2026 Fantasy Baseball Season in Review – Corner Infield Duds

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  • By Paul Williamson

    Corner Infield saw some of the game’s largest busts up and down the draft board.

    From Austin Riley still not able to return to form, to the random collapse of Vladimir Guerrero, a lot fantasy mangers got burned by some very early draft picks.

    Let’s dive into some of the key duds and what their 2027 value may look like.

    Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – Toronto Blue Jays

    Vlady turned in one of the most disappointing seasons of anyone in 2026. In 609 plate appearances, he hit just nine homers with 72 runs, 57 RBI and a .260 average. This was the worst year we have seen out of the Blue Jay slugger since his rookie year in 2019.

    It is easy to point to his elevated ground ball rate of 48.6% but he has never had a good ground ball rate as that is right along his career mark.

    He continued to show an elite hit tool and solid plate discipline with a 13.3% K% and 9.2% BB%. Despite the high walk rate he did have a 30.6% outside-zone swing rate (O-sw%), but that number isn’t too far off from what we have seen from him in years passed.

    In fact, we saw a career best 88.6% in-zone contact rate (Z-con%) and contact% of 82.0%.

    The bat speed remained elite as well at 76.3 MPH to go with a 62.4% fast-swing rate (FastSw%).

    Despite that, he returned some of his worst quality of contact metrics with a 44.5% hard-hit rate and most concerning, a 6.9% barrel rate.

    The word that comes to mind is outlier.

    Nothing about this season made sense.

    There was no gradual decline, no warning signs, no drop in bat speed, no suddenly poor hit tool, no dramatic amount of chase.

    He isn’t even 30 yet so we can’t call this an age-related decline.

    Vlady did have laser eye surgery after the year and that might be a very frustrating bit of news if that ends up being what was wrong. That surgery doesn’t require much down time and a short IL stint would have been all that was required. .

    At the end of the day, Vlady is likely to drop in drafts with the rise of other corner infielders like Miguel Vargas, Sal Stewart, Nick Kurtz and Ben Rice and I will likely be there to buy the dip.

    It just doesn’t make sense for him to just suddenly be bad.

    Austin Riley – Atlanta Braves

    Managers have been chasing that 30 home run production from 2021-23 where he had at least 33 homers in each of those seasons. But injuries have limited him in 2024 and 2025 and 2026, it all just fell apart for Riley.

    He had a healthy year with 159 games played  with 630 PA and he returned only 19 homers, 64 runs, 72 RBI and a .219 average.

    We saw two things drop off here from Riley, one was gradual and has gotten worse over the last couple of years and the other is a bit sudden. I’ll begin with the latter.

    His quality of contact was the worst of his career since 2019, but was still solid. He had a 12.4% barrel rate and 44.3% hard-hit rate.

    This was a result of his squared up rate still hovering in the 27% range as opposed to the 32-33% range we saw when he was elite.While he has elite bat speed, if he isn’t able to square up the ball at an elite pace, he can’t get the most out of the quick bat.

    The hit tool is probably a much larger concern. The K% since 2023:

    • 24.1%
    • 25.2%
    • 28.6%
    • 31.9% – 2026

    The overall contact% has gone from 74%+ from his best days to 71.0% this year.

    Another thing to examine are his home/away splits.

    At home, the K% was a more respectable 28.1% with a contact% of 73.8%, 15.2% barrel rate and 46.7% hard-hit rate. That  gave him a .756 home OPS and 107 wRC+.

    What do we take away from that?

    Riley can still be that guy. He was him… at home. And Atlanta is not known as a major hitter’s haven with just middling park factor numbers via Statcast for 2026 right-handed bats.

    Depending on how far Riley drops, I can see me buying what should be a considerable dip in draft cost.

    If he falls near or outside the top-100 picks, that might be a solid spot to buy back in.

    Jose Ramirez – Cleveland Guardians

    Ramirez was limited on a volume basis due to a hamate bone fracture that required surgery but when he returned from the injury, he was absolutely terrible.

    Before the injury?

    • 319 PA
    • 10 HR
    • 24 SB
    • .176 ISO (isolated power)

    He had his usual hard-hit metrics with a 6.4% barrel rate and 42.5% hard-hit rate with tons of lift and pull really helping him gain power from mediocre hard-hit metrics (as per usual for him).

    Not only did J-Ram require mid season surgery, he returned without a rehab assignment and that looked to be a mistake.

    When he returned he had

    • 230 PA
    • 2 HR
    • 13 SB
    • .073 ISO

    The quality of contact absolutely cratered.

    • 1.1% barrel rate
    • 86.5 MPH avgEV
    • 32.1% hard-hit rate

    The good news is he continued to have an elite hit tool and plate discipline with an 11.0% BB% and 12.7% K% and he showed he still had an elite ability to lift and pull the ball with his great bat control.

    But hand/wrist injuries are often tied to declines in power, no matter how hard you hit the ball before.

    Given he still was a great steals asset and his hit tool ability should allow him to get back to be a solid batting average asset, batting near the top of the lineup, I like his floor in 2027 and we all know he has a first round ceiling when he is healthy and right. Likely, a full offseason of rest (and what is shaping up to be a hot October) will get him back to his old ways in 2027.  This will make it easy to buy what should be a dip in draft cost.

    Michael Busch – Chicago Cubs

    Just when we though Busch had fully arrived after 2025’s 34 home run season, we saw him regress fairly significantly in 2026.

    He turned a premiere spot in the lineup into 710 plate appearances and in 120 more PA, he hit just 20 homers with 78 runs, 77 RBI and an average of .242, his worst not including his 2023 cup of coffee with the Dodgers.

    In 2025, he used his elite ability to square up the ball (38.4% SqUpCon%) to get the most out of his poor 69.6 MPH bat speed to get his barrel rate up to 17.1% with a 47.3% hard-hit rate.

    But this year, the barrel rate dropped to 9.1% with a 39.8% hard-hit rate, despite him not seeing a drop in his ability to square up the ball with a 38.0% SqUpCon%.

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    October 20, 2026, 7:00 am