You aren't just imagining it: The first round was a disaster this season. 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. 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. 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.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
