2026 AL Central Bold Predictions

Now we're in the home stretch for predictions, with this the fourth of six installments of bold predictions. The table below shows all the players covered in this article, which features players as early as round 15 in a 15-team league and the 19th round for 12-team leagues. The ADP data is based on all NFBC Draft Champiions drafts from the past 30 days:

Chicago

Last Year: Lenyn Sosa is a top-30 second baseman (5 stars)

This Year: Colson Montgomery is a top-15 shortstop

I saw Montgomery play frequently in Charlotte in 2024 and 2025 and was gobsmacked to watch him hit 21 homers last season in 284 major-league plate appearances after watching him hit 29 in 814 plate appearances over two years in Triple-A leading up to that promotion. He also hit .215 with a 30.2 percent strikeout rate in Triple-A.

Montgomery's home park in Charlotte is one of the friendliest for lefty power in the International League, so the home run surge was not environmental. Rather, the changes were the result of some focused work with White Sox director of hitting Ryan Fuller after Montgomery began the season in Charlotte with a .149/.223/.255 slash line and a 41.7 percent strikeout rate over his first 103 plate appearances. Clearly, something was broken and needed to be fixed. Montgomery returned from that time in Arizona a changed man, as he hit .270/.353/.574 with a reduced 28.1 percent strikeout rate with eight homers and earned the promotion to the big-league club. 

I found this breakdown of Montgomery's swing showing the improvements Montgomery made in-season that really shows how he mashing the baseball last year. A jump to the 4:10 mark of the video shows the changes Montgomery has made since he was drafted as a prospect:

I am just as guilty as anyone else in terms of falling victim to what the eyes see from the stands or the disappointing numbers on the scoreboard, but Montgomery was a reminder that not all growth is linear, and he made the necessary changes to tap into his raw athleticism at the plate. The strikeout rate will put a ceiling on his batting average, but he has as much upside as anyone outside the top 200 and Chicago clearly has no issues with strikeouts since they doubled down on this roster painpoint with Munetaka Murakami this winter. Sorting all shortstops in descending home runs by Steamer600 projections puts Montgomery behind only Fernando Tatis Jr. and Corey Seager. 

Last Year: Gus Varland leads the White Sox in saves (1 star)

This Year: Grant Taylor is a top-80 pitcher

Jordan Leasure is the projected closer by any source you want to look at, and while I love Taylor's stuff out of the pen, the club has already announced Taylor will very likely stay in the pen for 2026 "in more of a multi-inning directive." This makes sense, as Taylor spent most of 2024 working his way back from Tommy John surgery and went from 19.1 innings in that recovery season to 63.1 innings between Double-A and the majors last year. The subsequent jump to working as a full-time starter in 2026 could have been detrimental to his long-term development, but the up-and-coming White Sox offer Taylor fantasy viability working in a multi-inning role as Taylor is not going to be wasted on B-bullpen type games. 

I mean, just watch what Taylor is doing in this long highlight video:

It's clear that the White Sox don't want to push Taylor to the pen permanently, otherwise he makes a lot of sense as their future closer. He had a 32.1 percent whiff rate with his four-seamer last season and had whiff rates of greater than 30 percent on three of his four offerings while allowing zero home runs over 157 batters faced. 

This is clearly a skills not roles type play for AL-only leagues, but Taylor is going to be working in leads and leverage situations all season and should still be able to vulture some wins out of the pen with excellent ratios and strikeouts, or even slide into the closer role if things don't go as planned with Leasure. Mixed leaguers may want to avoid Taylor because of the role uncertainty, but if the ninth inning were to open up for him, there will be some serious FAAB expenditures. 

Cleveland

Last Year:  Jhonkensy Noel is a top-60 outfielder (1 star)

This Year: Travis Bazzana is a top-24 second baseman

This would require a big leap for Bazzana because the 24th spot at second base is currently filled by Colt Keith, who is going some 200 picks before Bazzana. This prediction also leverages the situation Cleveland has up the middle, where they have the light-hitting Brayan Rocchio and heavy-hitting Gabriel Arias currently slated as starters. Arias has some of the best bat speed in the majors, but it comes with massive holes as his whiff rate was in the lowest possible percentile. Yet, Arias is out of options and teams rarely give up on such profiles without giving them multiple chances (see Christopher Morel.) Arias has twice hit 10 or more homers in a season, but his 33.3 percent strikeout rate in over 1,000 career major-league plate appearance shows things are not changing any time soon. Rocchio is similarly out of options but lacks offensive upside. Only one of these guys can truly stick around as a regular if the club wants to defend its AL Central title. Enter Bazzana.

Bazzana can only play second base at the big-league level by any scouting report you read. The intrigue for me is in the plate discipline, as he's quite disciplined at the plate even though a .243 minor-league batting average in just shy of 500 plate appearances does not show it. He does have a .384 on-base percentage, though, and that type of skill is sorely needed at the bottom of the Cleveland lineup where things were quite thin last season as the Guardians struggled to flip the lineup over for the true talent on the roster. Bazzana has the skills to hit first or second as well down the line, but a good spring could easily force Cleveland's hand. He has already shown a lot of his overall game in the minors:

Bazzana is going to force his way onto the Guardians roster sooner rather than later, and he could really make some fantasy noise if the club inserts him between Steven Kwan and Jose Ramirez in the lineup by summertime. 

Last Year: Emmanuel Clase does not finish as a top-five closer (5 stars)

This Year: Parker Messick is a top-75 pitcher

Messick has soared through the organizational ladder after being selected in the second round out of Florida State, where he pitched to a 3.10 ERA while striking out 35 percent of the batters he faced. He continued his success in the minors, pitching to a 3.33 ERA over parts of three seasons with a 20 percent K-BB% and earning a promotion to the majors to end the season last year. He allowed more hits than innings pitched (thanks .359 BABIP!) but a 19.4 percent K-BB% helped limit his overall damage.

Messick is built like a middle of the rotation starter as he makes up with location what he lacks in velocity. A 96 Stuff+ grade along with a 109 Location+ and a 106 Pitching+ score tell the story of how this southpaw succeeds. If those overall grades scare you a bit because you wish to look at triple-digit scores across the board, then you need to adjust Ranger Suarez, Logan Gilbert, Pablo Lopez and Jose Soriano appropriately, as each had similar or worse Stuff+ scores last year but succeeded on location and pitchability. In fact, you can see some similarities to how Suarez pitches in this highlight video from last season: 

Messick worked 121.2 innings in 2023, 133.2 in 2024, and 138.1 innings this past season. He is well-positioned to shoulder a full-season workload as a starter and I believe is an excellent value outside the top 300 where he currently sits before camps begin. Cleveland has been able to get success out of Joey Cantillo, whose overall grades are lower than Messick's, so the track record is there as well for this archetype.

Detroit

Last Year: Dillon Dingler is a top-30 catcher (5 stars)

This Year: Gleyber Torres is a top-10 second baseman again

2019 is never happening again, but Torres still retains plenty of value as a four-category contributor even if his 2025 debut with Detroit came with mixed results. Torres once again compiled 600-plus plate appearances, but it was a tale of two seasons for him. His .281/.387/.425 slash line before the break looked terrific, especially with more walks than strikeouts for a club that needed that on-base ability. However, a sports hernia in July derailed his production and Torres limped to a .223/.320/.339 line the rest of the season and had surgery in the offseason to correct the issue. 

Torres is slated to once again hit second in the lineup and help set the table for Kerry Carpenter, Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson. A healthy midsection should help Torres once again challenge for 20 homers even as Comerica Park plays against those odds. A resurgent Colt Keith along with the guys behind Torres in the lineup could help him surpass his projections for runs and RBI as well. Quite frankly, it is crazy Torres is currently 18th at second base because there is value in this volume and even some consistency that is otherwise tough to uncover at this position this draft season. 

Last Year: Beau Brieske leads Detroit in saves (1 star)

This Year: Kyle Finnegan leads Detroit in saves

Kenley Jansen is three saves away from surpassing Lee Smith on the all-times saves list as he works to solidify his case for the Hall of Fame class of 2032. Jansen has zero chance of pitching long enough to join the 600-save club, so it should be expected 2026 is to be his swan song in the league. Simply put, Detroit should only be locked into Jansen until he gets that 479th save sometime in April. After that, all bets should be off, because they have a retooled option in-house in Finnegan:

Detroit encouraged Finnegan to go all-in with his splitter after acquring him and turn into a version of Kirby Yates, which worked out very well for Finnegan. The argument here is an obvious one: if Detroit believes in Finnegan, they would not have signed Jansen. I can respect that argument, but the club is already laying the groundwork for this situation to be a fluid one:

"I wouldn't say the specific [save] stat itself was something we were targeting," general manager Jeff Greenberg said a couple weeks ago. "We were targeting impact arms that we felt could help this team win games in different situations. … And we have a manager in A.J. who is so good at finding ways to get the most out of these guys, putting those pieces together, using our guys in the right situations to get those wins."

Ultimately, this landing spot for Jansen may be more about him picking his best chance to get his necessary three saves while playing on a team that has a chance to get to the World Series and lose to the Dodgers as they three-peat.

Kansas City

Last Year:  Jonathan India is a top-15 second baseman (1 star)

This Year: Jac Caglianone is a top-40 outfielder

There is no tap-dancing around the fact Caglianone was a busted pick last season. He went in just over 20 percent of Main Event drafts and even a few 12-team RotoWire Online Championship drafts, but a .157/.237/.295 line in 232 plate appearances was horrific for the much-balleyhooed prospect. Caglianone tocketed from the 2024 amateur draft after hitting 35 homers with a .419/.544/.875 for the Florida Gators and finsishing the season in HIgh-A Quad Cities without embarrassing himself. He began 2025 in Double-A, earning a promotion to Triple-A in mid-May before his first promotion to the big leagues. He hit .322/.389/.593 with 15 home runs before the promotion, and hit .385/.467/.692 with 5 additional home runs after his demotion. 

It is worth reminding everyone that he was in the majors, at 22 years old, not even a year removed from taking lecture courses in Gainesville. The struggles at the major league level is a test for adversity, but one we have already seen him pass. In 2024, Caglianone hit .241 in 126 plate appearances for Quad Cities after the long collegiate season, and then hit .236 in the Arizona Fall League as the team sent him there after the season. He responded nicely from those late struggles with a much better performance in Double-A and Triple-A, and now he has the chance to show he can be just as resilient at the major-league level. This is still elite bat speed in play here with the added bonus of the home stadium being adjusted to not be so punitive to home runs. 

Kansas City saw 37 home runs from the entirety of their outfield in 2025, so they are desperate to get the home run production from Caglianone that his potential says is there. He isn't going to match that total in 2026, but I believe he will get the club more than halfway there himself with a bounceback 2026 season. I mean, just jump to the one-minute mark of the video below and watch how he got on top of a 95 mph heater well out of the zone for his first homer, and then what he did against Robert Garcia in his next at-bat:

Last Year: Noah Cameron is a top-200 pitcher (5 stars)

This Year: Noah Cameron is not a top-125 pitcher

I loved Cameron last year because I was confident the Kansas City rotation would not enjoy the same level of health it did in 2024, and Cameron was perfectly positioned on the 40-man roster to take that step up while being freely available for drafting purposes with an ADP in the upper 600s when I made the recommendation. Now that his ADP is just outside the top 250, I have to be more critical of my choices, and I just do not see a path for a solid sophomore campaign from Cameron. Justin Mason and I discussed this situation at length in a recent episode of The Sleeper and The Bust, so I'll jump to that point of the podcast to let you hear what I had to say about Cameron for 2026. (If, by chance, the video does not jump to the right spot, please watch from 44:00 to 47:50.)

These were the players with similar grades and controllable outcomes to Cameron last season, and I just do not see enough to justify Cameron going nearly 100 picks higher than anyone else similar to him by K-BB%, Stuff+ grades and per-pitch requirements:

I would love to see Cameron do what Valdez did from 2021 to 2022, but as I conclude on the podcast, Cameron lacks that dominant pitch whereas Valdez had that great curveball. I don't particularly like most of the other guys on the list above for 2026 outside of Rea and Rodriguez in deeper leagues, but I would be fine taking them as reserves in a draft and hold while Cameron is currently costing fantasy managers a 17th-round choice in 15-team leagues and a 21st-round selection in 12 team leagues. I see too many names going after Cameron (such as Ryne Nelson, Hurston Waldrep and Braxton Ashcraft, among others) to pay the market price for someone I actively chased last year. 

Minnesota

Last Year: Emmanuel Rodriguez is a top-75 outfielder (1 star)

This Year: Josh Bell is a top-20 first baseman

I had this one written down in early October and got more excited once Bell landed in a place that will just let him eat. He last hit 30 homers back in the fun year of 2019, and last stole a base when Jon Lester allowed him to take second base in 2018. I am not expecting another stolen base (he has gone 0-for-7 since his last successful attempt) but I do believe he has a real shot at 30 homers and is an excellent late-round power target if you find your roster a little light on power in the end game. Bell is currently just inside the top 350, but I was able to get him as late as 447 in a DC50 as he was signing with Minnesota. I see several recent drafts in his draft tends chart where Bell is going closer than 400 than 300. Hello buying opportunity!

If I slapped that player profile up with a different name attached, you might be more excited, since Bell has been, to quote Derek VanRiper, "oatmeal," the past few seasons. If you need 25ish homers and a batting averge which won't kill you, Bell is always there, but he hasn't driven in more than 80 runs since the pandemic season despite getting to 600-plus plate appearances in three of the past five years as he went on a six-team world tour which included two stops in the nation's capital. 

Bell did have major issues against righties last season, hitting just .151 against them in 120 plate appearances, but he also hit .258/.348/.453 against righties in 777 plate appearances the previous four seasons, so last year, at least on the surface, looks like an isolated hiccup. The fact remains that Bell also makes quality contact more often than not, even if it goes mostly unnoticed:

Bell is slated to hit third in the Minnesota lineup and I believe is well-positioned to once again drive in over 80 runs as he did back in 2021 and should not have any challenge to his playing time. Bell may be oatmeal, but I am expecting Kodiak protein-enchaned oatmeal this season.

Last Year: David Festa is a top-75 pitcher (1 star)

This Year: Zebby Matthews is a top-75 pitcher

This time last winter, many of us were pounding the table begging for the Twins to clear room in their rotation for Festa and Matthews to get behind the potential rotation of Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober. Oops; that did not work out well on paper. Festa was terrible, Ober was worse, but Matthews showed some things over his 24 starts in the Twins City area, a third of which came with Triple-A St. Paul. 

Matthews pitched to a 20.3 percent K-BB% in 116 innings of work between Triple-A and the majors, striking out 135 while walking 33. The issue for him last year very much came down to troubles with the fastball, and I think Cody Christie of TwinsDaily.com does a great job of showing how that was a problem for Matthews in this article, which I encourage you to go read. The league hit .357 off the fastball, and seven of the 12 homers Matthews allowed at the big-league level came off that pitch. It was so bad for Matthews that his slider was the only pitch the league failed to hit over .300 against. Yet, Matthews had a Whiff% of at least 20 percent on five of his six offerings, which is why he's so enticing as a rebound candidate in 2026. Just watch the first three plate appearances in this highlight where Matthews struck out Brice Turang, Jackson Chourio and William Contreras on just 11 pitches to start the game:

I went into the FanGraphs leaderboards and asked them to provide me a list of all starting pitchers who met the following criterion:

• At least 70 IP (Matthews: 79)
• K-BB% at least 18% (Matthews: 18.3%)
• Stuff+ at least 105 (Matthews: 106)
• Location+ at least 100 (Matthews: 103)
• Pitching+ at least 105 (Matthews: 108)

Look at the company Matthews kept in 2025, as well as how much later he is currently going in drafts:

I am by no means suggesting you take him over any of the other names, but if you are in a hunt for skills later on, Matthews's 2025 surface statistics are masking the potential he still has underneath the hood.