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Nick Mariano's potential fantasy baseball busts, avoids, overvalued early-round picks. 2026 pitchers and hitters with inflated ADPs to fade in fantasy drafts.
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Everyone loves to celebrate the good times and mining for the next best thing, but fantasy baseball can't all be sunshine and rainbows. Nothing hits like a late sleeper becoming your MVP, but how much can that help if you've stepped on some land mines to begin your draft? Let's break out some good old-fashioned pessimism to sprinkle on all of the excitement.
In order to evaluate overvalued risks, we will dig through consensus Average Draft Position (ADP) from Yahoo, RTS, Fantrax, and NFBC. Please note that "overvalued" means the price is bad, not that they are necessarily bad players who will fall flat on their faces. You may still find a decent draft slot if they slide, but I'm very likely out on the following names.
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Early-Round Overvalued Players - Hitters
Catcher: William Contreras (58)
Milwaukee’s backstop raised the bar in 2024 with 23 home runs, 191 runs+RBI, nine steals, and a .281/.365/.466 slash line over 155 games. Despite playing in 150 contests in ‘25, his marks across all five major fantasy categories regressed toward his 2023 (17 HR, 164 R+RBI, 6 SB), except that his average slipped.
For the first time in a while, his average fell to meet his expected stats. The .260 average in ‘25 had a .253 xBA behind it, after .281 (.265 xBA) in ‘24, .289 (.251) in ‘23, and .278 (.240) in ‘22. Despite that, his xSLG was still typically robust, but last year was the first time it failed to crack .400 (.398) as his barrel rate sank from 10% to 6.4%.
I’ll acknowledge that I’m uncertain what to make of Contreras’ fractured left finger, which finally got addressed after being detected in May. However, they went on to report the injury actually dated back to his amazing 2024 season. And Contreras’ best month was August.
If you think he’s worth a look as the best fantasy catcher who isn’t named Cal Raleigh, then I won’t fight you. But this strikes me as a bad time to pay for the first player in a rather wide tier at the position. ATC projections have Raleigh boasting an .820 OPS; meanwhile, Contreras (.783) is one of seven projected between .778 and .813.
First Base: Bryce Harper (37)
Harper’s right wrist bothered him throughout 2025 and eventually required an IL stint. I’ll concede that his power returned in the second half after the break, but the 33-year-old hasn’t topped 145 games played since 2019. A similar report that he was "grinding through" elbow/wrist irritation surfaced in August 2024 as well.
I’m not paying a premium for this ledger on the wrong side of the aging curve.
He outkicked his batted-ball metrics in 2025, such as hitting seven HRs with a .316 average against offspeed pitches, despite a .265 xBA and a 105-point gap between the slugging percentage and xSLG. He was still vulnerable to breaking pitches, which opponents leaned on, throwing them to him at a 41% clip after a 33% rate in the prior two seasons.
Don’t worry, the guy still punished fastballs, but it’s not great. Per BaseballSavant, his line-drive rate also fell below 27% (25.6%) for the first time since 2020, which led to his batting average reaching .261 after four straight years of .285 or better. Perhaps this is all wrapped up in the injury, perhaps not. And trusting the injury to go away is not so simple.
