERA in 206.2 innings in the majors and with a very, very strong 3.05 xERA and 19.3% K-BB% since getting to the majors; only three pitchers have a lower xERA since the start of 2026, and only eight have a better K-BB% rate. At some point, people are just going to have to accept this guy is a really good pitcher, even if he doesn't fit into what we typically expect really good pitchers to look like.
Zack Wheeler got back on track
That's now two very good starts in a row for Wheeler since an eight-run meltdown August 24. And Saturday wasn't just good; it was a great start, as he held the Braves to just one run while striking out nine over six innings of work. It's been an up-and-down season for Wheeler, who looked like a top-five pitcher in baseball around the All-Star break before a brutal August had us questioning whether he is even worth the trouble anymore. Well, he has looked well worth it over the past two starts, and the takeaway here might be that, given his age and the surgery he had last offseason, Wheeler might not be capable of locking in that way for a full season. But he still looks like he's going to finish the season as a top-15 starting pitcher despite missing most of April, and he should probably just be drafted as a top-12 SP for 2027.
Miguel Vargas is closing out strong
What you want from your breakout stars is to see them run through the finish line. Ultimately, the shape of a player's production matters less than the production itself when trying to project for the future, but you'd still rather see those early-season breakouts keep it going through game 162 than stumble down the stretch. Vargas has hit safely in four straight games with a homer and a steal in that span, and he's now hitting .293/.417/.504 since the start of August. The plate discipline actually looks better than it did before and his average exit velocity is still strong at 90.0 mph. This wasn't just a random hot streak for Vargas, and he has managed to adjust to whatever changes in the scouting report pitchers have thrown at him. That's what we want to see, and seeing as he's already at 30 homers and needs just four more steals to get to 20, it's hard to argue against him as an early-round pick for 2027.
Three Down
Eury Perez is slumping
Perez might just be running out of gas. He's up over 140 innings for the season, uncharted territory for a 23-year-old who had never thrown more than 118 innings in a season before this one. It would make perfect sense if Perez just wasn't at the top of his game as the season draws to a close, and it's a reminder of how early Perez still is into his career, despite how long he's been around.
But I don't necessarily think this is just about fatigue, because Perez is starting to fail in a lot of the same ways he was earlier in the season. He has walked at least three batters in five starts in a row after Monday's stinker against the Mets, after he had just two such starts in his previous 11, the best stretch of his career. I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that Perez still just has pretty shaky command, and there are just too many noncompetitive pitches when he's on the mound. Breaking balls hung in the middle of the zone, or fastballs that miss it completely, are a common sight when Perez isn't right, and it's disappointing to see him fall back on bad habits here at the end of the season. He's still talented enough that I suspect he'll be an ace eventually, but after it looked like he had turned the corner and cemented himself as one for 2027 drafts, he's taken a step back here and looks like a risky top-20 SP if that's where the price falls.
Logan Gilbert still doesn't look right
I wonder if the Mariners aren't going to at least have conversations about letting go of their pitching coaches this offseason. Pretty much everyone on the staff has taken a step back this season, and in Gilbert's case, he doesn't even have an injury to point to like last season. He hasn't been bad overall, but he's been weirdly off for long stretches and has been fiddling with his pitch mix all season long. He was tagged for seven runs in 4.2 innings against the A's in Seattle Friday and is now up to a 4.59 ERA since the All-Star break. He's better than that, and he definitely should be better than that at home. The Mariners have a staff full of tinkerers, and it seems like everyone has regressed this season. They might benefit from a new voice in their ears, and I would guess this rotation is going to look very different next season, no matter what.
Roman Anthony hasn't gotten going
It's going to be interesting to watch how the rest of the season goes for Anthony and what, if any, impact that has on his price for 2027. Given how little we've seen from him this season – and how much of it will end up coming after his return from a troublesome finger injury – I'm inclined to just call this season a wash for Anthony already. Being a big-leaguer as a 22-year-old is hard enough, let alone doing so with all of the interruptions Anthony has had to deal with. Still, if you're hoping to see some signs of superstardom from Anthony, it's been a mixed bag since his return from injury; he had multiple hits in his first four games back with just one strikeout, but he has just two hits in five games since, striking out 10 strikeouts.
The truth is, we haven't really seen the superstar upside from Anthony at all this season, as he had an OPS below .700 when he first suffered the injury, which leaves us with plenty of unanswered questions as we look ahead to his third MLB season. Can he hit lefties (39% strikeout rate last season, sub-.600 OPS this season)? Can he elevate the ball consistently enough to take advantage of his prodigious raw power? These remain open questions for Anthony, but I still think the upside will be worth taking a flier on – and if that first Meatball draft is any indication and Anthony costs something like a sixth or seventh-round pick, I'll be even more excited to draft him.
Regression caught up to Clay Holmes
Holmes' groundballing ways found a perfect landing spot when he was traded to the Cubs, but he was never going to sustain a sub-2.00 ERA for very long. Well, all of the regression and then some caught up to him Sunday against the Marlins of all teams, who pounded him for eight runs on six hits and three walks in 4.1 innings of work. That came after a 1.55 ERA in the month of August, where he struck out just 18 in 29 innings, so some correction was always going to come. It's still arguably the best scenario for Holmes to be in, but this start was a reminder that he just isn't skilled enough to actually be a must-start pitcher, even if he looked like one for a few months this season.
Extra Innings
The long ball felled Gerrit Cole
Gerrit Cole is probably going to be in the Hall of Fame. Whether he's done enough so far to justify that is a different question, but I think in the end, he'll get there. Oddly enough, he became the first pitcher in MLB history to allow back-to-back-to-back homers to open a game for the second time in his career Saturday against the Padres. For as good as Cole has been for much of his career, he has nonetheless always had trouble with homers, with three different seasons with at least 29 allowed; he also had 14 in just 12 starts in 2020, and he's up to 17 in 19 starts this season. That's just part of the deal with Cole, and still managed to salvage a decent day despite ultimately allowing four solo homers to the Padres. This is just a weird blip, I think.
