2026 Fantasy Baseball Top 300: Cristopher Sánchez takes over as No. 1 SP

Here’s our rest-of-season Top 300. Expect this space to be updated every Monday. Players are ranked for 5×5 mixed leagues using a one-catcher format. I include the mixed-league disclaimer because I do reward upside, particularly past the top 200 or so.

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2026 Fantasy Baseball Top 300 overall ranks

**Updated May 25**

I added the preseason Top 300 rankings to the list this week, just as sort of a two-month progress report. To date, 54 players in the original rankings have been swapped out for newcomers.

May 25 Notes

Falling off: Spencer Schwellenbach (218th), Gus Varland (263rd), Trevor Story (267th), Josh Lowe (268th), Ryan Jeffers (270th), Caleb Kilian (277th), Brenton Doyle (280th), Marcell Ozuna (281st), Robbie Ray (283rd), Kyle Manzardo (289th), Justin Crawford (291st), Aaron Ashby (297th), Colt Emerson (298th), Nasim Nuñez (299th)

– I was always too optimistic about Schwellenbach’s return from elbow surgery, apparently. He’s resumed tossing, but it sounds like he won’t even be back on the mound for another three weeks, suggesting that mid-August return is probably the best-case scenario now. … I can’t believe I reintroduced Manzardo to the rankings last week only for Stephen Vogt to bench him against three of the next five righties (and both lefties, of course) the Guardians faced. Manzardo is batting .278/.350/.574 with an even more impressive .406 xwOBA this month. But, then, the Guardians are obviously doing just fine without him.

– Cristopher Sánchez overtakes Paul Skenes as the No. 1 starter this week. Sánchez’s velocity was down just a little initially, and he didn’t dominate last month, but he’s had a May for the ages, with his 32 scoreless innings and 36 strikeouts. His K rate has jumped from 20 percent in 2024 and 26 percent last season to 29 percent now, and he’s done without losing anything off his stellar groundball rate. I’m still pretty sure Skenes will be fine, but his velocity is down one mph from last year and his mediocre 25.6 percent CSW is really quite stunning. He ranks 56th of the 76 qualified starters in that category, right in between Matthew Liberatore and Colin Rea.

– While I didn’t want to, I did have to drop Luke Keaschall from 102nd to 167th this week. He’s losing playing time on a Twins team that’s already sent down Matt Wallner and Royce Lewis. And it probably doesn’t help matters that Lewis is already gunning for a quick return. I think things will turn around for Keaschall if the Twins stick with him, but it’d be hard to blame them for swapping him out for a spell. His lack of defensive value makes his offensive struggles much more difficult to deal with.

– Andrew Vaughn, Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell would all be top-200 guys for me as regulars, but the current playing time situation in Milwaukee isn’t great. I’d love to have Vaughn back in the 150s, but he sat against three straight righties last week before Mitchell missed a couple of games with a back issue. Someone will eventually get hurt again and clarifying matters for a time, but I don’t much like it right now.

– Pittsburgh’s Jared Jones is another guy I’d like to have higher, but this talk about maybe starting him off in the pen seems like a real threat. If it’s about not taking either Bubba Chandler or Carmen Mlodzinski out of the rotation, I don’t get that at all. I do think Chandler will get better, but his 16 percent walk rate is awful and he’s not really making up for it with a 22 percent strikeout rate. Mlodzinski has been nice, but his ceiling as a starter is limited, and even with him having allowed just two homers on 11 barrels, his ERA is an unremarkable 3.96. Jones has ace-type ability and he’s been stretched out to the point that he threw 76 pitches last time out. I don’t see how it would make any sense to put him in the pen now.

– With his 1.13 ERA through 32 innings, Antonio Senzatela becomes the first Rockies pitcher to make the top 300 this year. It’s probably a temporary thing, since he might be as likely as anyone in the league to get traded, and it might happen well before the deadline. For now, though, he looks like an increasingly decent bet for saves in Colorado’s pen.

May 18 Notes

Falling off: Kris Bubic (205th), Heliot Ramos (217th), Ryan O’Hearn (222nd), Clay Holmes (223rd), Chad Patrick (262nd), Dylan Beavers (264th), Royce Lewis (270th), Matt Wallner (275th), Giancarlo Stanton (285th), Robert Suarez (290th), Pierce Johnson (297th), Jac Caglianone (298th), Dennis Santana (299th)

– O’Hearn, Suarez, and Caglianone are all part of the next 10, along with Ryan Zeferjahn, Jake McCarthy, Connor Prielipp, Emilio Pagán and Jordan Lawlar.

– For the first time since putting out my preseason rankings in mid-January, there is a change in the top three, as Shohei Ohtani (DH only) drops behind Bobby Witt Jr. I hesitated to make the move a couple of weeks ago after Ohtani got back to stealing bases, but since it looks like him being held out of the lineup when he pitches is turning into a regular thing, down one spot he goes. I might also put Ronald Acuña Jr. ahead of him if Acuña comes back strong from his hamstring injury.

– Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drops one spot this week, but I still don’t see any reason to go much lower. His exit velocity numbers are down some, but his bat speed is just fine and he’s not striking out. I’d be more concerned if his groundball rate was spiking, but he’s slightly better than his career average there. The power production will come, and the Blue Jays’ lineup still should take a significant step forward when Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger get healthy and George Springer figures things out. Springer has been another disappointment, but again, his bat speed has held up nicely, he’s pulling the ball in the air and his strikeout rate is fine.

– Munetaka Murakami’s home run barrage has really overshadowed what Miguel Vargas is doing in Chicago, but Vargas, pretty incredibly, is currently 10th in the majors with a .407 xwOBA. His average bat speed has jumped from 70.6 mph last year (25th percentile) to 73.7 mph this year (69th percentile) and he hasn’t sacrificed any contact to make that happen. In fact, his contract numbers are largely improved. His exit velocity numbers, aside him 16 percent barrel rate, are still pretty average, and he’s still having big BABIP troubles; he’s at .240 right now, which is only slightly better than his career mark of .233. That’s keeping me from ranking him in the top 100 for now, but he is up to No. 123 this week.

– I did make room for Colt Emerson at the very bottom of the list, but I don’t think he’s ready to be particularly useful in mixed leagues at age 20. It also doesn’t help that he’s in a tough situation for hitters in Seattle. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do, but Emerson was striking out 27 percent of the time in Triple-A and it’s probably going to be a couple of years before he settles in as a 20-homer guy.