We’re done with the first week of the 2026 MLB season, which means time for early evaluations in fantasy baseball. Several outfielders have gotten off to hot starts to the year. However, some haven’t been as fortunate. Here’s the first installment of our risers & fallers week, covering Week 1 of the 2026 fantasy baseball campaign.

Risers

• OF Wilyer Abreu (Red Sox)
• INF/OF Brendan Donovan (Mariners)
• OF Chase DeLauter (Guardians)
• 1B Yandy Diaz (Rays)
• SP Kevin Gausman (Blue Jays)

Brendan Donovan seems to get it done at the start of the season all the time.

Last season, Donovan finished in a tie for fifth in total hits (38) across Major League Baseball through the end of April. This year — and again, it’s a very small sample size — Donovan is currently tied for third on the team in hits.

This is exactly what the Mariners were looking for from Donovan. Consistent contact and the ability to put the ball in play, even in an era when the value of that can be muddled thanks to run states and analytics and so forth. What’s more, Donovan also hit two home runs during the opening weekend.

Wilyer Abreu carried over the momentum he had from a great WBC with Venezuela. The Red Sox outfielder had three home runs during Boston’s opening week road trip. And that week helped put him near the top of the MLB home run charts, behind Chase DeLauter (4) and current leader Shea Langeliers (5).

Now, Langeliers is more of a household name among fantasy catchers. The A’s backstop was one of baseball’s most prolific hitters in the second half last season. DeLauter, meanwhile, is a rookie who came into 2026 with no regular-season games played. However, he came into the year with helium.

As we noted in our Week 1 fantasy waiver wire hitter target list (Week 2, by the way, will be coming this weekend), DeLauter had a grand spring. A ton of hard contact and little swing-and-miss. That carried over into the regular season thus far.

If you wanted DeLauter, we hope you pounced when it was possible.

The last hitter on our riser list is Yandy Diaz, the current MLB hits leader. It’s been a strong week for Diaz, who picked up two home runs, five runs scored, and eight RBI.

Lastly, Kevin Gausman was excellent against the Athletics and Rockies this past week. The current MLB strikeout leader (21) currently has the third-most whiffs in the league, no walks, and has only given up one home run, which came off the bat of Shea Langeliers.

Gausman’s been a plus strikeout pitcher in the past, although that wasn’t the case last year. His signature splitter’s been doing a lot of the work. Twenty-one of his whiffs have come off the split-finger, easily the most in the league.

Fallers

• 1B Willson Contreras (Red Sox)
• OF Pete Crow-Armstrong (Cubs)
• SP Nathan Eovaldi (Rangers)
• 1B Kyle Manzardo (Guardians)
• DH Marcell Ozuna (Pirates)

As of April 2, over 30 players had over 20 plate appearances and failed to pick up at least one extra-base hit over the first week. A lot of notable stars are in that group, including Shohei Ohtani, Julio Rodriguez, Junior Caminero, and Nick Kurtz.

You should not be concerned about any of those names. However, there are a few players who aren’t in that category.

Marcell Ozuna has one hit in the first week. For points leagues, he’s been valuable thanks to his three walks. However, some jam shots off fastballs have happened, and ideally, we’d like to see some pop after what was a down 2025 season. Don’t panic yet.

Pete Crow-Armstrong is another one of those players who’s yet to get on the board, in terms of extra-base hits. PCA was very aggressive last season in terms of expanding outside of the zone last season and that’s been even more of a problem in 2026.

There are two interesting notes from him thus far. Crow-Armstrong saw over 40% breaking balls in his first week, and he had a Chase% over 50% on fastballs. Pitchers have beaten him around thus far. We’ll see how that turns out.

Kyle Manzardo and Willson Contreras, two popular tier-two first baseman options thanks to the pop and on-base ability (for points leagues), have yet to do much over the first week.

Lastly, it’s been a nightmare run for Nathan Eovaldi. Eovaldi currently leads all pitchers in total hits allowed (16), done in 8.2 IP of work. Eovaldi gave up three home runs in his first two starts. However, neither of his outings was easy, as he had to work on the road in Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Now, should you give up on any of these players? Absolutely not. But these are players who are individuals to keep a close eye on over the next few weeks.

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