You aren't just imagining it: The first round was a disaster this season. How bad? Well, let's quantify it.
I took a look at every first round since 2021 – defined as "Players with an ADP below 15.0 in NFBC drafts" – and plugged them all into the FanGraphs player rater to find the dollar value produced by every crop in that span. And, no surprise, 2026's first round was the worst of the bunch. And even with around two weeks left in the season, that isn't likely to change.
Here are the results in full:
2026
Median: $10.30
Average: $12.61
2025
Median: $28.80
Average: $28.14
2024
Median: $17.20
Average: $22.18
2023
Median: $26.70
Average: $27.41
2022
Median: $22.40
Average: $22.08
2021
Median: $25.70
Average: $19.06
That's brutal stuff. The average first-rounder taken in 2026 has been worth less than half of their 2025 counterparts, and there's a nearly $10 gap between the average first-rounder in 2026 and the worst first-rounder of any of the previous five seasons. In 2025, the average first-rounder was worth $28.1; in 2026, the best first-rounder (Elly De La Cruz) has been worth $28.9 to date.
For some context, Pete Crow-Armstrong leads all players with $48.3 in value so far. Again, even with the next 17 of the season left, these gaps aren't going to shrink much. This has been, without question, the worst first-round crop in years. And it's going to lead to a real changing of the guards at the top of Fantasy Baseball drafts in 2027, after years of there being very little turnover at the top.
With just five games on the schedule Thursday, I figured now was a good time to take stock of the dreadful state of the 2026 first round, and perhaps take a look at what those players are going to look like in 2027. We'll have a look at the biggest performances and news from Thursday later in today's newsletter, but the bulk of it is going to be a look at each of the first 15 players drafted on average in 2026 and see what the future might hold for them.
Of course, if we could perfectly predict the future, maybe most of these guys wouldn't have been first-rounders in the first place.
What went wrong with 2026's first rounders?
Shohei Ohtani – ADP: 1.2
It seems like everything just kind of caught up to him all at once. Ohtani had a good season, but he took a step back across the board, especially in the second half, as the injuries he sustained while pitching became a bigger issue. This was always the risk with Ohtani as a two-way player – double the opportunity for injuries.
Though I will add one other aspect that was overlooked coming into the season: He doesn't run nearly as much when he's pitching. That has been clear throughout his career, and while it's not a necessary skill for him to be worth the 1.1 pick, any loss of steals just means he has to make up for it elsewhere. That's asking a lot, and I don't think Ohtani belongs in that 1.1 discussion next season.
Aaron Judge – ADP: 2.5
He got hurt. That happens, and you might point to Judge's injury history as a reason why we could have seen this coming. But there isn't really a precedent for Judge dealing with the specific injury he has had, a stress fracture in his ribs. I'll grant that a 34-year-old behemoth like Judge is probably more likely to get hurt than your typical player, but this specific injury probably could have happened to anyone. I don't know if there's a real lesson here beyond a blanket downgrade on players in their mid-30s, but Judge will still be in the top-five picks in 2027.
Bobby Witt Jr. – ADP: 3.18
My only thought here is maybe we need to stop chasing that magical 2024 season. Everything went right for Witt, who hit nearly 40 points higher than any other season while also hitting nine more homers than he had in either of the two seasons since. On the other hand, he's going to easily steal 40 bases and has the second-best expected wOBA of his career, so if Witt is a disappointment, it's not one I feel inclined to act on. He belongs in the top-five discussion every season.
Juan Soto – ADP: 4.32
There's nothing here. Soto had never been on the IL with a calf injury before the first week of April 2026, and he's now been on the IL twice with the same injury in both legs this season. You can't predict something like that, and Soto has otherwise played like a first-rounder when he's been on the field; if it weren't for the injuries, he would have put together his third straight 40-homer season. Last season's steals are probably never coming back, but you shouldn't have been counting on that anyway. He should go in roughly the same spot next season.
Jose Ramirez – ADP: 5.78
Some might point to Ramirez's middling quality of contact metrics as evidence that this kind of season was always inevitable, but that's an oversimplification, for the obvious reason that Ramirez has been an elite Fantasy player without ever putting up elite quality of contact metrics. He makes a lot of contact, he walks a bunch, and he optimizes the contact he makes by hitting a ton of batted balls in the air to the pull side. And he's doing all of that this season. He also had hand surgery mid-season and returned without a rehab assignment, which probably explains more of his struggles than anything else. This might be the end of the line for Ramirez as an elite Fantasy option – Mookie Betts was on a similar trajectory and hasn't recovered in the past few seasons – but I'm going to have a hard time moving Ramirez outside of the second round range.
Ronald Acuna Jr. – ADP: 6.82
The leg injuries are becoming a serious issue. Acuna has been on the IL twice this season with hamstring injuries, and since his first torn ACL back in 2021, he has been on the IL four times with various leg injuries. He is still very much capable of explosive production – he had a recent stretch with multiple hits in five of nine games with three homers in that span, but on the whole, he's been a pretty big disappointment this season. The underlying numbers are still quite good and he has been pretty active on the bases despite the injuries, so you can still squint and see some 40-homer, 20-steal upside outcomes. But he hasn't actually been that guy since 2023, and I think we have to take him out of first-round consideration for 2027 at this point. The bigger question is whether his struggles are enough to push him down to the third round.
Tarik Skubal – ADP: 7.37
What happened? He's a pitcher, that's what happened. Skubal's season could have gone a lot worse if not for a new procedure that quickened his return from elbow surgery and allowed him to still make 23 excellent starts and counting. He hasn't been quite as good as his previous couple of seasons, but he hasn't been much worse than about the fifth-best pitcher on a per-inning basis, and if that's what the floor looks like, he's still definitely an early-round pick. We'll see where Skubal signs – returning to the Dodgers wouldn't be ideal, because he'd be stuck in a six-man rotation – but I think he should still be one of the first few starters off the board in 2027.
Elly De La Cruz – ADP: 8.87
It feels like there's a sense that De La Cruz hasn't lived up to the hype. Partly, this is because he's only a 25-30-steal guy these days, when it once looked like he might be a league-winner in steals. But I think he also hasn't gotten enough credit for the leaps he has made as a hitter over the years. His .873 OPS is nearly 100 points higher than last season's mark, and he's already set a new career high in homers despite playing just 127 games. Maybe De La Cruz isn't the game-breaking player we thought he might become, but there's nothing wrong with a first-rounder who is on a 30-30 pace with useful contributions in all five categories. He's a superstar and an easy first-rounder.
Julio Rodriguez – ADP: 9.52
Here's something I had forgotten about until I started writing this newsletter: Rodriguez missed nearly three weeks with a concussion right at the end of the first half of the season. When that injury happened, he was on pace for something like a .260 average, 26 homers, 22 steals, 86 runs, and 74 RBI. That would still be disappointing for a first-round pick, but Rodriguez is hitting just .203 with a 20-homer pace since coming back, so it certainly didn't help. And Rodriguez is famously a second-half player, so it's fair to argue that the concussion really derailed what would have ended up being a pretty typical season for him. You can also argue that Rodriguez hasn't deserved his first-round billing in two of the past three seasons, but given the extenuating circumstances, I'm not holding his season too much against him. However, it is true that if he has to go on a crazy second-half run every year to justify an early-round price, he runs the risk of having something go wrong along the way that doesn't let him get there. That's fair.
Paul Skenes – ADP: 11.06
What happened? He's a pitcher, that's what happened. Skenes' case is different from Skubal's, in that he hasn't been dealing with an injury (as far as we know), but this is very much a part of life with pitchers, too. Sometimes they stay healthy (as far as we know) and just lose velocity and effectiveness even in the middle of their supposed prime. I mean, Skenes won't even be 25 until next May, so anyone who says they saw this kind of decline coming … Well, I dunno, maybe they should tell me the lotto numbers. The truth is, any time you spend elite draft capital on a pitcher, you're taking on outsized risk. Skenes has still had a fine season overall, with a 3.85 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, and an outside chance at 200 strikeouts (he needs 19 over his final three or so starts), but he's obviously been a huge Fantasy disappointment. We're either going to find out he was pitching through an injury in 2026 or I'm probably still going to rank him as a top-12 SP for 2027. But I'm not going to feel good about where I rank him, no matter where it ends up.
Corbin Carroll – ADP: 11.94
We expect players to slow down as base stealers as they age, but Carroll's decline has really hurt. He hasn't been a big contributor in batting average since his first full season, but you could at least count on him for 30-plus steals and nearly 200 combined runs and RBI with 20-plus homers. Well, this season he's at risk of falling short of the 20-20 milestone for the first time ever, while hitting just .240; he technically has more than two weeks left to get the one homer he needs, but with a lingering back injury keeping him out of the lineup in recent days, there's a chance he doesn't get there. Based on his play since 2023, Carroll might just be an especially inconsistent hitter, but if he's no longer a standout in stolen bases, that's a lot harder to stomach. I don't know if we should have seen this one coming, to be honest, entering the season; sometimes guys just slump. I'd bet on an across-the-board bounce-back for Carroll, but I'm not so certain it's coming that I'd be willing to make him a first-round pick again. He might not even be a second-rounder, honestly. This is one where we might find out that this back injury might have been holding him back a lot longer than we knew. I'm almost hoping that's the case.
Garrett Crochet – ADP: 14.09
What happened? He's a pitcher, that's what happened. All the injury concerns we had about Crochet in 2025 manifested in 2026, as he made it through just six rocky starts before suffering a shoulder injury that will effectively cost him the rest of the season. We may see him back in a reduced role by the playoffs, and it'd be nice to see the stuff all the way back, even if only for an inning or two at a time. That won't do anything to chase away injury concerns, but you'd still rather see him healthy to close out the season than not. At this point, we've seen Crochet get through one season with a normal starter's workload, dating back to 2018 when he was in his first season at the University of Tennessee, and you'll definitely have to discount him for that. He'll probably still be drafted as a top-30 starting pitcher, but don't expect him to be an early-round pick again.
Fernando Tatis Jr. – ADP: 14.16
If time travel were possible – it's not, at least not to the past, sorry, that's just physics – it would be fun to go back and tell Fantasy Baseball players in late May that Tatis would end up being one of the best first-round picks of the season. Dennis Lin of The Athletic had a story Thursday about the adjustment Tatis made, first before the season to mess up his swing, and then in early June to fix it, and he's been arguably the best non-Pete Crow-Armstrong player in Fantasy since. It's a friendly reminder that the baseball season doesn't end in June, and also a maybe not-so-friendly reminder that there's a lot of inherent volatility to Tatis' game. We haven't seen a truly huge, 1.1-caliber season from him since his massive 42-homer, 25-steal season in 2021, but he doesn't need to get back to that level to be a first-rounder in 2027. That's what he will be.
Gunnar Henderson – ADP: 14.27
Partially, this is about the fact that Henderson maybe just isn't a first-round caliber player – he certainly hasn't played like one since the first half of the 2024 season! In 2025, he at least stole 30 bases to make up for his lackluster hitting, but he only has 10 so far in 2026. But "Henderson was overrated" doesn't actually explain why he's been so bad in 2026, as his entire skill set has collapsed to the point where there must be some other explanation for why things have gone so badly for him. We don't have any injuries to point to before Henderson left a game earlier this week with a knee issue. Still, I fully expect to hear something after the season that Henderson has been playing through, because this kind of collapse from a 25-year-old just doesn't make much sense otherwise. I have to assume he'll bounce back at least somewhat in 2027, though I think we'll need a significant discount to justify taking the chance on it.
Kyle Tucker – ADP: 14.77
There will be some who will argue that Tucker was always overhyped, but that's ridiculous. He had been a mildly disappointing Fantasy player in 2024 and 2025, but almost exclusively because he dealt with injuries in both seasons; there was nothing like 2026, where he stayed healthy and was just a dud. You have to wonder if the pressure of the massive contract he signed to play with the Dodgers played a role – and his .572 OPS at home compared to a .798 mark on the road lends some credence to this theory. Given his age and the lineup he's in, I'm going to have a hard time giving up on Tucker completely despite how poorly this season has gone for him. Because if he does figure it out and gets back to even his 2025 levels of production, Tucker is going to be a first-round caliber player in this lineup. Maybe he'll never get back to that level, but if the price is reasonable enough, I'm willing to bet on a bounce-back here. It'll just have to come outside of the top 75 picks, probably.
