2026 Sports Ethos Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft Breakdown

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  • By Paul Williamson

    Last Updated on February 11, 2026 12:42 pm by André Lemos | Published: February 3, 2026

    On January 26, we completed our first mock draft of the draft season.

    The settings were as follows –

    • 5×5
    • Mixed league
    • Roto
    • 12-teams
    • 2-catchers
    • 5-outfield
    • 1 IR

    I will break this mock into two rounds at a time, discuss my selections followed by my favorite pick from the other participants.

    Here are the links to the ‘X’ posts that have the full results of the mock.

    Rounds 1-10

    11-20

    21-30

    I was pick 11.

    Rounds 1, 2

    I went with Gunnar Henderson as my first pick at pick 11 and was thrilled Kyle Tucker fell to me after the turn.

    Henderson, I believe, will get his power stroke now that he should not be dealing with a shoulder impingement that hurt his ability to barrel the ball, leading to a decrease in power production in 2025.

    He went from 28 and 37 homers in 2023 and 2024 down to 17 in 2025. However, the avgEV stayed over 92 MPH and the hard-hit% stayed elite at 49.0%. But the only metric to drop was the barrel rate, going down from 11%+ to 8.5%. I fully expect that barrel to normalize to give him power to go with his excellent production in runs and RBI in a great Baltimore lineup with steals and average.

    Tucker is usually a mainstay in the first round but injury concerns have him falling to the second round so far this year. But his move to the Dodgers makes his counting stat potential through the roof as I may see myself moving him to Hnderson’s spot and hope Henderson falls to me next time I am in this position.

    Favorite pick – Daniel Rotter of Just Baseball selecting Francisco Lindor at 2-6. He has returned three straight seasons of 30+ homers and 29+ steals. With all three of Skubal, Skenes and Crochet going in round one, first round bats fell to round 2 and Rotter took advantage.

    Rounds 3,4

    I continued my stacking of five-category production with a second shortstop in Zach Neto in round three. In a 12-team setup, it is critical to find as many five-category dudes as you can in the early rounds with few exceptions (Cal Raleigh, Aaron Judge, Junior Caminero kind of dudes). This way you are not scrambling to try and pad specific categories later in the draft and it will help open up your draft board.

    In round four I took Brent Rooker. He may not get steals but batting in a loaded Athletic lineup with elite on-base skills and 30+ home run potential, he should be in line to produce plenty of runs and RBI (89 and 90 last season) to go with a good average.

    Favorite pick – this came from Sports Ethos’ own Pedro Oliveira. He snagged Cole Ragans toward end of the fourth round. He began with three elite bats in Judge, Vlad and Machado and snagged a Cy Young candidate as his SP1.

    Rounds 5,6

    I took Byron Buxton at the end of round five and this is a wonderful discount on another five-category stud after he showed he could actually stay healthy in 2025. Not only did he prove he can stay healthy but he showed his skills are far from diminished with 35 homers, 24 steals and a .264 average. The barrel rate was 17.6% with a 92.5 MPH avgEV.

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    February 3, 2026, 2:44 pm