ADP Risers and Fallers for 2026 Fantasy Baseball: Matt McLain and Kevin McGonigle turning heads

Opening Day is only two weeks away! Spring Training has flown by and drafts are getting more and more competitive.

With that, some players’ ADPs are moving dramatically. Whether it be injury news, role changes, positive coach speak, or solid exhibition play we need to know how draft boards are changing and why.

Here are the biggest ADP movers among the top 250 picks

Note: All ADP data courtesy of NFBC

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ADP Risers

Matt McLain, 2B Cincinnati Reds

Feb 27th – March 6th ADP: 184
March 7th – March 13th ADP: 158

Spring training stats are meant to be taken with a grain of salt. Yet, recent drafters might wind up with the gout because Matt McLain has ridden a red-hot spring up draft boards.

No player inside the top 200 picks’ stock has risen more over the last two weeks than McLain’s and as of March 13th, he’s now the ninth second baseman being taken as he approaches the top-150 overall.

Apart from the scalding hot spring, this is partially a market correction. McLain was being blatantly underdrafted in February outside the top-200 picks and top-12 second basemen.

The discount was fair. He was literally one of the worst hitters in the league last season – his .643 OPS was fourth-lowest among all qualified players – in his return from labrum surgery. At the same time, his underlying stats weren’t all that different to his 89 game breakout in 2023.

In reality, his true talent is probably somewhere between those two seasons and his new draft cost as a firm top-10 player at a weak second base position feels fair.

Kevin McGonigle, SS Detroit Tigers

Feb 27th – March 6th ADP:
March 7th – March 13th ADP:

Kevin McGonigle is making a strong case to be the Tigers’ opening day shortstop. As of March 13th, he has a .304 // .448 // .609 slash-line and the same number of walks as strikeouts over 29 plate appearances in camp while mostly playing with the big league squad.

More impressive than that small sample production is the type of contact McGonigle is making. Of the 17 balls he’s put in play, nine were hit harder than 100 mph. On top of that, there was this earth-shattering blast in the Tigers’ exhibition game against the Dominican Republic and Luis Severino.

Per Statcast, it traveled an estimated 461 feet with a 110.4 mph exit velocity!

McGonigle has always been known for his exceptional hit tool and fantastic plate discipline. Those give him a higher floor than most rookies. Raw power like we saw there could make him a star.

He still needs to make the team though. If winning games is the Tigers’ number one priority, McGonigle should get the nod. They don’t have another shortstop in their organization who’s better than him at any facet of the game, including defensively.

Also, similar to the Pirates with Konnor Griffin, Cardinals with JJ Wetherholt, and Mets with Carson Benge, new prospect promotion incentive rules will push these clubs to bring these guys up sooner.

Any PPI eligible player (prospect that appears on two of MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, or ESPN’s Top 100 list) can earn their team a draft pick if they accrue a full year of service time as a rookie and win Rookie of the Year. Or, if they place within the top-three for Cy Young or the MVP before becoming arbitration eligible.

To earn a full year of service time, a player must be on the big league roster for 172 days. That gives their team until roughly two weeks after opening day to call them up.

If called up by then, McGonigle would be a steal at this draft cost and many drafters are beginning to notice such. If he’s not called up by then, the Tigers would recoup an extra year of his service time without ever allowing him to qualify for these incentives.

Brandon Woodruff, SP Milwaukee Brewers

Feb 27th – March 6th ADP: 147
March 7th – March 13th ADP: 131

There’s been mystery shrouding Brandon Woodruff throughout the spring. He was excellent last season after returning from a serious shoulder injury, but has ramped up slowly and gave a few ominous quotes about being unsure if he’d be ready for Opening Day.

Then, we learned he was dealing with a lat issue despite remaining confident that he could avoid the IL. Two weeks passed and he looked solid in his spring debut over two innings with his velocity sitting just one tick below where it was last season. Recently, he completed four innings of a simulated game without any hiccups.

The whole timeline still doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence and Woodruff’s status for Opening Day remains in question. It makes sense seeing the positive reports push his draft cost up. I’m just unsure if I’m willing to pay that price around other pitchers like Ryan Pepiot, Michael King, Drew Rasmussen, or Nathan Eovaldi.

Griffin Jax, RP Tampa Bay Rays

Feb 27th – March 6th ADP: 193
March 7th – March 13th ADP: 170

This is the second consecutive piece where Griffin Jax has been a top riser. Since February 1st, his ADP has jumped from 217 to 170, like you see just above.

This second leap is directly tied to the recent news that his bullpenmate Edwin Uceta is expected to open the season on the injured list. That clears the way for Jax to be their full-time closer. With elite skills and an obvious path to saves, Jax still seems like a slam dunk at that ADP.

Something else seems to be afoot though. It’s clear why drafters are favoring Jax. At the same time, nine of the 15 biggest risers among the top-200 over the last week are closers.

After Jax, Ryan Walker, Dennis Santana, Jeff Hoffman, Abner Uribe, Daniel Palencia, Ryan Helsley, Devin Williams, and David Bednar have all seen their respective ADPs climb by at least 10 spots.

Saves are scarce and high-stakes drafters realize it’s hard to win championships without a steady diet of them.

ADP Fallers

Hunter Greene, SP Cincinnati Reds

Feb 27th – March 6th ADP:
March 7th – March 13th ADP:

The death knell finally came to Hunter Greene’s draft stock this week when it was confirmed that he had bone spurs in his elbow and would be getting surgery to remove them. Thankfully there’s no damage to his UCL, so the true catastrophe scenario has been avoided for now. Even still, the best case scenario is that Greene is back sometime in June. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for him either.

This is another injury in a long line of them for Greene. He’s only thrown more than 140 innings in a single season once as a professional. He also released a long statement and talked about how he felt pain in his elbow last year, but wanted to pitch through it with the Reds in the thick of the playoff race.

The whole situation feels a little odd and Greene is now only draft-able in leagues where you can stash him in an IL spot.

Other fallers due to recent injury news are Ivan Herrera (knee inflammation), Jeremy Peña (fractured finger), Brandon Lowe (lower body tightness) and Kyle Teel (hamstring strain).

Colson Montgomery, SS Chicago White Sox

Feb 27th – March 6th ADP: 218
March 7th – March 13th ADP: 238

Fantasy players love their shiny new toys during draft season. That’s why hyped up super prospects like Konnor Griffin and Kevin McGonigle are flying up boards. As drafters take shots on young players earlier on, they must mitigate their risk later.

That could be why Colson Montgomery is one of the biggest fallers over the last two weeks.

He played at a 50-homer, six-WAR pace over his 71 game debut last season and has star-like qualities. Elite bat speed and the ability to lift and pull the ball at a high rate supported that power production and he profiles like a plus shortstop defensively.

On the flip side, he could have some of the worst swing-and-miss in the league and doesn’t make good enough swing decisions to keep his floor high while whiffing that often. A spring training strikeout rate over 30% is certainly reminding managers of the downsides to drafting Montgomery.

Some builds will be able to fit a potentially 30+ homer middle infielder after pick 200. It just seems like Montgomery’s low floor has become more apparent as more exciting young shortstops have leapt over him.

Marcus Semien, 2B Mets

Feb 27th – March 6th ADP: 238
March 7th – March 13th ADP: 250

Again, we don’t want to put too much stock in spring training stats. Yet, when an aging player like Marcus Semien is already coming off two down seasons and struggling it sticks out.

He’s hitting under .200 with a strikeout rate approaching 30% against competition that would be similar to that in Double-A according to Baseball Reference’s Opponent Quality Index. That’s not great!

It’s only been nine games and may mean nothing in the long run, but confirmation bias is one heck of a drug and this is an easy reason to write off the potentially already written off Semien.