Once a week, I run through the rest-of-season rankings for fantasy baseball. Use them for a fresh draft, use them for self-scouting, use them to evaluate trades and pickups. It’s all up to you.
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Yordan Alvarez, OF, Astros: Man, it’s fun to see him healthy and raking again. As lovely as Alvarez’s slash line is — .316/.431/.650 — he’s actually unlucky per his Savant page; he should be batting .347 based on his contact profile, and his true slugging percentage is .737. All of his hard-hit sliders are pinned to the right, and he has the eyes of a surgeon, spitting on balls and hammering strikes. Left-handed pitching doesn’t bother him, either.
In short, Alvarez is a perfect modern hitter.
Jordan Walker, OF, Cardinals: It might feel a little odd to call him a post-hype sleeper because Walker is just 24, a story just beginning. Then again, he looked lost in 2024 and 2025 (.211/.270/.324), and I understand why he was ignored at draft tables this spring. Walker’s improvement is standard stuff, a bump in his launch angle and a maturing batting eye (his chase and strikeout rates are still below average, but on the upswing). Walker can get away with empty swings because his connections are so emphatic — he’s top shelf with exit velocity and hard-hit rate. And it’s not just a power show; he’s also copped 10 stolen bases. See you at the All-Star Game, kid.
Michael Soroka, SP, Diamondbacks: The strikeout rate is passable but not electric, but he makes a lot of his own luck by never walking anyone. Soroka navigated the gauntlet last week, holding his water against the Dodgers and then shoving against the Nationals — and those are arguably the two hardest matchups in baseball.
As we head into the second week of June, Soroka has made 13 starts — and just one of them was damaging to our fantasy line. This is a career year at age 28, Circle of Trust stuff.
Louis Varland, RP, Blue Jays: He’s come out of nowhere to be the best reliever in the American League, with the absurd 0.26 ERA and tidy 0.95 WHIP. Varland dominates in the classic way, piling up strikeouts, limiting the walks and getting ground balls by the truckload (60.3%). The outlier ERA is hard to take seriously, of course, but even his ERA estimators line up favorably — 1.29 FIP, 1.98 SIERA, 1.79 xERA.
I watched the Orioles try to slow the game against him this weekend, stepping out of the box, and Varland almost seemed to smirk — knowing he was going to mow them down either way. Varland has become must-see TV for every appearance.
Noah Cameron, SP, Royals: When the Yankees and White Sox roughed him up in April, a lot of fantasy managers shifted Cameron to the bench or the waiver wire. But it’s been a quiet comeback story since, with a 3.15 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP over his last eight starts. Cameron is never going to light up the radar gun, with an average fastball under 90 mph. But he limits walks and home runs, and he’s effective against both lefties and righties. Dial him up against Houston this week.
Jake Mangum, OF, Pirates: Do you have room for a specialist on your roster? Mangum is on a 10-for-20 binge over his last seven appearances, with a homer and five steals. The Pirates will probably roll Mangum into the lineup for most opposing righties, which probably means 5-6 starts over the next week and a half. He’s best utilized in deeper leagues with daily moves, but you need to be mindful of someone who’s this skilled at running — and eager to run at that.
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Will Smith, C, Dodgers: He’s an eyelash above an average hitter right now (103 OPS+), and he missed some time on the weekend with a neck injury. That allowed Dalton Rushing’s bat to wake up (four hits, homer on Sunday) after an extended slump. Smith is unlike many of the top catchers in that he can’t pile up the playing time — he had zero DH equity because Shohei Ohtani locks up that spot. And Rushing’s upside also has to be considered, even as his smashing April start was always too good to be true.
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George Kirby, SP, Mariners: He’s still stingy with the walks and home runs, but the strikeout rate has tumbled down and the ERA has begun to rise. I dreamt of Cy Young upside for the early part of Kirby’s career, but here we are, in his age-28 season and he’s sitting on a 4.15 ERA over his last 36 starts. And while the roomy Seattle ballpark is a plus, the Mariners have not assembled a good defense.
Kirby was drafted as a front-of-fold rotation piece, but he’s pitching more like a SP4; worth rostering, but short of a true ace.
Jake Burger, 1B, Rangers: There are some batters who swing at everything but make contact anyway — Ernie Clement comes to mind. Guys like that, we don’t sweat their chase rate. But with players like Burger, who hack at everything and strike out a ton, that can be a problem. Burger’s production to this point has been passable, though his hard-hit sliders are tepid and his expected slugging is just .401. I’d like more out of a corner infielder, and he’s getting no float from the pitcher-friendly Texas home ballpark.
Updated rest-of-season top-250 rankings (as of June 8)
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