With the 2026 MLB season right around the corner, your draft prep work needs to kick into high gear and there is no better way to prep for your fantasy baseball draft than sitting down and taking part in at least one fantasy baseball mock draft. If you can carve out time for more, you will be much better served, because you can study all the fantasy baseball player rankings, fantasy baseball ADP trends and draft strategy articles you want, but until you see everything action – until you actually live it – they’re just words and numbers on a page.

 

 

The calendar will flip to March soon, spring training updates will come flooding in, MLB depth charts will change, and before you know it, you’re walking into your draft room ready to do battle for the 2026 fantasy baseball season. Are you prepared? You will be if you put your knowledge to the test in a series of quality fantasy baseball mock drafts.

2026 Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft: 12-Team, 5x5 Roto

Your purchase of our 2026 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide and/or your All-Pro subscription to Fantasy Alarm will likely get you an invite into some of our upcoming mock drafts, as well as the half-season listener/subscriber leagues Jim Bowden and I are planning, but for this first one (and maybe even the next one here in the Guide), we went to the heavy hitters of the fantasy baseball industry. 

Typically, we’ve only used the Fantasy Alarm team to analyze fantasy baseball mock draft results. The crew is always fantastic, but one thing we noticed is that due to the familiarity with each other, as well as the aligned opinions on so many players, we were presenting you with more of an exercise in pick-sniping than what your home or work league might look like.

Having a pick or two of yours sniped in a draft is par for the course. You could even argue that it's, case-in-point, why MLB fantasy baseball mock drafts can be so valuable and give you a better idea of how your actual 2026 drafts might play out. Nonetheless, we wanted to offer you a chance to see multiple expert opinions and a greater variety of draft strategies in effect.

And wow – did we ever succeed! We assembled 12 of the greatest fantasy baseball minds from across the industry and locked them into a room to fight it out for 29 rounds. 

 

 

One other note, before we begin, relates to the ADP. When we do early mock drafts in fantasy football, we already have a well-established ADP.  The dynasty league people and the best-ball fanatics draft heavily from April to July, so when the mainstream public starts drafting, whether it’s in a mock or for real, the ADP is already taking shape. We don’t really have that in fantasy baseball.

Yes, there are people who draft early, whether it’s best-ball or dynasty or some form of high-stakes contest, but the numbers are significantly less than what we see in football. The NFBC runs out their ADP, but you have to keep in mind, there is no trading allowed in those leagues so roster construction is always a bit different. For example, closers get pushed up draft boards at an alarming rate. No one wants to use up their FAAB chasing saves all year, so even the most mediocre closer, will see a major ADP jump in NFBC drafts as opposed to your typical home leagues.

Not that we can’t use what we have as a guideline. This is why we created composite ADP here on Fantasy Alarm. But when you’re looking at this mock draft and notice that the participants did a solid job of ignoring current ADP numbers, don’t be alarmed. We understand that a mock like this actually helps shape the ADP that will be most useful to you in your drafts.

So, let’s dive in. We’ll start with the draft specs, the players and the draft board, and then we’ll get to the analysis of our first 2026 MLB fantasy baseball mock draft of the spring.

 

 

Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft Format & Scoring

  • 12 teams, 29 rounds, snake draft
  • 5x5 Roto Scoring
    • Hitters: AVG, HR, RBI, SB, Runs
    • Pitchers: W, S, K, ERA, WHIP
  • Starting Rosters: 2 C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, 5 OF, UT, 9 P
  • Bench: 6 players

Our Fantasy Baseball Mock Drafters (In Draft Order)

  1. Howard Bender – Fantasy Alarm
  2. Ariel Cohen – ATC Projections
  3. Joe Gallina – Fantasy Alarm
  4. Keith Giordano – KG Analytics
  5. Jason Collette – FanGraphs
  6. Steve Phillips – SiriusXM
  7. Jim Bowden – Fantasy Alarm
  8. Todd Zola – Mastersball
  9. James Anderson – Rotowire
  10. Anthony Aniano – Rotoballer
  11. Colby Conway – Fantasy Alarm
  12. Eric Karabell – ESPN

2026 Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft Board

The final mock draft board is pasted here, but you can also click here to open it up in another window for easier reference.

It’s a gorgeous board, isn’t it? Thank you to our friends at rtsports.com for hosting the draft

 

 

12-Team 5x5 Roto Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft Results & Strategy

More often than not, when someone does a draft recap, they stay focused on their team. I will happily share some thoughts on my own draft, but there are a number of other things to look at with regard to the draft as a whole.

For starters, I’m not particularly fond of my team. Maybe it’s because I don’t like having the first pick. I love Shohei Ohtani. The guy is an absolute beast. He does everything from hit for power to stealing bases to striking out hitters at a strong rate. If your league rules dictate that you can use Ohtani as both a hitter and a pitcher, then you take him No. 1 overall. Doesn’t matter if it’s weekly or daily roster moves. His offensive prowess cannot be ignored. 

If you are in one of those leagues that forces you to draft Ohtani the hitter OR Ohtani the pitcher, I’m fine taking Ohtani the hitter at No. 1 overall, but Ohtani the pitcher falls back into the back half of the top-20 starters for me. Again, he does it all and his pitching numbers look great, but the Dodgers are living with a six-man rotation which means you’re not getting any two-start weeks for him. The numbers are great, but I’d put him as more of a fifth-round option in a 12-team league. For this draft, I would have taken Ohtani the pitcher after Freddy Peralts but before Joe Ryan or Framber Valdez.

But again, for me, I don’t like being pigeon-holed into making a pick, especially with a guy who only qualifies at utility. Sure, I could take Aaron Judge or Bobby Witt ahead of him, but is that essentially the right move? Maybe Witt if stolen bases are my jam and I want an elite shortstop, but the power between Judge and Ohtani is not large enough for me to ignore the speed aspect of Ohtani’s game and if you read Colby Conway’s article on When to Draft Speed, you’ll know that ignoring stolen bases early can be a troubling thing.

As for the rest of my draft, there were a few things to note. First off, I do not like the depth at the outfield position. Sure, you can wait on it if you like, but there is such a significant drop-off in overall talent once you get past the top-20. Do I want to be scraping the bottom for my third or fourth outfielder? No, so I made a couple of early moves to acquire Wyatt Langford and Seiya Suzuki. I even took it a step further with hopeful upside picks of Michael Harris and Luis Robert (who now spends his days listening to Juan Soto about plate discipline and proper hitting). 

Another thing I focused on was players with multi-position eligibility. Ben Rice can be used as a catcher and first baseman, Noelvi Marte handles third base and the outfield, and both Bryson Stott and Michael Vargas can be moved around the infield. Having a few players who qualify at multiple positions helps with roster flexibility, so if you deal with injuries, your waiver wire options become more expansive and if you play in a league with daily roster moves, it helps with days off and potential platoon situations.

Overall, I like my pitching staff, especially when you can include Ohtani, though I basically committed to chasing saves and spending some FAAB on relievers. I grabbed Carlos Estevez and I have a hunch that Abner Uribe gets more saves work than Trevor Megill, but if I’m wrong about Uribe, then we’re chasing until we land someone strong.

Is it the team of all teams? No. But I was more focused on watching what the rest of the field was doing, especially my co-host on Fantasy Alarm, Jim Bowden. He had been preaching a pitcher-heavy strategy, something he hasn’t done in the eight or nine years we’ve worked together, and I was glad to see him follow through in this mock.

The key to his draft was the fact that he was able to nab three VERY strong outfield options after three-straight starting pitchers while then also grabbing some middle-infield speed with CJ Abrams and Bo Bichette. He also grabbed a couple of single-category guys to help make up the offensive differences he has with teams that went hitter-heavy – Chandler Simpson for steals and Munetaka Murakami for power. 

I was also looking to see how the analysts were affected by recent injuries. Corbin Carroll, Francisco Lindor and Jackson Holliday all suffered broken hamate bones and will not only miss time early in the season, but will also likely have power issues to start. The field doesn’t seem scared in any way, shape or form as Carroll still went in the first, Lindor in the mid-second and Holiday in the 11th as the seventh second baseman off the board. Even Yordan Alvarez, who is working his way back from last year’s injury woes, went in the mid-third, so this group has very little concern for injuries – a good tactic for drafting.

Overall, I’d say this draft will serve as a great starting point for most re-draft leagues. No one in the group was a slave to the ADP numbers we have and everyone seemed to stay on the right path with regard to their own strategies. When we do the next mock further into the spring, we should see some interesting changes and there will likely be more intriguing values to be found, but for a fantasy baseball primer, this was pretty good. 

 

 

As always, I open the floor to our drafters and offer them a chance to chime in with anything they want to share about their drafts. Obviously, everyone in here is currently working on their own baseball content – draft guides, strategy articles, sleepers, etc – so it’s a busy time, but a few of them had some thoughts.

From the mind of Colby Conway…

I love how my first four rounds opened, as I secured solid speed options with Elly De La Cruz and J-Rod, while following it up with safer power options in Matt Olson and Brent Rooker. A three-headed trio at the top of my rotation with Joe Ryan, George Kirby, and Eury Perez is a strong start, but the staff beyond that has just as many questions as it does overall upside. Saves could be an adventure all year long, and likely the glaring weakness of this team. Amongst all the upside players, a la Robby Snelling and Carter Jensen, boring veteran options like Ozzie Albies and Bryan Reynolds were solid values to round out the squad.

I will note this: DO NOT SOLELY RELY ON THE ADP OF THE SITE YOU ARE DRAFTING ON. The ADP can vary from site to site, and allow you to capitalize on values, especially if a player is buried down the list on your site! Example: Jacob Misiorowski is the 133rd player off the board by NFBC ADP dating back to 1/1. However, in the RT Sports default list, he's down at #249! KNOW YOUR SITE AND TAKE ADVANTAGE!

 

 

Joe Gallina told me…

Beware of drafting with sharks!! It was interesting to note that the first 12 closers were gone by the ninth round. I usually don’t take my first closer until the ninth round or so but felt compelled to grab my first one in the seventh round. I probably should have focused on filling my outfield a little sooner, but I believe Adolis Garcia has a good shot of having a bounce back season in hitter friendly Citizens Bank Park and I like Daylen Lile’s upside in the Nationals’ lineup.

Ariel Cohen had this to say…

I opted to prioritize power for this mock draft. I assembled a tremendous squad led by Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh, Eugenio Suarez and Willy Adames. I made sure to accumulate enough speed along the way with players such as Pete Crow-Armstrong, Randy Arozarena and Brenton Doyle.

Luis Arraez, who is a massive theoretical value fit the construct of my squad, so I drafted him in round 19, which makes up for any batting average deficiencies.

The weak point of my team might be the pitching staff, although I have a strong bullpen with both Mason Miller and Cade Smith. I opted to go for some injury risk or injury return players such as Spencer Strider, Brandon Woodruff, Nathan Eovaldi, Matthew Boyd and Drew Rasmussen. I’m hoping that there are enough risky players that will hit on the staff, which is anchored by Bryan Woo.

Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, Todd Zola said…

You know that feeling you get when you have the window seat in an otherwise empty row? That's how I felt in this draft. It doesn't guarantee a smooth flight, but I'm not complaining. I enjoyed drafting in an alternate room to the NFBC platform, with a different default order, and a group that didn't care about ADP.

 

 

And finally, Keith Giordano had this to say…

I was thrilled when at the last minute the draft order was reset giving me the 4th pick instead of the 6th. I did not want to make the decision between Tarik Skubal and a hitter (which would have been Julio Rodriguez if picks 1-5 were chalk).  Back-dooring into Bobby Witt Jr was awesome.

Starting pitching went much earlier and quicker than I expected.  Having 3 of the top 8 picks be the top three starters was a huge surprise to me.  When 4 more came off the board before my third pick (3.4) it was clear that it was time to get a couple of quality arms before they were ALL gone.  I figured I would go with a couple of relatively "safe" starters and go for a mix of upside and rebound the rest of the way. By the end of round 3, another 3 starters were taken.

Outfield got thin quickly. I may have had to reach once or twice there to make sure that I wasn't forced to go further down the list.  I don't love drafting closers and usually find myself with weak ones.  This was no exception but I do expect to have opportunities on the waiver wire to supplement them.

In conclusion…

Again, this was a very nice first step for all of us, analysts and readers alike. The ADP continues to take shape and we have a long way to go before the start of the 2026 MLB season. A lot will change over the next month or so, so keep checking in with all the new content the Guide will offer you. Also, be on the lookout for our next mock draft which will likely come sometime in the second week of March. We want to see some position battles won and lost in spring training and we want to see how the rest of the ADP shakes out as well.

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