Fantasy Baseball 2026 Sleepers, Busts and Final MLB Mock Draft

MLB opening day is almost upon us, meaning we've reached the peak of fantasy baseball draft season.

While you're clearly cram-sessioning your way through your final pre-draft preparations, you'll have to put all of this research and hard work into practice soon.

Let's not waste time on more buildup, then, and instead just launch right into a final three-round mock draft and a quick overview of a couple of our top sleeper and bust calls for the 2026 campaign.

Simulated 3-Round, 10-Team Mock Draft

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Round 1

Shohei Ohtani, SP/DH, LAD

Aaron Judge, OF, NYY

Bobby Witt Jr., SS, KC

Juan Soto, OF, NYM

Ronald Acuña Jr., OF, ATL

José Ramírez, 3B, CLE

Tarik Skubal, SP, DET

Paul Skenes, SP, PIT

Elly De La Cruz, SS, CIN

Julio Rodríguez, OF, SEA

Round 2

Kyle Tucker, OF, LAD

Garrett Crochet, SP, BOS

Cal Raleigh, C, SEA

Corbin Carroll, OF, ARI

Fernando Tatís Jr., OF, SD

Gunnar Henderson, SS, BAL

Junior Caminero, 3B, TB

Jackson Chourio, OF, MIL

Ketel Marte, 2B, ARI

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1B, TOR

Round 3

Kyle Schwarber, DH, PHI

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, SP, LAD

Nick Kurtz, 1B, ATH

Jazz Chisholm Jr., 2B, NYY

Pete Alonso, 1B, NYM

Francisco Lindor, SS, NYM

Cristopher Sánchez, SP, PHI

James Wood, OF, WAS

Manny Machado, 3B, SD

Trea Turner, SS, PHI

Sleepers

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Sal Stewart, 1B, Cincinnati Reds

A first-round pick in the 2022 MLB draft, Stewart got a small sample of the bigs last season, and that was all he needed to flash his power potential (five homers in 55 at-bats). If he gets locked into an everyday role this season—in a great lineup and great home hitting environment—his power production could be elite.

Carlos Correa, SS/3B, Houston Astros

As a 31-year-old in a general pattern of decline, Correa won't appeal to every manager. Savvy ones will take note of a few things, though. Like how good he looked upon his return to Houston last season (.290/.355/.430 slash line with 44 combined runs and RBI in 51 games). Or how much production he piled into his 2024 season (14 homers, 54 RBI and 55 runs in 86 games) before injuries threw everything off-track.

Kodai Senga, SP, New York Mets

Senga hasn't been healthy or particularly useful for a while, but a dominant spring suggests he might be healthy now. And considering what he did the last time he was healthy (2.98 ERA with 202 strikeouts over 166.1 innings in 2023), he could be one of the real draft steals this season.

Busts

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Byron Buxton, OF, Minnesota Twins

Buxton is one of the most talented players in the Majors, so it's tough advising anyone to stay away. The thing is, he's been supremely talented for a long time, and he never has been a fantasy force like he was last season. Will he play 126 games again, though? Or how about bash 35 homers? Or go a perfect 24-of-24 on stolen base attempts? Predicting history to repeat itself would be ignoring all of his history that predated last season.

Jacob Misiorowski, SP, Milwaukee Brewers

Fantasy managers always fawn over prospects, but pitching prospects are particularly precarious, since things can go wrong for them in so many different ways. And then though Misiorowski was a rookie All-Star last season, he had plenty go awry, like when he posted a 6.06 ERA with 50 combined hits and walks allowed in 32.2 innings over his final eight starts of the regular season.

Aroldis Chapman, RP, Boston Red Sox

Chapman was arguably a fantasy league-winner last season, but that was the time to have him. Now, you're paying for all of his elite 2025 production without any kind of discount reflecting the risks of a 38-year-old power pitcher who had an ERA north of 3.70 in two of the three years prior to last season's shocking emergence.