Fantasy Baseball Overvalued and Undervalued – Week 2

It’s tough to call any fantasy baseball players overvalued or undervalued, fewer than two weeks into a new season. No team has played more than 11 games, and sample sizes are tiny compared to what we normally need to make long-term judgments on players.

However, based on early performance, team usage, and changes to a player’s approach or mechanics, it’s already clear some players were undervalued in fantasy baseball draft rooms while others appear to have been overvalued.

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This weekly piece will look at the past seven days of fantasy baseball performances to see who should be considered overvalued and undervalued going forward. When necessary, I will reference the Fantrax top 400 rotisserie rankings for the 2026 fantasy baseball season.

(Stats are up to date as of April 7)

Undervalued Players

Ben Rice (C/1B – NYY)

Remember all the panic when the Yankees re-signed Paul Goldschmidt this offseason? Many thought Goldschmidt would take Rice’s small-side platoon and eliminate a huge chunk of plate appearances for Rice this season. Yeah, those were fun times. All Rice has done since the season started has hit fourth in nine out of 10 games, pop three home runs, drive in 11 runs, and have a batting average over .370 to start the season.

Rice is a top-10 player on almost all fantasy player rater systems right now, and he doesn’t have a stolen base on the season. That’s how valuable his bat has been this year. And we shouldn’t forget, hitting fourth for the Yankees means hitting right after Trent Grisham, Aaron Judge, and Cody Bellinger. Rice is going to have some of the highest run-production opportunities in baseball this year, and he should be a shoo-in for 100+ RBI in 2026.

Cam Smith (OF – HOU)

Anytime someone hits the longest home run of the season, the interest level in that player is going to turn up a few notches. But even if we remove Cam Smith’s 463-foot home run in Coors Field on Monday, he is still rounding into a complete hitter who is playing literally every day for the Houston Astros. After all the hand-wringing in the offseason about who would be in the outfield for Houston, Smith is showing those who believed in him were right all along.

So far, Smith is higher than the 80th percentile in expected wOBA, expected slugging percentage, walk rate, barrel rate, and bat speed. Like we said: complete hitter. In addition, only Cam Smith and C.J. Abrams have at least three steals and three home runs on the young season. For a player who was drafted after pick 300 in spring drafts, Smith is showing he will have no problem making a huge return on that investment.

Landon Roupp (SP – SFG)

When you look at a pitcher striking out almost 12 batters per nine innings, has a 63% groundball rate, and has not allowed a home run on the season, nor has he allowed a single barrel, you would think that pitcher has been the best player on the mound in this early part of the season. Well, that pitcher is Landen Roupp, but somehow he has a 4.22 ERA to start the season. What’s going on here?

First, it’s helpful to note that all of Roupp’s expected statistics show he should have an ERA of about 2.10 (Baseball Savant) to 2.15 (FanGraphs). He has one of the highest differences between actual ERA and expected ERA among all qualified starters this season. But if he is striking hitters out and mostly giving up groundballs, and doesn’t allow home runs, how are teams scoring on him?

Roupp’s left on base percentage (LOB%) is only 41.7% this season. Meaning 59% of the men who reach base against him have scored. The league average LOB% this season is 66%. This is simply something that won’t last with a profile this strong.

Overvalued Players

Christian Yelich (DH/OF – MIL)

The Brewers have the two highest individual BABIP producers in the league through MLB’s first 10 days. Garrett Mitchell (.615) and Christian Yelich (.538) have both been so incredibly lucky this year that they are getting on base on more than half the balls they put in play this season. So while both will see regression come quickly, it might hit Yelich harder. Yelich, of course, is older and slower, but he has also lost some of the bat speed and plate discipline that defined the early part of his career.

What’s concerning for Yelich is that when he is not putting the ball in play, he has a 27% strikeout rate to just a 7% walk rate. His barrel rate, exit velocity, and hard-hit rate are all down from last season, which put his expected numbers in the tank. His actual wOBA is .443, but his expected wOBA is just .274. So far, the league average wOBA for all hitters is .315. That 40-point gap is going to start looking really bad when Yelich’s regression hits soon.

Teoscar Hernandez (OF – LAD)

Teoscar Hernandez is hitting .353/.389/.559 through nine games, which is a wild deviation from his career .261/.316/.484 line. This is certainly a small sample size, but it’s still enough to help us understand that these numbers will not last forever, especially when you compare them to his career and the context of his hitting profile so far in 2026.

Hernandez is not far behind the two Brewers with his own .476 BABIP (sixth-highest in the league). It’s inflating the power and the on-base ability, but it’s also propping up what should be a much lower average thanks to a staggering 30.6% strikeout rate through nine games. Add in the fact that Hernandez has only walked in 5.6% of his plate appearances, and you have what appears to be a house of cards in his hitting profile. Both Hernandez’s average exit velocity and barrel rate are below the 55th percentile among hitters this season.

Jacob DeGrom (SP – TEX)

I am on record as saying I wanted to have zero shares of Jacob DeGrom for fantasy baseball in 2026, and so far, I feel pretty good about that. Yes, DeGrom has a 0.83 WHIP and 13 strikeouts in nine innings. But he hasn’t pitched more than five innings yet and missed his first start with a neck problem.

One thing to monitor for DeGrom and why he might not be the ace we are looking for this season: fastball velocity. In 2025, his fastball is averaging 97.5 miles per hour. For most pitchers, that is an outstanding number, but that’s a full mile per hour lower than in 2023. From 2020-2023, he never had a velocity lower than 98.6, and now he is below that. So far in 2026, it’s at 97.0 mph.

DeGrom is likely still in a ramp-up period from past injuries last season, and maybe he can build back up the stamina and velocity he’s missing. But remember, DeGrom cost a fourth or fifth-round pick in 12-team leagues this offseason. Is your fourth-round pick someone you want to take a month or more to round into form?