2026 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Frank Stampfl's Busts 1.0 feature Oneil Cruz and Spencer Strider
Avoid these 10 players in your Fantasy Baseball drafts
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13 min read
I probably write something similar every year, but choosing busts in Fantasy Baseball is the hardest thing for me to do. It's much easier to get excited for sleepers and breakouts, the players you think will outperform their draft position. But the truth is that there will always be players who let us down. It's just the nature of Fantasy and especially baseball, where we have so much volatility from one year to the next. An underrated skill in Fantasy is actually knowing who to avoid in drafts.
And not all busts are the same. Sure, there are players who have bottom-out potential, who can single-handedly wreck your season. But there are also players who just don't live up to their draft stock. If a player is drafted in the first or second round but returns sixth-round value, that is detrimental to your Fantasy teams as well. As you'll see below, I've broken my busts into different categories: bottom-out potential, injury risks, and don't pay for the career year. They come with varying levels of downside, but are all players I am avoiding based on early ADP.
Make sure to check out all of our Sleepers, Breakouts, and Busts:
- Sleepers 1.0: Scott | Chris | Frank
- Breakouts 1.0: Scott | Chris | Frank
- Busts 1.0: Scott | Chris | Frank
BOTTOM-OUT POTENTIAL
Carlos Estevez just led the Majors with 42 saves, but a peek under the hood shows us he was living quite dangerously. While he posted a 2.45 ERA with a 1.06 WHIP, that came with a 4.95 xFIP and a 4.43 SIERA. First, his strikeouts continue to trend down, posting career lows in strikeout rate (20%) and K/9 (7.4). That's supported by Estevez's swinging strike rate plummeting from 12.5% in 2024 to 8.2% in 2025. In particular, the whiff rate on his slider dropped from 27% to 19% year over year. Next, his walks also went in the wrong direction. If you combine his decline in strikeouts and walks, you get just an 11.9% K-BB rate, which ranked 111th out of 147 qualified relievers.
So we know Estevez allowed more walks and more contact last season. I'm afraid I have more bad news. Estevez is an extreme fly-ball pitcher who also gives up a ton of barrels. His 10.6% barrel rate ranked in the 14th percentile. And we just learned that the Royals are pulling the fences in a bit at Kauffman Stadium to make the venue a more neutral home run park. I would have expected Estevez to take a step back this season, even before this news, but it definitely doesn't help. Lastly, if Estevez struggles early on, the Royals have other talented relievers they can turn to in Lucas Erceg and Matt Strahm. Estevez is an avoid for me in that RP2 range of the draft.
I'm going back to the well on this one. I was out on Cruz last year, and I am out once again. While he made a big leap as a baserunner (career-high 38 steals), he seemingly took steps back everywhere else. The obvious issue was his .200 batting average from last season, which ranked lowest among qualified hitters. His strikeout rate jumped up to 32% as he struggled mightily against lefties and non-fastballs, both of which have been consistent issues in his career. Cruz struck out 35% of the time against left-handed pitching last season, which is actually slightly better than his career 38% mark. He posted whiff rates over 40% against both breaking and offspeed pitches. At 27 years old, you would have expected him to make improvements by now. If it hasn't happened yet, I'm not sure it will.
On top of the strikeout issues, Cruz's swing is not optimized for power. While his raw power is among the best in baseball, his groundball rate remains too high. Last season, Cruz's launch-angle sweet-spot percentage ranked in the 16th percentile. Again, if he was going to make changes to his launch angle, it feels like we should've seen some sign of it by now. Lastly, the Pirates have been more aggressive this offseason, bringing in veteran bats like Brandon Lowe and Ryan O'Hearn. They need to try to win more games while they have Paul Skenes on the roster. If Cruz continues to roll out a sub .600 OPS against left-handed pitching this season, I think it's possible he loses playing time. Like we say every year, Cruz is loaded with the tools to be one of the best players in Fantasy. He could very easily make me look like a fool. In fact, I felt awful last April when he hit eight homers with 12 steals. I figured the breakout was happening, and I made a grave mistake, but then it was all downhill after that. Considering how low the floor is, Cruz is an avoid for me inside the Top-100 picks, especially in H2H points leagues where you're penalized for strikeouts.
This one hurts. Back in 2022 and 2023, Strider looked like one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. His fastball-slider combination was devastating, pumping big velocity and spin past hitters at will. Then, he was struck with the unfortunate fate that meets so many pitchers nowadays – the torn UCL in his elbow. Interestingly enough, Strider opted for the newer internal brace procedure rather than a second Tommy John surgery. The truth is that we don't have a lot of data on starting pitchers returning with the internal brace. Strider made his return last spring, blowing away hitters like we were used to pre-surgery, but we should have been paying closer attention.
While Strider was racking up the whiffs during spring, the velocity and shape on his fastball were not the same. We assumed the velocity would improve as the season went along. It didn't get much better. Strider got off to a solid start in his first 12 starts of the regular season, but the stuff didn't look the same. That's when things went haywire. Strider had a five-start stretch from July 23 to August 18 where he posted a 10.38 ERA and 2.31 WHIP with nine homers allowed and less than a strikeout per inning. His command was all over the place, and he was getting hit hard. He would go on to post a 2.50 ERA over his final six starts, but the underlying numbers do not support that one bit. The big culprit was his fastball.
Strider's fastball is not the same as it was before elbow surgery. The velocity is down nearly two MPH while the induced vertical break is down two inches exactly. As a result, the whiff rate is down from nearly 29% in 2023 to just 15% last season. This is all supported by the Stuff+ metric on Fangraphs as well. Back in 2023, Strider's fastball had a 118 Stuff+, but in 2025, it was all the way down to 91. To put that in perspective, a 91 Stuff+ on the fastball is equivalent to Kyle Freeland and Seth Lugo. If we look at Strider's slider, it remains a strong pitch, though not as effective as pre-surgery. He's gone from having two elite pitches to one very good one. In other words, Strider is broken. This spring, I need to see improved velocity and shape on his fastball or a new, reliable third pitch. Maybe both! Strider is a stay away for me in drafts until I have more information.
INJURY RISKS
BUY LOW, SELL HIGH
I've explained this on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast before, but I have a bit of a mental block in Fantasy drafts. I'm always operating with the mindset to buy low and sell high. I want to draft players coming off down years and fade those coming off surprising big seasons. Last year, Byron Buxton and Trevor Story were both going outside the Top-200 in ADP. We knew they were both talented, but had major issues staying healthy. Well, they stayed on the field, and both had monster seasons. This year, Buxton is going around pick 75 and Story around 100. The way my mind works is 'oh well, last year was the time to draft those guys when their cost was down'. I realize it's a very black-and-white way of thinking, but it usually works. Instead of paying the inflated price for Buxton and Story, I'd rather find this year's injury discounts going much later in drafts.
As mentioned earlier, Buxton and Story were incredible last season. They both finished as Top-24 players in Roto. Buxton averaged 3.7 fantasy points per game, while Trevor Story scored more total Fantasy points than Gunnar Henderson and Mookie Betts. If these two are healthy, I have no questions about their talent. But will they stay healthy? Nobody knows the answer to that. Buxton played in 126 games, his most since 2017 and just the third time he's eclipsed 100 games in his 11-year career. Story appeared in 157 games, his most since 2018. He played in just 69 games total the two years prior to last season. If they stay healthy, I'll be wrong, and I'm okay with that. I just don't like taking injury risks in the Top-100 picks, and that won't change this season.
DODGER DOUBLE DIP
Blake Snell is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. While he's an extremely talented pitcher, you have to deal with wild inconsistencies throughout the season and a constant risk of injury. Last year, Snell made just 11 starts in the regular season due to left shoulder inflammation, and that's been a common theme in his career. He's eclipsed 130 innings twice in 10 years. Of course, both times that he did, Snell went on to win the Cy Young. There are other things you could nitpick in his game as well. He's a liability in the WHIP category, only twice posting a WHIP below 1.19. He's also gone less than six innings in more than half of his starts over the past two seasons, which limits his upside in H2H points leagues. I acknowledge that Snell still comes with a bunch of upside, but the headaches and injury risk are too much to draft him as a Top-70 pick.
Tyler Glasnow is a lot like Snell, but with even more injury risk. He was limited to 18 starts last season, also due to shoulder inflammation. As you probably know by now, Glasnow has never thrown more than 134 innings in a Major League season. At least Snell has hit 180 twice. On top of the injury risk, Glasnow showed some skill decline in 2025. He posted an 11.7% walk rate and 4.3 BB/9, both his highest since 2017. On top of that, his swinging strike rate dropped from 13.8% in 2024 to 11% last season. The whiffs went down. The walks went up. It's a bad recipe. Was it because he was pitching hurt? Maybe, but I'm not going to draft him to find out.
The last point on these two is that the Dodgers have pitching depth and could afford to give them time off in the regular season. Any nagging injury that pops up will result in the Dodgers playing it safe. It adds an extra layer of risk you don't get from pitchers on other teams. The most important thing for the Dodgers is that these two are healthy in September and heading into the playoffs. That's how things played out last year, and the rest was history.
DO NOT PAY FOR THE CAREER YEAR
Cal Raleigh is coming off a magical season, frankly, the best ever by a catcher. To put his Fantasy season in context, Raleigh provided $44 worth of value in 12-team Roto leagues. The next closest catcher was Hunter Goodman, who provided $25 of value. Raleigh scored 622 Fantasy points in standard CBS H2H points leagues. The next closest catcher behind him was William Contreras at 426. Raleigh ran laps around other catchers, and I'd bet on him to be the top catcher again in 2026. Does that mean you should use an early second-round pick for his services? It won't be me who drafts him that early.
What Raleigh does better than most is hit the ball hard in the air to his pull side. He took that to the next level in 2025, posting a 19.5% barrel rate with a massive 38.5% pulled air rate. If he comes anywhere close to those marks again in 2026, he'll probably hit 50-plus homers and make me look foolish. The more likely outcome is that he's hit with at least some regression. We have a whole career of data for Raleigh before 2025, where he was not the best offensive catcher who ever lived. The fact that Raleigh is a catcher is also working against him. Yes, he gets a ton of plate appearances at designated hitter, but still catches a lot. Unfortunately, that exposes Raleigh to more risk than other players. It's just the nature of the position.
Fantasy Baseball hasn't been kind to those who pay up for the top catcher, either. Over the past four years, the top-scoring catcher saw, on average, a 23% drop in Fantasy points the following season. Now, not every catcher is built the same. I get that. It's just a really tough position to maintain offensive success in. My expectation is that Raleigh hits 40-45 homers with a .230-240 batting average in 2026. While that would be great for a catcher, I don't think it's worth a second-round pick.
Riley Greene finally tapped into his raw power last season, smashing a career-high 36 homers with 111 RBI. He optimized his swing to get there, posting career-highs in pulled air rate (18.6%) and barrel rate (17%). That barrel rate was elite, by the way, ranking in the 95th percentile. Tapping into the power, however, came with sacrifices. Greene was much less patient at the plate, opting to swing at more pitches out of the zone. This contributed to a career-worst 31% strikeout rate, which ranked in just the fourth percentile. If those strikeouts continue, you should expect Greene's batting average to suffer and for him to be less productive in H2H points leagues.
There's also the question of whether he can maintain this level of production. At 25 years old, the answer should be yes. It feels like he's just now reaching the peak of his in-game power. He tailed off in the second half, however, which raises a red flag. In that second half, Greene hit just .218 with a .415 slugging percentage. During this span, his 89.3 MPH average exit velocity was much closer to league average. I think there's a good chance his 2026 numbers take a step back. Either he'll try to make more contact, leading to a drop in power production like we saw in 2024, or he'll continue to swing for the fences, and the batting average will suffer. Either way, Greene is not a player I want to use a Top-75 pick on this season.
Geraldo Perdomo was the single biggest league winner last season. He was scooped off the waiver wire in most leagues and finished as a Top-15 player overall. He took huge steps forward with power and speed. 720 plate appearances definitely helped. The biggest question remains: how did he do it? I don't know, and it scares me. He made marginal improvements in quality of contact and doubled his barrel rate to 6.2%, but even that still ranked below league average. What about the pulled air rate? Maybe he channeled his inner Isaac Paredes? Well, it was above league average at 20%, but his pulled air rate was higher in 2023 when he hit just six homers.
What about the steals? Perdomo swiped a career-high 27 bags, cruising past his previous high of 16. Is that sustainable? He ranked just 44th percentile in sprint speed. As we learned with Josh Naylor and Juan Soto, sprint speed is not everything. Still, my realistic expectation is to regress those steals down a bit to what he did before. Perdomo made real improvements as a hitter last season, and I think he'll be useful. He has tremendous plate discipline, which makes him a real asset in H2H points leagues. I just think the power and speed are more modest than what we saw last season. This is a lot like the aforementioned Raleigh, where I don't want to pay for a player's career year and I'm expecting some regression. I'd project something like a .270-280 batting average with 15 homers, 15 steals, great plate discipline, and good counting stats. Is that worth a top-80 pick? Not for me.
