Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - 6 Toughest Hitters to Rank in 2026! (10/8 Fantasy Baseball podcast)
Episode Date: October 8, 2025Can Agustin Ramirez improve on the batting average? How much with Josh Naylor's steals come down? Is Brice Turang's power for real? What are we doing with Elly De La Cruz, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Jame...s Wood? Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CPTowers @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
It's very early in the process, but let's discuss the toughest hitters to rank for 2026.
Up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express.
Welcome in to FBT Express on Wednesday, October 8th.
I am Frank Stamphle joined by Chris Bowers.
And Chris, you've done some preliminary rankings here.
You're much further ahead than I am right now.
So let's pick your brain and start with Augustine Ramirez,
who had this big breakout season here at the catcher position for your Miami Marlins.
What makes him tough to rank?
for next year.
Mostly, it comes down to batting average.
You know, the first taste of what we saw from him at the major league level, good power,
good run production skills, surprising speed, 12 steals.
The problem was he hit, you know, sub 240.
And it's his rookie season.
He's got an aggressive approach at the plate, but not necessarily one that leads to a lot of
strikeouts.
So I do think you can look at that really poor batting average and suggest.
that there's some babbit flukiness there and he should be a better source of batting average and if that's the case
you know if he hits more like a 270 hitter next season i think you could be talking about a top two or
three catcher for fantasy and and he's one player who his poor defense actually kind of gives him an
edge at least as long as he is catcher eligible i think there's might come a point where he just moves
to first base or d h full time but as long as he's playing enough catcher to keep eligibility
I don't really care that he's not going to play much catcher because that's going to keep him in the lineup pretty much every day, which is what happened this year.
So I think there's a lot to like here.
It's just at a suddenly stacked catcher position, if he's just like a 230, 240 hitter, that does make the whole profile a little less interesting.
Let's talk about Josh Naylor, who is a proven hitter.
We know that, like, just hit 295, had 20 home runs, also had 30 steals, which completely came out of nowhere.
I have no idea what to do with this.
I mean, it's not even that he had 30 steals.
He had 19 steals in 54 games with the Seattle Mariners,
which if you do the math on that,
that's like a 60 steel pace for a full season.
This is a guy who is second percent on sprint speed,
one of these slowest players in baseball.
And so ultimately that's what it comes down to.
He's a fine hitter.
I think it was 295, 20 homers,
about 80 RBI and 80 runs combined.
or about 160 combined, I guess.
But it's the stolen bases
that made him the number two catcher in fantasy this season.
First baseman.
Our first baseman.
And it's just, if you set the over under a 14 and a half,
I think I'd take the under.
Yeah.
His previous career high, I think, was 11 or 10 before this.
It's just, it's the kind of profile that if he's not stealing bases,
he's just a guy.
He's a useful fantasy option, but not a difference maker.
and I'm fascinated to see where he's ranked this year,
but I don't think it should be as if he's a difference maker.
I think he's more of a top 100 pick than the top 50 pick.
Let's talk about Bryce Terang, who kind of did the opposite here.
He added all this power out of nowhere.
He finished with 18 home runs after just 7 in 2024 and 6 in 20203.
So more than the previous two seasons combined,
but we also did see improvements in exit velocity and batted ball data.
So how much do we trust it?
That's the question.
I kind of trust it a lot.
It's going to be iffy, and I think he's going to be a controversial player because it was really just, he got to 20 homers for the season, but it was almost all in the second half.
He really didn't hit for power.
And it was a lot.
I think he had 10 homers in July, if I'm remembering correctly.
He just went bonkers in the second.
August, yeah.
He went bonkers.
And there should be a lot of skepticism, but this was something that the first week of the
season, I noticed his swing speed was way up. And it didn't turn into power early on, but by the time
he figured it out, it did look like he could be a legitimate 20 homer type of guy with a useful
batting average and everything. So I think he's going to be a very controversial player. I do have
him as my number three second baseman right now heading into 2026. All right, let's take a quick break
and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in the FBT Express. We're taking a look at hitters who
will be tough to rank for 2026.
And next up, L.E. Dela Cruz.
We know he'll be somewhere at the top of shortstop rankings,
but should he still be a first round pick?
Should he be more of a second round pick?
The steals came all the way down from 67 to 37,
some speculation that he was playing through injury.
Now we try to figure out how to project L.A.
LaCruz moving forward.
I buy the injury explanation because it wasn't just the stolen bases.
It was, you know, sprint speed went from best in baseball
to like 95th, 96 percentile.
It was only 12 stolen bases in the second half of the season.
It was a 666 OPS in the second half of the season, only four home runs.
I think Elia de la Cruz was not playing healthy for most of the second half of the season.
I'll also point out that he had a very serious issue in his family, his sister passed away around the midseason point.
I don't think he took any time off.
That's always difficult to play through.
So I'm expecting a bounce back from Ellie.
De La Cruz, but the one thing I will say is we're getting to the point where he might just not be able to hit lefties.
He had a 618 OPS against him against them this season.
That is something that you do have to keep in mind as just a, I don't know, a floor lower, I guess, for L.A. de la Cruz, because, you know, 25% of his played appearances are going to come against lefties.
that does introduce some risk for him,
but on the whole,
I expect him to be better in 2026 than 2025.
He should be a first round pick,
even if that might make some people squirrelly.
If you compare Ellie's numbers from 2024 to 2025,
eerily similar stat lines aside from steals.
Batting average, home runs, runs RBI,
very similar year over year.
But for the first like two-thirds of the season,
it looked like he was taking a big leap.
That's true.
He did lower his strikeout rate a lot as well.
The expected stats say that he probably deserved a little bit better fortune this past season.
So we'll see if maybe perhaps he was dealing with stuff in the second half of this past season.
Chris, I'm going to wrap up here with a double dip.
Two outfielders who really, really faded down the stretch.
Pete Crow Armstrong and James Wood, both former top prospects, elite athletes, awesome players.
But again, first half amazing for both of these guys.
Second half, not so much.
You know, maybe just young players who are going through growing pains and things like that.
But where are you at on PCA and James Wood?
I think in both cases, betting on progression makes some sense.
I do think Kerr Armstrong, he might just be an inherently streaky player.
Like, he's got terrible plate discipline.
He has a lot in common with Michael Harris, actually, who has been a famous
pretty streaky and headache-inducing player for fantasy players over the past couple of years.
Peker Armstrong has more skill sets well-suited for the fantasy game.
He steals more bases.
He pulls the ball in the air more, so I do think he'll be a better fantasy option.
But a better version of Michael Harris can still be plenty frustrating as we learned this season.
I think that's going to make him tough to rank.
But you look at the 30-30 season.
I think you just take that as a whole and say, well, okay, maybe you don't project 30-30 again,
but 25-25 with room to grow.
I think that's still probably a top 36 pick.
James Wood is the tougher one because he just stopped running.
In the second half, he only attempted six steals in 62 games.
His numbers took a nosedive across the board.
He started striking out more.
I just, I have to imagine James Wood wasn't healthy.
I haven't seen anything yet.
The season's only been over for about a week.
He played through a quad injury in spring training.
I'm expecting to hear something with James Wood.
And that will, I think, make it easier to rank him
because if he was playing through something in the second half,
that helps explain his struggles.
And then he comes back 2026.
He's healthy.
I do still think I'm going to want to rank him
pretty close to the top 12.
Right now, I have him 13th at outfield.
I'm still going to bet on that upside for him.
Chris, what if the home run derby just ruined James Wood?
career. You know, that is a very good question. And to that, I say, the home run derby
curse is not real. I don't know. All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage,
listen to our full-lane podcast Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else
podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express. And we will be back again
later this week. Bye-bye. Podcasts.