This week's article is more of a catch-all for a variety of things we are witnessing across the league and what you can do with your fantasy team(s) with these observations. Overall, we are seeing offensive struggles in strange places, saves everywhere, and one team in particular with some serious pitching problems. Let's dig into it.
Saves
Saves are indeed all over the league thus far through the first 15-16 games of the season. We have seen a record 74 players record at least one save this season through these first two and a half weeks. This time last season, that number was at 58. In the lead are Paul Sewald, David Bednar, Lucas Erceg and Jhoan Duran, who are all tied with five saves apiece. We did not expect two of those four names to be there, but there they are.
Only the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Blue Jays, Angels and Mets have had a singular reliever garner all the saves on the club, while the Rockies, Twins, and Marlins have each had four or more relievers pick up a save:
This week's article is more of a catch-all for a variety of things we are witnessing across the league and what you can do with your fantasy team(s) with these observations. Overall, we are seeing offensive struggles in strange places, saves everywhere, and one team in particular with some serious pitching problems. Let's dig into it.
Saves
Saves are indeed all over the league thus far through the first 15-16 games of the season. We have seen a record 74 players record at least one save this season through these first two and a half weeks. This time last season, that number was at 58. In the lead are Paul Sewald, David Bednar, Lucas Erceg and Jhoan Duran, who are all tied with five saves apiece. We did not expect two of those four names to be there, but there they are.
Only the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Blue Jays, Angels and Mets have had a singular reliever garner all the saves on the club, while the Rockies, Twins, and Marlins have each had four or more relievers pick up a save:
My theory is that this is happening because we're having so many late and close games due to the lack of offense we have seen early on around the league. The volume of close and late games is leading relievers to frequently work back-to-back days, and most managers prefer to not utilize relievers for a third consecutive day. This unusual spread of saves should level out soon, but there is a lot of early noise in the saves market due to the current low-scoring run environment. Notable names who were drafted as speculative saves sources or better who have yet to record a save in 2026 include Chris Martin, Taylor Rogers, Robert Garcia, Griffin Jax, Carlos Estevez, Abner Uribe and Justin Sterner. All appear to be safe cuts this week, if not cut already, in shallower formats.
The 0-0 Club
The ESPN Fantasy Baseball Podcast, back in the 06010 heyday, referred to players who hit a home run and stole a base in the same game as a combo meal. Heading into play Monday night, however, we had 16 notable players who were fasting at the plate, as they had neither a home run nor a stolen base in their first 50+ plate appearances. Josh Naylor (2x) and Nolan Arenado removed themselves from this StatHead report as I was writing this article, but there are still some very notable names in this group:
Taylor Ward, despite the lack of home runs or steals, is off to a red hot start and was leading baseball with 10 doubles as play began this week. Colt Keith is also hitting well at the plate without the homers or steals, but the rest of the group has mostly underperformed and will hopefully wake up soon. We were not expecting everyone on here to steal a base, but there are several players projected for either 20-plus homers or 20-plus steals who have frustrated fantasy managers with these longstanding goose eggs.
Expanding the criteria to allow for either one home run and/or one stolen base introduces some additional frustrations such as:
- Francisco Lindor, with 0 homers and 1 steal in 75 plate appearances
- Bo Bichette, with 1 homer and 0 steals in 74 plate appearances
- Julio Rodriguez, off to yet another slow start with just a single homer and steal along with a .194/.286/.258 slash line through 70 plate appearances.
- Riley Greene with just a single homer and steal through 69 plate appearances
- Trevor Story, coming off a 31-steal season, is 30 steals off that pace through 69 plate appearances
- Austin Riley, whose next home run will be his first; he is homerless in his first 66 plate appearances thus far yet has two stolen bases, swiping one tonight off the defenseless Marlins as I wrote this sentence
- Jo Adell, who has robbed more home runs (3) than he's hit (1) so far this season
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who's still waiting for his second home run through 65 plate appearances
- Trent Grisham, who's waiting for his first home run, a season after he shocked everyone with 34 home runs (note - he hit a cheap homer into the short porch minutes after I wrote this sentence)
The offense will come around eventually. I am seeing big scores this evening as I am finishing up this article, with some unusually warm temperatures across most of the country, but that cannot explain away the bludgeoning Garrett Crochet took in Minneapolis tonight. I just want to remind fantasy managers not to panic and overreact to these early-season struggles and noise. Do not let three weeks of data undo months of offseason research. You should keep an open mind and make adjustments to your expectations, but unless you see an injury with a struggling player, stay the course.
That said, you should absolutely be reaching out to owners in leagues where trading is permitted to see just how frustrated your competition is with certain bullpen situations or offensive laggards. Emotions are high as fantasy managers stare at big investments delivering poor returns. Put in your due diligence and check in with leaguemates while actively combing through the waiver wire to see which player was dumped in a fit of frustration this past week.
I looked into one Rotowire Online Championship and am intrigued with recent cuts such as Gleyber Torres, Nolan Schanuel, Brandon Sproat and Royce Lewis, even if he is hurt. You can even comb through the Main Event pickup and drops to see what the high stakes players are doing. Shawn Childs does a great job of tracking the most added and dropped players, and it's intriguing to see how the preseason favorites for saves in the Texas bullpen, Robert Garcia and Chris Martin, were two of the top most-dropped players this past weekend. Early returns made Jakob Junis the second most-added player this week, whereas he was barely on the periphery for projected saves in the Texas pen before the season. That presents an opportunity to potentially grab the better skilled player once the flavor du jour cools off as we saw two different times in Texas last season.
