2026 MLB Risers And Fallers: Jordan Walker, Fernando Tatis Jr., Brent Rooker
In the 2026 fantasy baseball season, each team has about 35 games down and about 125 or more left after the first six weeks of the season. Since 35 games aren’t nearly enough to draw any conclusions, we’ll spend our early season posts looking at the risers and fallers in fantasy baseball from an under-the-hood statistical perspective.
Even with a long Spring Training and six weeks of games, even this amount of production isn’t really much information to use when evaluating players throughout the season. That’s why it’s also important to look at usage, player placement, team breakdown, and other factors when trying to decide what to do with a tough player selection.
This piece will take a look at some of the MLB assets that have seen their fantasy value rise and fall over the past few weeks. Hopefully this will give us an idea of what to do with these players going forward.
Fantasy Baseball Risers
Jordan Walker (OF), St. Louis Cardinals
As one of the last remaining fans of Jordan Walker before the 2026 season begins, I am very excited to see his great start to this exciting baseball season. Walker is slashing .308/.377/.585 with 10 home runs, 28 runs, 27 RBI, and six steals. In Razzball’s legendary player rating, Walker is ranked twelfth this season. It was a meteoric rise after two very disappointing campaigns.
There are some warning signs and things to watch for in the future, however. Walker has the 12th highest BABIP number in the league among professional hitters at .385. For his career, he’s only hitting .318, so it’s a reasonable assumption that he’ll regress to that level over the next four months. His expected batting average, expected regression, and xwOBA are all within 10 points of his actual metrics, so if the slump is going down, it shouldn’t be too much of a hit. Walker has done an amazing job of elevating his hard level and launch angle this season. If he can lower his strikeout rate by 30% in about six weeks, he has a chance to stay near the leaderboards this year.
Daniel Schneemann (2B), Cleveland Rangers
Utility man and rarely scheduled Daniel Schneemann has been outstanding to start the year, hitting .284/.351/.500 with four home runs, 12 runs, and 14 RBI. He plays sparingly against lefties, but has been a key player in Cleveland’s offense through the first six weeks. Schneemann’s versatility has proven valuable, and his hitting is better than anyone expected. Cleveland’s offense, often dominated by Jose Ramirez and Chase DeLauter, desperately needed someone like Schneemann.
On Wednesday, he had another hit and another walk, and now has a 9% walk rate on the season. His hard rate is at 41%, and his launch angle and maximum exit velocity are all up in 2025, marking significant gains for the 29-year-old. His bat speed is up, and so is his playing time, so this looks like a real breakout year for the versatile Schneemann.
Jack Kochanowicz (SP), Los Angeles Angels
Jack Kochanowicz has a 3.05 ERA this season and is striking out about seven batters per nine innings. It’s a big change for a pitcher who posted a 6.81 ERA in 2025. What is the reason for the success so far? What caused the ERA to drop by more than half?
The immediate reason to believe in Kochanowicz’s emergence is what he has already shown in his seven starts of the 2026 season. In his three most recent starts, Kochanowicz has completely outscored the Mets, White Sox, and Blue Jays, pitching at least five and a half innings and not allowing more than two earned runs.
He has trouble with control (4.5 walks per nine innings), but has still looked in full control against different lineups with elite hitters. The fact that he has never allowed more than three earned runs since the start of the season speaks to his consistency. Kochanowicz brings a deep arsenal, including four pitches that he throws more than 19% of the time. That kind of variation keeps hitters guessing, and a four-seam fastball and a sinker that looks the same and both come off the arm at 96 miles per hour are devastating.
Fantasy Baseball Fallers
Brent Rooker (1B), Athletics
If Brent Rooker wants to make it four straight seasons with at least 30 home runs and 70 RBI, he has a lot of work to do between now and the end of September. The injury took several weeks of games away from him. Those nagging issues, along with some bad luck, hampered his early season performance. Is there any hope that Rooker is close to returning to normal attacking form?
Rooker is currently hitting just .162/.234/.294 with three home runs and 12 RBI. But those numbers are dwarfed by a BABIP of just .190 on the season. If Rooker had enough plate appearances to qualify, that number would be one of the 10 worst in the league. The league average this year is around .292, so Rooker is more than 100 points away from even being average in that category. For his career, Rooker is hitting .314. As bad as he is, there may be a change in luck here. But injuries and inconsistency have defined his season so far.
Fernando Tatis Jr. (OF), San Diego Padres
Many people think that Fernando Tatis Jr. he should be a strong candidate to bounce back well throughout the 2026 season, but how long do we have to wait? Through the first six weeks of the season, Tatis gave fantasy managers a disappointing .250/.320/.305 slash line with absolutely zero home runs. That slugging rate (.305) is like a punch in the face to a long-time major leaguer.
Tatis’ average exit velocity of 94.6 miles per hour (MPH) and 67% strikeout rate are high, and he still sports a walk rate of over 10%. That clearly shows more discipline at the plate, but it hasn’t resulted in much power. He has nine steals, which makes him think, but he’s already five times more now that his power is gone. Most of his poor production came from being lucky on balls in play (a .346 BABIP but a 0.0% HR/FB rate), but then there was a 52% low ball rate. Which player will be going forward? It’s hard to tell, but this version of Tatis looks like his powers are completely gone.
Cole Ragans (SP), Kansas City Royals
Your terrible injury in the case of insulting Cole Ragans after leaving his start on Wednesday. Ragans was able to get through three shutout innings before being forced out of the start due to left triceps and elbow soreness. If this is a long-term injury (and the Royals hope it isn’t), it could put a bow on a disappointing campaign for the talented lefty. If it is short-term, hopefully it can provide a reset to what has been a bad start to 2026.
Ragans had this strange pattern in the year where he alternated between good and bad starts every time, but injuries added a new wrinkle. Overall, he has a 5.29 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, and a 41:21 strikeout average over 32.1 innings over seven starts before three innings on Wednesday. However, the good did not outweigh the bad, he has four starts where he could not get out of the fourth inning this year.
