Back in late January, I shared with you my first round of sleepers for 2026. If you missed them then, you can still view them now by scrolling down to The Holdovers in this very article.
But some things have changed since I made those selections, not the least of which is me drafting more and observing firsthand some of the inefficiencies in this year's draft pool.
- Sleepers 2.0: Scott | Chris | Frank
- Breakouts 2.0: Scott | Chris | Frank
- Busts 2.0: Scott | Chris | Frank
And I'll remind you that's all a sleeper is: An inefficiency to be exploited. It doesn't mean the player is young or destined to improve. It simply means he's not getting the appreciation he deserves.
It's getting harder to find such players, given how advancements like Statcast have flattened the knowledge curve. To corner an inefficiency now, you have to wade into gaps in our collective knowledge, having the courage to venture into the blind spots that we all share.
That's certainly true for the first of my additions to Sleepers 2.0.
BAL Baltimore • #28 • Age: 28
I have a hang-up about calling a player who just had a career season a "sleeper," but the label isn't meant for the players most likely to improve. It's meant for the players who are being overlooked, and in that way, Rogers is the very model of the modern sleeper. At a time when the most predictive data is so advanced and easily digestible, you're not going to unearth some hidden gem. The data darlings are known far and wide and elevated beyond the point anyone could call them a sleeper.
No, the players who slip through the cracks are the ones who invite skepticism, and that's Rogers, precisely because he's coming off a career season. The three seasons before? He had a 5.09 ERA and 1.52 WHIP, rendering him basically unusable in Fantasy, and nobody wants to be the sucker who buys into the one-year wonder.
But what if he's not a one-year wonder? We already have evidence for that, seeing as he was runner-up for NL Rookie of the Year in 2021. The subsequent years were ravaged by injury, which took such a toll that by the time he went looking for answers at Driveline just prior to last season, the famed facility's analysis of his delivery suggested he should only be throwing 84 mph. It took everything he had to average 92, as he was doing at the time. With the additional strength training and delivery tweaks prescribed by Driveline, he began throwing a much easier 93 mph last season, which had the added effect of greatly improving his control.
So yes, there was definitely something to the improvements. Rogers didn't come about his 1.81 ERA by accident. That's not to say anyone should expect a repeat, but if that number is more in line with his 2.82 FIP or even his 3.40 xERA, he'll be well worth drafting as the 45th starting pitcher, behind the likes of a declining Sonny Gray and Luis Castillo.
HOU Houston • #15 • Age: 27
We're doing this again, huh? Clearly, not everyone learned their lesson last time. Daikin Park, being only 315 feet down the line thanks to its short left field porch known as the Crawford Boxes, is the perfect home venue for Paredes, who doesn't actually have power but fakes it by taking aim for the left field foul pole. A year ago, I predicted that first season in Houston would look a lot like Alex Bregman's final two -- during which the now-Cubs third baseman hit .261 with a .787 OPS and an average of 25.5 home runs in an average of 153 games -- and, sure enough, if you prorate Paredes' numbers last year over 153 games (he missed a couple months with a hamstring strain), you get a .254 batting average, 30 home runs and .809 OPS.
The proof is in the pudding, then. So why the continued skepticism? OK, it's less about performance than opportunity. I just wanted to stress that his performance should no longer be in question, despite the little blue icicles populating his Baseball Savant page. As for opportunity, yeah, the Astros acquired Carlos Correa to fill in when Paredes was ailing last year and weren't able to free up the logjam this offseason by trading away Christian Walker as planned. So, Paredes is a player without a position, which is not the kind of player anyone likes to draft.
He has a position, though, and it's middle-of-the-order bat. Ask yourself who in the Astros lineup is better than him. You could make an argument for Pena, maybe, but the only decisive answer is Yordan Alvarez, and surely, the Astros themselves know this. By reintroducing Paredes to second base this spring, he has four potential paths to playing time, DH included. Now, consider the players occupying those spots. Correa is hurt half the time. Alvarez is no stranger to injuries himself. Jose Altuve and Walker are both in their mid-30s, and the latter may not even be good anymore. As weak as third base is, I'll take the chance 90 picks after Bregman is gone that Paredes will play nearly every day as a super utility player and have lengthy stretches as an injury fill-in. Already, Jeremy Pena's broken finger may present such an opportunity, and I didn't even list him among the injury-prone.
KC Kansas City • #14 • Age: 23
It's easy to sleep on a player who hit .157 and slugged .295 last year, even if only in 200 plate appearances. But going by the most rudimentary assessment of whether Caglianone deserved it, the answer is a resounding no. Statcast has his expected batting average and slugging percentage at .237 and .431, respectively.
Still not impressed? Well, let's consider why Statcast is so charitable to him. During his short time in the majors, he hit a ball as hard as 114.1 mph, which is a number only 10 percent of hitters reached for the year. Meanwhile, he struck out at just a 22 percent rate, which would be an impressive mark for any hitter in his first tour of duty, but particularly one with that kind of power. Moreover, Caglianone has always stood out for his high contact quality and quantity. His exit velocities in college were the stuff of legends, and his first extended look in the minors last year, prior to his promotion, saw him hit .337 with 20 homers and a 1.025 in 66 games while striking out just 18.8 percent of the time. He was taken two picks after Nick Kurtz in the 2024 draft and surged to the majors nearly as quickly. He just didn't take to it right away.
But if early spring results are any indication, that's about to change. Already, he's hit a ball 120 mph, which you might dismiss as a fluke except that he also reached that threshold both in the minors last year and in college the year prior. It's also hard to call it a fluke when only seven players have ever achieved it in a major league game: Oneil Cruz, Giancarlo Stanton, Ronald Acuna, Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Vladimir Guerrero, and Shohei Ohtani. Caglianone has exceeded 115 mph on two other batted balls this spring, including a 460-foot home run.
Shouldn't we give a rookie with that kind of upside a pass for a partial season of struggles? The answer there is an emphatic yes, and in leagues where drafters know what they're doing, you can't expect to get him as late as Pick 200 anymore. Still, the upside is worth pursuing in a range where Gleyber Torres and Aaron Nola are normally going off the board.
WAS Washington • #4 • Age: 23
Even the most plugged-in Fantasy Baseballers may not have heard of Lile until last September. By that point, he had been in the majors for three months and was playing close to every day, but he hadn't made much of an impression yet. That changed rather abruptly. He not only batted .391 in the season's final month but also collected 16 extra-base hits, including three doubles, seven triples, and six home runs. He averaged an Aaron Judge-like 4.42 Head-to-Head points per game for that month.
I have a feeling it's just the tip of the iceberg. No, Lile isn't going to compete with Judge for Fantasy prominence, but he's going to excel beyond what his ADP or lack of stature would suggest. Forget September -- it was just the culmination of what his other numbers were pointing to. Between his Jose Altuve-like 16 percent strikeout rate and his Freddie Freeman-like 27 percent line-drive rate -- both of which were carried over from the minors, by the way -- Lile is built for batting average. Don't believe me? Well, Statcast put his xBA as a rookie last year in the 100th percentile. Nobody rated higher. But he's not some Luis Arraez clone. He has pop in his bat and angles the ball correctly to take advantage, with a pull-air rate in the upper half of the league. Bottom line is Lile makes a ton of contact, and it's the best kind of contact, with very little of it coming on the ground.
And, oh yeah, speed! He ranked in the 92nd percentile, leaving him plenty of room to improve on his eight steals in 91 games. He might just be the complete package. And lest you presume he's some late bloomer due to his lack of prospect credentials, allow me to point out that he's only 23, which is all the more reason to look past whatever rough edges he presents. Lile has ample job security on a bottom-feeder club and offers both the baseball skills and natural tools to blast off this year.
PHI Philadelphia • #28 • Age: 29
I mentioned in my write-up for Isaac Paredes that third base is weak. It's not the first place I've said it, and if you'd like to delve deeper into that, you can check out my article on third base strategies. Most would say there aren't even enough to go around in a 12-team league, which makes it all the more perplexing that Bohm is going off the board nearly 100 picks later than a year ago.
Folks, he's the same guy. Nothing has changed for him, including his projection. Yeah, he had a couple IL stints in 2025, which dragged down his totals, but his percentages were right where they always are. His .287 batting average was actually a new high, though at .279 for his career, it's always been a big part of his appeal. He also bats in a prominent RBI spot, behind the illustrious trio of Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, and Bryce Harper, which is how he racked up 97 in both 2023 and 2024. Sure, he's likely to top out at 15 homers or so, which is an underwhelming number for a corner infielder, but that's always been the case. Drafters had decided it was worth it for a B-plus in batting average and RBI.
I don't know if talk of the Phillies potentially moving on from Bohm early this offseason dinged his draft stock early, and it never recovered. I don't know if people are looking at his 59 RBI from last year and not considering the context of them. But I know Bohm is an incredible bargain this year, particularly in leagues that are required to go deeper into the corner infield pool (like standard Rotisserie).
SF San Francisco • #78 • Age: 21
What if I told you that a consensus top-25 prospect with 70-grade power and no one blocking his ascension to the majors was a part of this year's draft pool? Where would you expect him to go? 150th? 200th at the latest? Try 334th, behind the likes of an injured Anthony Volpe, a cast-aside Nick Catellanos, and a washed-up Nolan Arenado, not to mention scrubby pitchers like Mitch Keller and Michael Wacha.
The complicating factors for Eldridge, I suppose, are that he went 3 for 23 with 13 strikeouts in his first taste of the majors late last year and that he spent most of that time at DH, denying him eligibility at any position for the start of 2026. But a 20-year-old thrust into major league duty for the first time is allowed to struggle for a week or two or 12 before it alters his outlook, and as for the lack of position eligibility, so what? You have a utility spot, don't you? And by the way, four of his 10 major league appearances last year came at first base, where he's expected to continue to trade off with Rafael Devers this year, so he won't be confined to your utility spot for long. First base runs pretty thin in the sort of leagues deep enough that Eldridge is draftable (like standard Rotisserie), which makes the lack of interest in him all the more perplexing.
I'm not even his biggest backer, as far as prospect evaluation goes, believing that his 6-foot-7 frame could present longstanding contact issues, but I'm not so beholden to my little theories that I'm going to pass up this sort of upside play at this sort of discount. Given the fervor that normally accompanies prospects with a chance of making the opening day roster, the widespread disinterest in one who's all but secured a job already is the most baffling of this year's drafting behaviors.
ATL Atlanta • #1 • Age: 29
The outlook for Albies seems to presume that what we've the past two years is what we'll get, but I'm here to tell you it's more complicated than that. Yes, he's missed extensive time due to injuries, playing fewer than 100 games in two of the past four years. Yes, his production the past two years was worse than the early-round standard he once set. So injury-prone and on the decline ... what's left to get excited about?
But that perspective presumes that the injuries and decline are not related, when I'm of the belief that they are. First of all, Albies is only 29, which is the prime of a player's career and not a point when you'd expect decline to begin. He was remarkably consistent for the first six years of his career, delivering 25-30 homers with 15 or so steals, a solid-to-good batting average, and the kind of run and RBI production that comes with playing 150-plus games a year. Something happened to disrupt that steadiness.
Let's consider the nature of the injuries. The 2025 one was a broken hamate bone on a janky swing. The 2024 one was a fractured wrist on an ill-begotten tag. He's also missed time over the past four years with a broken toe, a broken pinky, and a broken foot. These aren't deep tissue injuries but one-time, high-impact events, which is to say not the sort of injuries that you'd expect to be repeated.
But they could have lingering effects. That's especially true of the broken wrist he suffered in 2024. In fact, when he returned that September, he had to abandon switch-hitting to manage the pain, which dragged down his numbers further. He was back to switch-hitting at the start of 2025, but we know the injury still bothered him because his hitting coach told us. Only around midseason did it begin to feel right again, and for a 66-game stretch between July 10 and Sept. 22, he hit .268 (68 for 254) with 10 homers, seven steals and a .762 OPS -- a more typical Ozzie Albies line. Then came the fractured hamate bone, ending his season before his numbers could fully normalize.
We know the real Albies is still in there because we just saw it for his latest 66-game stretch. Could the hamate bone injury linger into 2026, same as the fractured wrist in 2025? Sure, and a discount is warranted because of that. The downside risk may be greater now, but he could absolutely perform like a third-rounder still at the weakest infield position.
PIT Pittsburgh • #10 • Age: 31
This one is pretty straightforward, actually. We all knew who Reynolds was prior to 2025. He had put together about the same stat line for four straight years. It wasn't flashy, but it was bankable, and it routinely got him drafted within the first 80 picks.
