Chris Towers' early-season Fantasy Baseball 2026 rankings movers: Biggest risers and fallers after Week 1

These players have made an impression early -- for better or worse

Spoiler alert: I don't tend to be aggressive with rankings moves for the first month of the season. This annoys some Fantasy Baseball players who want to see players shooting up and down the rankings based on their most recent level of production, but that just isn't how I view things.

In fact, I think it's the wrong way to view things. If you liked a player enough to draft him two weeks ago – especially enough to draft him as a top-200 players – very little that we've seen so far should change your opinion of them. 

Now, I will admit: That's more true for moving players down than for moving them up, something I'm more willing to do. Oh sure, I won't fundamentally change how I view anyone a week or so into the season, almost regardless of what we've seen. Any player can get hot for a week or two only for it to eventually not mean anything, and any player can get cold for a week or more and not have it change how you view them.

But that's not to say I'm totally unwilling to make any changes. I'll be updating my rankings every week between now and the end of the season, and even now there are tweaks to be made. Scott White wrote about his biggest rankings moves for the first week of the season Thursday for CBSSports.com, and many of his moves reflect my own. My first Trade Values charts of the season were also published Thursday, and to go along with that, I've got five rankings movers to highlight here – four up, and only one down. 

Four moving up

Cam Schlittler, SP, Yankees

This might be the guy I'm having the most FOMO on so far this season. It's not just the results through starts as much as it is the fact that the stuff looks even more overwhelming than it did during his successful rookie season. He has held on to the velocity gains with his fastballs while adding even more heat with his cutter, giving him three separate pitches in the 94-99 mph range with three different movement profiles – the cutter is like the four-seamer but with five more inches of drop, while the sinker is like the cutter with an extra 10 inches of arm-side movement. And he's throwing those pitches around 90% of the time right now, with nearly equal usage across the three of them, so … good luck, opposing hitters, especially when he still has a curveball and slider that look like pretty good pitches in their own right. I don't know if Schlittler can sustain an elite strikeout rate while leaning so heavily on three fastballs, but I think his 28% strikeout rate as a rookie is reasonable, and he might be one of the toughest pitchers to barrel up with this new approach. I think we're not far from Schlittler being in the discussion for a top-15 SP spot. 

Kodai Senga, SP, Mets

I didn't take reports of Senga's improved velocity seriously enough this spring, but he looked like a legitimately different pitcher in his first start. His 97.5 mph average fastball velo in that start was the highest in any MLB start to date for him, and it led to six of his nine strikeouts in the opener, with his elite forkball taking care of the other three punchouts. The velocity may not stick. His injury woes may crop up again. Or the iffy command Senga has always dealt with could derail things. But I came out of last season with nearly nonexistent expectations for Senga, and after his spring and then just one start, I'm back on board with him as at least a useful Fantasy option. Maybe more. 

Isaac Paredes, 3B, Astros

The question was about playing time, and now Paredes has started six of the first seven games for the Astros. He's been helped along by the fact that Jeremy Pena isn't playing on back-to-back days yet, so the crunch could still come for Pares, especially if Christian Walker continues to out-hit him. But it's not like Paredes has been bad – we haven't seen a ball go over the fence for him, but he's sporting a .346 OBP with four doubles in six games, so it's not like he's been a non-factor. The Astros have already been willing to play Yordan Alvarez in the outfield a few times this season, and if he proves capable of handling that regularly, the playing time could be there for Paredes. That's one of the most important trends of the first week. 

Taj Bradley, SP, Twins

I've never been a big believer in Bradley, but it's never been for a lack of arm talent. And he seems to have leveled up a bit in the early going, as Matthew Trueblood of TwinsDaily.com noted in a recent article. In his first start, basically the entire arsenal rated out as above-average, something that hasn't exactly been true throughout his career despite the glimpses of high upside we've seen from him. He didn't miss a ton of bats in his second start of the season against the Twins, but he commanded the ball well and limited them to just five hits and one walk in six shutout innings, bringing Bradley to just one earned run with 12 strikeouts and four walks in 10.1 innings. The command is the key thing to watch here, because if he can combine the leveled-up stuff with even average command and control, Bradley certainly has plenty of upside. I'm intrigued, if not yet fully bought in. 

Lucas Erceg, RP, Royals

I thought it might be Matt Strahm who got the opportunity if Carlos Estevez went sideways, because I think Strahm is just the best pitcher in the Royals bullpen. But managers are often less willing to trust lefties with the closer job if they have a righty alternative, and Erceg is the one who has gotten the first opportunities with Estevez predictably imploding. Strahm could still matter for Fantasy, but he'll need Erceg to mess up, and that hasn't happened yet. And with Erceg, there are some real high-upside outcomes possible here if he can get back to his 2024 strikeout rate (29%, compared to 19% last season). That's no guarantee, and it introduces some risk for Erceg, who hasn't missed many bats in his very small sample size this season. But given the role, he has to be viewed as one of the biggest risers at any position so far. 

One moving down

Noelvi Marte, 3B, Reds

I wasn't in on Marte coming into the season anyway, but I'm still surprised to see him starting just three of the Reds' first six games. And, most alarmingly, it's not like it's been a straight platoon – he has started just one of two against lefties and two of three against righties. Marte is a work in progress in the outfield, and now he's not even getting the chance to get off to a hot start, playing less than Will Benson and getting just one more plate appearance to date than Dan Myers. He could get hot and force the Reds' hand, but it's not like he has an especially long track record to bet on here – Marte's only real success at the MLB level constitutes one good month back in 2023 and then an additional good month or so in 2025. But he was a disaster in 2024 and then followed up that good stretch in 2025 with a .502 OPS in September where his plate discipline collapsed. The truth is … he might just not be better than Will Benson right now. That's a tough break for a guy who was drafted as a 10th round pick or earlier in a lot of drafts.