Underdog MLB Best Ball: Infielder Fades (February 2026)

Drafting players that are going to return positive draft-day value is the name of the game in best ball, and it's even more important in MLB best ball, where positions blur together to give us a multitude of decisions on what player archetypes to construct our roster around.

But sometimes, the drafting public gets too far in front of their skis, and the result is a player who is going way earlier in drafts than they probably should unless they hit their highest ceiling outcome.

Here are three of my Underdog MLB best ball infielder fades that I won't be drafting at their current costs.

Josh Naylor, Seattle Mariners

Current ADP: 69.2 (Late round 6)

Earliest I'm comfortable taking him: Late round 7

Josh Naylor is a good hitter.

Now that we got that out of the way, do you know what Josh Naylor shouldn't be? A 30 stolen base player. Somehow he did that last year with a 3rd percentile sprint speed. And, despite all those stole bases, he still didn't make it in the top half of Baseball Savant's Baserunning Run Value metric.

It's simply unrealistic to believe that Josh Naylor is going to repeat that. Could he get to, say, 15? Sure, and with 20+ home runs, he's not going to bottom out teams. But he probably needs to get to 30 on one of those to justify his current cost. You're not getting sixth round value out of a 20-15 guy.

Ben Rice, New York Yankees

Current ADP: 72.4 (Early round 7)

Earliest I'm comfortable taking him: Early round 9

Ask anyone with a large enough audience who their breakout hitter is in 2026 and your most common answer is likely Ben Rice. And I get why. Plus, he may fall into even more playing time this upcoming season.

But are we sure we didn't just see what his ceiling case was, rather than creating a new median case?

Coming into last season, there were questions whether Ben Rice would end up being a strong side platoon bat (see: Jonathan Aranda), and those tendencies still showed up during last season's breakout campaign, with his OPS dropping over 100 points when facing a southpaw.

Now, is Ben Rice better than Jonathan Aranda? I would obviously say yeah. And his case to play more against lefties is probabilistically higher because of it. But is that worth nearly 150 spots in ADP value when already proven players (literally see Josh Naylor above) or similar upside bets without any platoon concerns are going around him? Nope.

Jackson Holliday, Baltimore Orioles

Current ADP: 110.9 (Early round 10)

Earliest I'm comfortable taking him: Early round 13

Why do we keep chasing Jackson Holliday up draft boards? Is it just the name recognition at this point? There is nothing in his profile that screams that he's even an above-average player, and there's a non-zero chance he just straight up sits against lefties - in fact, it's what Roster Resource projects right now.

We're really spending a top half of the draft pick on a platoon bat with below average expected stats just because he may lead off against righties in a good lineup? Nah, it's gotta be the name value. I'm good on not buying that. The easiest fade at the position for me.

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