Collette Calls: 2026 NL West Bold Predictions

We have finally made it to the end of the series. I hope each of you has taken something away from this series and is reviewing how you previously thought about one of the players who was discussed, or perhaps you're submitting complaints to this site's management to have me drug tested for performance-diminishing drugs. This division had some big hits and even bigger misses in last year's installment, so I aim to increase the former and lessen the latter this time around. 

These are the players discussed and their ADP data from the past 30 days, covering 42 Draft Champions drafts:

Arizona

Last Year: Lourdes Gurriel is not a top-300 player (1 star)

This Year: Gabriel Moreno is a top-six catcher

Moreno is in a wonderful situation as long as his body can hold up to the rigors of catching a high volume of games. James McCann is a perfectly cromulent second catcher, but Moreno is the star, with elite defense behind the plate and a solid profile at the plate. Arizona sees the upside, as he's being discussed as their cleanup hitter this season, and our projected batting orders refect that. If that projection holds true, take the way over on the RBI projections you see above, because a full-time cleanup hitter falls into 85-plus RBI, so someone playing 75 percent of the time can fall into 70.

Moreno has notoriously been a groundball-heavy hitter, but he was making progress in that area as the season went on last year. His overall groundball rate and flyball rates have intersected over the past three seasons, so he is now nearly dead even in those two areas, whereas his previous groundball rate was approaching 60 percent:

We see that playing out in his metrics as well, with his player profile page showing a lot of green in the right places:

Moreno is currently the 13th catcher by ADP over the past 30 days, going six rounds after the current sixth catcher, Agustin Ramirez. RotoWire's own Clay Link took Moreno with pick 12.14 in a Draft Champions league we're in together (as well as a few other staffers) when I was hoping Moreno would make it back to me on the turn at 13.4. I am expecting career highs in all the counting categories for Moreno, who was already bringing an excellent batting average from the catching position. 

Last Year: Brandon Pfaadt is a top-50 pitcher (1 star)

This Year: Jonathan Loaisiga leads Arizona in saves

This bullpen, as it stands at the start of February, is neck-and-neck with the Nationals' as the worst one in baseball for saves. How bad is it? The earliest ADP of any reliever on this roster is Kevin Ginkel at 554. That ADP is more than 200 points higher than Loaisiga, who hasn't even been drafted in a Draft Champions draft, so this is one of those NL-only dart throws. We should know what we have here after seeing him throw in camp. I cannot recommend using an end-game draft pick on Loaisiga in Draft Champions because, as The Process has taught us, 80 percent of the pitchers taken after round 40 never threw a single pitch last season. Loaisiga could be another one of those guys this season, but this situation is so wide-open, and I want to see how it plays out at Talking Stick this month.

Clarke was signed as a free agent to a one-year deal after being non-tendered by Kansas City. Thompson is as terrible against lefties as he is good against righties, Ginkel has struggled with health, while Saalfrank is just bad across the board. Loaisiga had season-ending surgery in early April of 2024 to remove a bone spur in his pitching elbow, and the long layoff showed last season with his command troubles. He did maintain his high groundball rate and still brought the heat. The swing-and-miss stuff was still present, but the command issues hurt him with homers. Loaisiga, if he can recover his pre-injury command during camp, has the opportunity to combine his groundball tendencies with his velocity and stake a claim at a wide-open closer role unless the club makes some kind of late signing or trade before camps open in a week. 

We should know before March whether there's any chance for this to work out by watching spring games and seeing some of the pitching data we will see coming from the Cactus League. 

Colorado

Last Year: Michael Toglia is the best Italian first baseman (1 star)

This Year: Blaine Crim is a top-500 player

Last year's bust with Toglia ended a fun two-year run where I correctly predicted the fantasy breakouts of Nolan Jones and Brenton Doyle in Colorado. I am hoping to redeem myself with Crim, fully admitting that it is a longshot considering he struck out in 38 percent of his 74 plate appearances last season. I am intrigued by what he showed when he did make contact, because he did square a few balls up, including this impressive blast which broke up a Luis Castillo no-hitter:

His player profile has some interesting areas of green, but it would sure be nice if he made more contact:

Crim had solid strikeout rates throughout his extensive time in Triple-A, first with Texas and then with Colorado after they claimed him off waivers in August. 

I am looking at this as a wide-open audition for playing time at first base between Crim and Troy Johnston. The latter can also play outfield, so there is no lock on first base. The video below is a long video of clips of Crim raking in Triple-A last season, and I'm hopeful the strikeout issues last year were just the result of him trying to adjust to his first taste of big-league pitching. If he can bring that rate down to somewhere in the mid-20s, that will make his 2026 interesting with enough playing time. This is a late draft-and-hold pick or NL-only reserve pick in a situation where the opportunity is there for Crim, with few roster spots locked down in Denver. I would not take a chance on this skillset with a more competitive roster, but first base in Colorado is about as unsettled a position as there is in baseball, so may the best bat win. 

Last Year: Jaden Hill has positive dollar value in mixed leagues (1 star)

This Year: Juan Mejia leads the team in saves

Every year, I am forced to try to find some sliver of value in the Rockies bullpen, because their rotation has none. Every year, I come up empty because the entire bullpen ends up being a hot mess, or someone who shows talent like Seth Halvorsen gets injured and we are left with the same old story. This year does not look too much different, with projected closer Victor Vodnik being the only pitcher being taken in drafts before the 595th plick where Halvorsen is going. Mejia has gone in 17 of the 40 Draft Champions drafts over the past 30 days as a late dart throw in the 49th or 50th round. 

Los Angeles

Last Year: Andy Pages finishes as a top-60 outfielder (4 stars)

This Year: Teoscar Hernandez is not a top-200 player

Hernandez is coming off an age-32 season that, by wRC+, was his worst full season since becoming a regular at the big-league level and a reminder of the downside he showed back in 2019, when he struggled while sluggers around him did not. Hernandez did reduce his strikeouts last season but also saw his walks decline, as he took a more aggressive approach in the box which hurt his value in OBP leagues. His batting average also fell by 25 points despite the reduction in strikeouts.

This is the age that most players begin to show decline in their skills, and Hernandez has not been immune to the pursuit of father time. His bat speed has declined by 19 percent in the three years of bat speed data we have available to us, and his swing was already one of the longer ones in the league. Hernandez has been in the bottom tenth percentile for overall swing-and-miss for four consecutive seasons and seven of the last eight despite his success. 

Just looking back to last season, nine players age 33 or older had at least 25 home runs:

• Aaron Judge - 53
• Eugenio Suarez - 49
• George Springer - 32
• Salvador Perez - 30
• Christian Yelich - 29
• Christian Walker - 27
• Jose Altuve - 26
• Mike Trout - 26
• Yandy Diaz - 25

Trout had the fewest plate appearances of the group at 556 and Springer was next at 586, but the rest all had at least 640 plate appearances. I do not see any path forward for Hernandez to get to that volume since the DH spot on the roster is occupied by Shohei Ohtani most nights. That puts the tax on Hernandez to hold up in the outfield. Even Perez gets to DH and play first to take the strain off his catching legs, while some of those other names enjoy favorable home park conditions. 

This could blow up in my face much like George Springer did last season, but even Springer's age-33 season included a 30-point decline in his wRC+ from the prior season. Hernandez has never posted a sub-100 wRC+ as a major-league regular, but I believe that streak comes to an end in 2026. The Los Angeles lineup is talented and deep, but struggles could also push Hernandez as far down as eighth in the lineup, which would impact the steady RBI production he's delivered for the past three seasons as well.

Last Year: Yoshinobu Yamamoto wins the NL Cy Young (4 stars)

This Year: Justin Wrobleski is a top-200 pitcher

It's tough to predict anything with the Dodgers because of their notorious load and roster management over the years, but it's not tough to predict there will be openings on a roster which include two starters as familiar with the injured list in Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow as I was familiar with airport lounges before Covid-19 changed my travel demands.

Snell is already ramping up slowly for the regular season to recover from his postseason workload as we saw him work 34 innings in October after working just 61.1 innings in the regular season due to injury. Glasnow has exceeded 120 innings in a season just once, so I am trying to find opportunity in the rotation because the saves here are rather locked up with Edwin Diaz, Tanner Scott and Alex Vesia holding down the late innings. 

Wrobleski himself worked as a reliever last year for the Dodgers, with as many games started (two) as games saved. Those starts were regrettable outings as he allowed 12 earned runs in 11 innings, with a very early start against the Nationals on April 8 and the other start June 6 against the Cardinals. That came just a season after Wrobleski started six games for the Dodgers in 2024 and pitched to a 6.82 ERA. However, as a reliever, Wrobleski pitched to a 29.4 percent K-BB% with a 3.23 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 67 strikeouts in 55.2 innings. 

Wrobleski throws six different pitches, and throws them all to both righties and lefties, so he functions like the starter he has been throughout his minor-league career even if the success as a starter did not follow him to the big leagues last season. His four-seamer had a 35 percent whiff rate last season, which was the best of all his pitches. My thought here is the opportunity will come for him to work as a swing man as the Dodgers do their thing to cover innings throughout the season. We could see Wrobleski get more turns as a spot starter, come in to throw bulk innings after an opener, or work the middle innings after someone else provides a few innings of work. He was improving his swing-and-miss as the season went on and followed that up with some impressive showings in October when called upon as well:

I would like to see how this plays out in a draft-and-hold league or off the bench in an NL-only league this season while adding him to my watch list in a 15-team FAAB league, because there are moments on this highlights reel where he looks absolutely phenomenal:

San Diego

Last Year: Xander Bogaerts is a top-3 second baseman (2 stars)

This Year: Ramon Laureano is a top-40 outfielder

Laureano is currently 55th on the outfield ADP charts over the past 30 days, going three rounds later than Steven Kwan, who sits at 40. Going back to the comment I made earlier on Moreno, cleanup hitters fall into RBI. Laureano is currently projected to hit cleanup behind a lineup that features Fernando Tatis Jr, Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado in front of him and Gavin Sheets and Xander Bogaerts behind him. Laureano is a well-rounded player with all five tools on display when healthy, and he is coming off a career season between his time with Baltimore and San Diego last season. 

His player profile looks a lot better than you'd expect for someone being drafted outside the top 225:

The only realistic threat to Laureano's playing time in 2026 is his own health. He has yet to post a season of 500 or more plate appearances. Laureano first hit lower in the lineup when acquired from Baltimore, but the Padres moved him to the fifth spot in late August, and with the departure of Luis Arraez up the coast to San Francisco, the popular wisdom is everyone moves up a spot in the lineup. Laureano improved his swing-and-miss last year and increased his hard contact:
 

Simply put, I love the value he can bring to the table if he can get to 550-plus plate appearances. There is no threat on the roster to carve into his playing time, and I am quite enamored with his OOPSY projection, because it is the one which shows him getting the 550-plus plate appearances this season that I believe is in him.

Last Year: Michael King is not a top-50 pitcher (5 stars)

This Year: Nick Pivetta is not a top-60 pitcher

Maybe this is bitterness coming out, but I've had this guy on at least one team for as long as he's been in the league, until this past season when I just grew tired of playing the "what-if" game with him and moved on. He finally put together the season the underlying skills have forever said was possible with him yet never came to reality. I'm happy for him, but I'm not jumping back in for 2026.

Pivetta had a batting average on balls in play of .303 from 2017 to 2024, and then saw that rate drop 68 points last season to a career-best .235. Pivetta has had a BABIP below .280 each of the past three seasons because of his heavy flyball rate, as flyballs are less likely to fall for hits than other batted ball types. I look at the 16 percentage point drop in BABIP suspiciously and can only expect it to go back closer to his career norm of .292. Pivetta also had a career-best 78.7 percent LOB%, in part because he was the least charitable he had ever been in his career with home runs. 

The move from his previous spots in Philadelphia and Boston to San Diego helped Pivetta, who absolutely thrived while pitching at home. Pivetta pitched to a 2.36 ERA at home while holding the opposition to a .172/.228/.274 line with nine home runs in 103 innings. His ERA jumped to 3.55 on the road with a .224/.283/.398 line which included 13 home runs in 78.2 innings, but the BABIP fortunes as well as Pivetta's low walk rate helped limit the damage from those road outings. Pivetta, heading into 2025, had a career 16 percent HR/FB rate, but his first year in San Diego saw that drop to 9.7 percent, the first time in his career he's been below 10 percent. Even if we were to just look at his HR/FB average from 2022-2024 (14.47 percent), his home run rate fell by one-third last season.

Pivetta has historically been a pitcher who has posted ERAs north of 4.00, until this past season when he came all the way down to 2.87. His xERA was 3.95 and his xFIP was 3.85, which is why you see the projections where they are for the most part. I do not see the WHIP escalating as much as the ERA, which will then likely pull his wins back down closer to 10 than 15. You aren't going to find too many pitchers inside the top 60 with ERAs north of 4.00 unless they're pulling in the wins as well, and I worry too much went well for Pivetta in 2025 for the success to repeat in 2026. 

San Francisco

Last Year: Jerar Encarnacion is a top-100 outfielder (1 star)

This Year: Willy Adames is a top-eight shortstop again

Adames struggled to repeat his batting average success from 2024 with Milwaukee, but he did hit 30 homers, giving him three such seasons in the past four years, and he did so under the pressures of the first year in a new city with a big contract situation. Players need time to adjust to such conditions, and watching Adames hit .220/.307/.373 before the break was a harsh reminder of that.

However, he came back after the break to hit .232/.335/.494 with 18 of his 30 homers, as he settled in and looks primed for a bounceback season for his overall fantasy value. He will have the newly-acquired Luis Arraez and Rafael Devers hitting in front of him, which should help provide ample RBI opportunities, with Matt Chapman behind him to help drive him in. 

Adames was particuarly dangerous as a fastball hunter last season, hitting 22 of his 30 homers off fastballs, but he hit below .200 against both breaking pitches and offspeed pitches, something he has never done previously. The last time Adames had struggled so much against breaking stuff was in 2021, when he complained about the lighting at Tropicana Field and then was dealt mid-season. Offspeed last gave him trouble in 2019, so it was surprising to see him do so poorly against both pitch groups last season. 

The home ballpark is what it is, but if Adames can hit 30 in an adjustment year in that park, can he possibly set a new career high if he gets to 33-plus homers this season? A rebound in his outcomes against non-fastballs should help his batting average rebound to near league average which should once again push his value up as one of the best shortstops in fantasy baseball. He is currently 14th off the board at the position and his ADP over the past month is nearly 70 spots behind Mookie Betts and another 50 behind Geraldo Perdomo, who are eigth and ninth, respectively, in the ADP rankings for shortstop over the past 30 days. 

Last Year: Landen Roupp is a top-150 pitcher (1 star)

This Year: Tyler Mahle is a top-100 pitcher

Mahle was doing well in 2025, winning six of his 14 starts with Texas despite inconsistent run support and a suspect bullpen, before missing three months with a rotator cuff strain that shelved him until the final week of the season. Mahle brought back his cutter in 2025 in his efforts to find a way to reduce his exposure to righties, but there is still room for improvement in his splits.

Mahle is primarily a fastball/splitter guy, and while that approach helps him against lefties, it has been an issue for him with righties. Righties have hit .278, .268 and .250 against him over the past three full (by his standards) seasons he has worked, while lefties have hit .198, .192, and .179 over that same time. He fully recognizes the issue, which is why he has spent the offseason working on a new breaking ball to throw to righties. 

Mahle already has a cutter and a slider in his bag, so we can assume the new pitch will be a curveball to provide more depth and a different shape of pitch compared to the cutter and the slider. He threw that combination of pitches 30 percent of the time to righties last season, but his slider to righties has been a mostly terrible pitch by the metrics, so it will be interesting to see what the curveball looks like and how it helps set up his other pitches. Mahle has not worked over 125 innings since the 2021 season, but he pitched to a lot of success in a cozy ballpark that season, so it should not surprise us if he finds success in Oracle Park with an improved San Francisco outfield defense behind him.