Wow, our first moment as a leauge is complete. Do yall feel that? That tingly feeling like we've crossed the threshold into a new, special place? It's like walking into a bar and hearing your jam come on instantly, 9/10 bartender shoots you a smile and says "first one's on the house, boss" as she slides you the crispest, most perfect Michelob Ultra pour this side of the Rio Grande. You just know it's all going to be alright.

Then, in an instant, you get an email saying your first overall pick hurt himself in practice that day and is questionable.

Oh yeah. Fantasy never changes.

Draft Night 2026

I mean I feel pretty good about saying that was a smashing success. Only about 30-40% auto-drafted. Clark successfully secured 5 Asians, Nathan someone had my picks on a radar to steal away from me at every chance, and Seb (who you'll come to find will talk the most shit) ended the night with the 2nd-lowest projected chance to make the playoffs (behind Xan, somehow). Let's take a little dive into how the teams drafted, ordered by how ESPN graded their performance (I'm using the Playoff % metric in the standings as a proxy for that).

John Luke

John Luke went bold taking Bobby Witt Jr from the Royals with the 9th overall pick, shortstop wasn't a particularly shallow position but JL decided to shape his team around the mullet, and I respect it I guess? ESPN is a fan of JL's team, but frankly I'm not. Look at this man's roster, the first name after Garrett Crochet that I even recognize is Randy Arozarena who is too busy being mad at his teammates to perform well this year. Freddie Freeman, as much as I love him, is old and on the downward trajectory, and Pete Crow-Armstrong was on every "do not draft" list I read. John Luke, ESPN may like your draft but you get a patented "F" from me.

Jake

Look, I take Jose Ramirez becuase he's a beast, I cannot and will not be blamed for the pick just because he got hurt within minutes of my drafting him. Logan Webb? Dog. William Contreras has done nothing but improve since he left Atlanta, and Jazz Chisholm is a franchise-making player. The fact that I got Josh Naylor in the 9th is just a testament to all of your failures as managers. Its no wonder ESPN is already printing my playoff boarding pass, just look at my roster and tremble. Kevin GASman Luis Arraez Yordan Alvarez just take your pick. I don't think its too crazy to say that I had an A+ draft, and that's the grade I'm giving myself.

Ethan

Wow okay Ethan, making the Athens duo look good. Aaron Judge is an obvious asset, mostly due in part to him not being of this planet. One day his mothership will return and claim him, but until then he'll just hit 100 home runs a year and be 7 feet tall. Vladdy is going to tear it up again, and Ethan did, in my opinion, the best job of balancing the pitching and batting. His top 2 SPs are both elite and then he slid in and snagged Elly De La Cruz right before I could, which will be an elite pick. Pete Alonso too, even though I hate him. Its too bad that I play Ethan 4 times this year because we're really giving the rest of the league a break, Ethan gets an A from me, even though he auto-drafted the back half of his team.

David

David gets not an A from me. Skubal is great, no qualms with that pick, but after that like what happened? This man was picking up Ozzie Albies, who hasn't actually hit the ball since at least 2021, while other people were getting Devers and Yelich. Go ahead and tell me what team Chase Burns is on David... I'll wait. Despite my gripes, ESPN is marginally a fan of David's team and put him at #4 preseason. Can't really understand it, but who knows maybe 46-year-old George Springer will be able to make it to first without tearing every ligament in his body. David gets a D+ from me, based primarly on Francisco Lindor and Kyle Tucker.

Clark

I'm really struggling to give Clark a grade. I want to give him an A for going out and finding as many Asian players as he could, but in the same thought I want to give him an F for that same reason. Get this. I had uploaded what I thought was every player in the MLB into the database that feeds this website before the draft. When I went to post the draft results, there were 3 people I didn't have. Tatsuya Imai was one of them, Clark shamelessly locking in a 6th SP in the 15th round to boost his Asian numbers. However, Clark was too professional to truly commit to the bit, taking Tatis in the 2nd and Chris Sale in the 3rd. The halfway effort earns him a C grade.

Garrett

Garrett auto-drafted his team, and it honestly turned out okay? Granted I am not a fan of Juan Soto but there's no denying the man can hit, and even getting players like Adley Rutschman in the mid rounds feels like strong pickups. I don't want to give too much credit or take too much away from Garrett, but an auto-draft doesn't earn anything higher than a C sooooooo let's go with a C-.

Joe

Joe here ALSO auto-drafted his team, which is NOT the best way to endear yourself to us, Joseph. That being said... I kinda like his team a lot. Auto drafting Edwin Diaz at exactly the right time was clutch, but Joe's team is also verrryyyy pitcher heavy. 8 pitchers in the first 10 rounds, he didn't get a 1B until literally the last round. Joe, take your lashing and focus up, we need you here to redeem yourself after a no-show on night 1. Joe gets a C- as well.

Nathan

Nathan did not auto-draft. But he did apparently draft poorly, at least in ESPN's opinion. I take that somewhat personally because Nathan kept taking the people I was going to take... so what does that say about me. The Corey Seager snipe in the 11th? Huge. The Michael Harris II snipe in the 14th? Huge. And of course he has Shohei Ohtani who, unlike Aaron Jude, is of this planet but from a higher realm of it. I think Nathan's big question mark is his pitching. Jacob deGrom in the 5th has the potential to be good, but then he didn't take another pitcher until the 10th round. Kind of the opposite of his rival Joe. I guess we'll see which method works better! I give Nathan a B.

Seb

Sort of felt like Seb was just trying to troll more than actually draft well. Checks out for Seb, but taking Acuna in a room full of Braves fans is just plain selfish. Take your precious AL players and leave our sweet sweet Ronnie alone. I do think Dylan Cease in the 6th was a great pick, and Seb did take not one but TWO Angels players. Maybe after the first round he focused up but pretty unforgivable action there in round 1. Honestly I do think Seb's team will be pretty good, B+. If Trey Yesavage and Sandy Alcantara stay healthy and locked in Seb could do some damage. He did get one of the 3 players I didn't already have loaded, Munetaka Murakami. Not sure what to do with that information.

Xan

Last and... apparently least, we have Xan. Why does ESPN hate him right out the gate? Hard to say. Maybe they think Cal Raleigh's 2025 was a fluke? Maybe they can't take a team seriously if they have someone named "Framber" on the roster. Or maybe they just look at stupid dumb Bryce Harper's stupid dumb face and recoil from disgust. Who knows the reason, but Xan starts the season as the underdog, cursed with the scarlet letter of mediocrity from his draft night performance. I'm sympathetic to Xan, I too used to know so little, so out of pity and the generosity that only 15 years of fantasy commissioning can produce, I'm giving him a C+. Best of luck this season my friend.

And there you have it! The draft is in the books, the season will get started next week with a long, 12-day matchup, and we'll get this bad boy cookin'. I've added a Draft page to the website, you'll notice the other pages will start filling up with more and more fun stuff throughout the season, but I've officially cleared out the old example stats so we're sitting pretty bare for the time being. Until next week!