Bounceback Hitters: Fantasy Baseball ADP Values for Hitters (2026)

March 3, 2026

Eric's bounceback hitters, fantasy baseball ADP values and draft targets in 2026. His fantasy baseball batters to target at their ADP in drafts.

As someone who lives in New England, dealing with snowstorm after snowstorm this winter, it's heartwarming to have spring training baseball back in our lives and fantasy baseball drafts to take part in. And with the start of spring training, certain players who had down seasons in 2025 now have a fresh start with their sights set on a bounce-back season.

Those are the players I'll be focusing on today. There are plenty of players who underperformed last season due to performance or time missed. Some of those players I'll be avoiding in drafts, but others have become good ADP value targets, which is the group I'm focusing on below. I'll discuss five bounceback hitters to target this season, with pitchers coming in a later article.

Jac Caglianone and Mike Trout would also fit this article, but I discussed both in my bold predictions article.

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Jackson Merrill, OF, San Diego Padres

Yahoo ADP: 54.1 | NFBC ADP (since February 1): 68.2

At this time last season, Jackson Merrill was being selected as a second-round pick in most drafts and occasionally in the third round. Now he's going in the fourth or fifth round on average, even dipping into the sixth round of some drafts on NFBC.

Yes, Merrill's 2025 sophomore season was a bit of a letdown as he was limited to 483 plate appearances due to three separate IL stints for an ankle sprain, hamstring strain, and a concussion. In those 483 plate appearances, Merrill managed just 16 home runs, one steal, and a .264/.317/.457 slash line. Not exactly what managers who drafted him with an early pick expected.

With that said, Merrill looked much better down the stretch, slashing .264/.303/.508 with 13 doubles and nine home runs in 211 plate appearances after the All-Star break. His quality of contact was much better, too, recording a 91.3 mph AVG EV, 14% barrel rate, and 49.3% hard-hit rate after the break compared to an 88.5 mph AVG EV, 12.2% barrel rate, and 37.8% hard-hit rate before the break.

Overall, it's fair to say that Merrill might not be the elite top-20 option some thought he would become. But the skills are here for Merrill to return Top-40 value this season as a .270/25 type of player with the potential to push 180-200 combined runs and RBI. Hopefully, Merrill will start stealing some bags again now that he's fully healthy. Even 10-15 steals would be a nice added bonus at his current price tag.

Kyle Stowers, OF, Miami Marlins

Yahoo ADP: 105 | NFBC ADP: 122.8

I'm not sure if "bounceback" is the right term for Kyle Stowers, but I fully believe his ADP would be a few rounds higher if he hadn't missed the last six weeks of the season with two different oblique strains. So, in a way, Stowers is bouncing back from his oblique strains, which have made him a good value in 2026 fantasy baseball drafts. BOOM, made it work!

In general, I'm a big Stowers guy. He was quietly one of the better power bats in the game last season, finishing with an elite 19% barrel rate and 52% hard-hit rate along with a .537 xSLG and .487 xwOBACON. For hitters with at least 400 plate appearances last season, Stowers ranked 16th in hard-hit rate and fifth in barrel rate, trailing only Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, and Cal Raleigh.

Home run No. 2⃣0⃣ for the red-hot Kyle Stowers 🔥 pic.twitter.com/TnZOP8Uyeu

— MLB (@MLB) July 18, 2025

Stowers also hits the ball at ideal angles, which helped fuel the elite barrel rate. In 2025, he finished with a 61.3% air rate, 44.1% pull rate, and a 23.7% pull AIR rate. With his combination of quality of contact and batted-ball angles, Stowers could make a legit run at 35-40 home runs in 2026, even with loanDepot park being below-average for left-handed power.

But at the same time, I do believe the below-average contact rates will keep Stowers closer to the .260-.270 range than to .280-.290, which is where he was in 2025. Even as a .260 hitter, Stowers hitting 35-40 home runs with 5-10 steals and over 160 combined runs and RBI would make him an easy top-75 overall player. He's one of my favorite OF2 targets in 2026 drafts.

Adley Rutschman, C, Baltimore Orioles

Yahoo ADP: 175.2 | NFBC ADP: 144.2

Can we just forget about Adley Rutschman's former top prospect status and the expectations he had when he debuted for a second? At this point, expecting Rutschman to be a stud fantasy asset after what we've seen over the last few years just isn't realistic. However, given what we saw from Rutschman in 2025, his underlying metrics, and where he's going in drafts this season, I believe he fits the mold for a bounce-back hitter and ADP value target.

As of now, Rutschman is going off the board as the 11th catcher on average, both in Yahoo and NFBC drafts. The emergence of young catchers in 2026, combined with Rutschman's subpar, shortened 2025 season, is the reason for this. In 365 plate appearances, Rutschman slashed an unimpressive .220/.307/.366 with nine home runs, 29 RBI, and 37 runs scored.

I'm not giving him a full free pass, but you have to wonder how much of his performance was impacted by two separate oblique strains.

If you ignore the surface stats and pop the hood on Rutschman's profile, many 2025 metrics were in line with the 2024 season, or even slightly better in some areas. He's always been right around league-average in quality-of-contact metrics, which was again the case in 2025. He also kept his strikeout rate under 17% for the third straight season and increased his walk rate from 9.1% to 11%.

In addition, Rutschman recorded new career-highs with his 91.1% zone contact rate, 85.5% overall contact rate, and 21.7% chase rate. Again, I'm not expecting Rutschman to be an elite fantasy catcher, but the skills are here to bounce back and provide top-10 value at the catcher position now that he's fully healthy heading into 2026.

Wilyer Abreu, OF, Boston Red Sox

Yahoo ADP: 210.6 | NFBC ADP: 219.7

In general, one of my favorite ADP value picks for 2026 drafts is Boston outfielder Wilyer Abreu. The 2025 season certainly wasn't bad for Abreu, but it's fair to say fantasy managers expected a bit more from him at the plate after his solid 2024 rookie season. But Abreu was limited to just 417 plate appearances, which has really kept his ADP in check this year as he's going outside the top-200 picks on average in both Yahoo and NFBC drafts.

In those 417 plate appearances last season, Abreu smacked 22 home runs with six steals and a .247/.317/.469 slash line, which was eerily similar to his rookie season slash line. Power and gold glove defense have been the calling cards for Abreu in his first three major league seasons. He's recorded a hard-hit rate above 44% and an AVG EV above 90 mph in each of his first three seasons, with a barrel rate north of 11% in each of the last two seasons.

Abreu has been improving as an overall hitter as well. After having a strikeout rate above 27% in both 2023 and 2024, he trimmed that to 24.2% in 2025. But even more importantly, Abreu increased his zone contact rate from 76.9% to 83.7% and his overall contact rate from 70.6% to 76%. Boston has also said that Abreu won't be platooned as much as he was in 2025.

If Abreu can give us 550-600 plate appearances this season, I wholeheartedly believe that a .260 season with 70 R, 30 HRs, 90 RBI, and 10 SBs is in the cards for Abreu. I've been targeting him as an OF4 in all of my drafts and will continue to do so.

Miguel Vargas, 1B/3B, Chicago White Sox

Yahoo ADP: 207.4 | NFBC ADP: 287.7

After two downright terrible campaigns in 2023 and 2024, Miguel Vargas went from being a top prospect with high expectations to a near afterthought in our fantasy baseball world. However, he started showing signs of life last season, which has encouraged me that he can bounce back to being a hitter with decent offensive expectations and provide good value at his post-200 ADP this season.

In 569 plate appearances last season, Vargas slashed a modest .234/.316/.401 with 16 home runs, 60 RBI, six steals, and 80 runs scored. Outside of the 80 runs, nothing really stands out there. But there are plenty of metrics under the hood that have me intrigued and targeting Vargas this season at his ADP.

Vargas had the best quality of contact season of his career in 2025, finishing with a 9.3% barrel rate, 89.7 mph AVG EV, and a 40.5 hard-hit rate. Even when he was a top prospect with the Dodgers, Vargas was never considered a masher, but with his above-average quality of contact and elite air (71%) and pull AIR% (23.1%) rates, a 20-25 homer season isn't out of the question.

I'm expecting a decent AVG and OBP to accompany those home runs as well. Vargas recorded an 83.8% zone and 79.4% overall contact rate last season, along with a 21.6% chase rate, 9.8% walk rate, and a career-best 17.6% strikeout rate. He made contact at least 75% of the time on all three pitch types, with a 80.3% contact rate on fastballs and 85% on offspeed pitches.

If Vargas can put it all together this season, we could be looking at a top-150 overall player, maybe even pushing top-100 overall if everything clicks. I'll take this profile all day outside of the top 200 picks.

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