Well, it’s time for some accountability. Every year, you will have some swings but also some big misses in fantasy baseball. That’s just how it is. And for the 2026 fantasy baseball season, there were some points we were just wrong about. Here’s a look at what we got wrong in fantasy baseball this year.
Undervaluing sinker-heavy pitchers
Sandy Alcantara, Cristopher Sanchez, & Ranger Suarez were all on our overrated list. The reasoning as to why boiled down to this: could all three avoid enough damage to warrant their actual draft positions?
Yes, all three did.
The problem, in general, with two-seam-heavy pitchers is that all are pitchers who are fine with allowing contact — just not hard contact. And there is a difference between being effective in real life and not being the most valuable in fantasy. Simply because ERA and strikeouts matter so much in fantasy baseball.
Generally speaking, heavy sinkerball pitchers are more prone to contact and high WHIP. And when going by pitch usage, the more the pitch is used, the higher the probability that one will experience finicky results. But the three names mentioned above were outliers, in a sense.
Cristopher Sanchez had some hiccups throughout the year but was a fantasy MVP. He led the Majors in wins (19) and struck out 231 batters, all while being an outlier in terms of pitch usage & arsenal. Suarez was excellent, with a 3.22 ERA and averaged almost a strikeout per inning.
As for Alcantara, he led the Majors in innings thrown, won 13 games, and also notched three saves down the stretch for Miami as the Marlins sought to keep his innings down. In the case of Alcantara, he was easily the worst of the three. The right-hander struck out just 153 over 214 innings pitched.
Turner never got into that groove
Back in May, we went over three players who looked like exceptional buy-low candidates. And two wound up being big hits for those who took advantage. Alex Bregman, a traditional slow starter, hit 25 home runs and drove in 80 runs since that little write-up we did back on May 6. Fernando Tatis Jr., meanwhile, hit 25 home runs and stole 29 bases from that date onward.
You could see signs that the two were close to breaking out, and I went over those signs in May. But Trea Turner was just never able to get over the hump.
Now, to be fair, Turner’s peripherals weren’t that bad from May onward. Over his last 122 contests, Turner hit 15 home runs and stole 19 bases. However, the .242 average he had in that span and the year overall was far from what the general fantasy baseball community expected from Turner.
Burleson’s monster year
This was the big miss, at least on our end this year. We had Alec Burleson, a 2025 NL Silver Slugger, on our do-not-draft list — but the reasoning was more complicated.
Now, look, Burleson was in every sense of the word a fantasy MVP this season. The Cardinals’ first baseman led the Majors in RBI (116) and was just one of three players with 110+ RBI this year (Pete Alonso & Sal Stewart were the other two). However, the reasoning for why Burleson was there is complicated.
Heading into 2026, the Cardinals were not expected to be big contenders. But St. Louis stayed alive until the final few weeks thanks to a good offense. Burleson also had the benefit of support around him, which helped kick off that strong year.
Aside from Jordan Walker‘s breakout campaign, the Cardinals loved to stack JJ Wetherholt & Ivan Herrera atop that St. Louis lineup. Both Herrera & Wetherholt had BB% above 10%. Herrera was also hit a league-high 31 times.
Check out more of our fantasy baseball coverage, including more on what we were right about in 2026.