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Speaker 1Five of the toughest players to rank for 2027. Up next on Fantasy Baseball Today, Express. Welcome to FBT Express on Wednesday, September 30th. I am Frank Sanfold, joined by Chris Towers. And let's take a look at five. Tough players to rank in 2027. And up first is Aaron Judge. We know Aaron Judge, when he plays, he's awesome. But dealt with a lot of injuries this year, and he's only getting older, Chris. -
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, he's gonna be 35 next season. He missed a lot of time this season. First with that stress fracture in his rib that ended up costing three months. And then he comes back without a rehab assignment and plays, what, like eight games, and then suffers a calf injury. Has his status for the playoffs up in the air. Presumably he will be fine by the start of next season. And I think there have been times in the past few years where we have worried about injuries for Aaron Judge, only for him to come back the following season and stay healthy and absolutely dominate. The key distinction for me at this point is at his age, how much can you bet on Aaron Judge being an outlier hitter? I think Aaron Judge is a really good hitter.
Speaker 1I just don't really think he'll be impactful enough to matter in that format.
Speaker 3Yeah, a lot of the guys that we're talking about here are tough to rank because of injuries or wide ranges of outcomes for their performance. I think Chandler Simpson's incredibly easy to figure out. That's not the problem. The problem is if you're the person who drafts Bobby Witt third overall and Julio Rodriguez 22nd overall or Corbin Carroll or whoever it is, there's no way you can draft Chandler Simpson. He just does not do enough to justify drafting him. It doesn't matter if he's the 190th pick in your draft. That's not going to be worth it because there's just good batting average, lots of steals, and he scored 63 runs this season, I think. 66, yeah. But even that's not good. Yeah, but if you take Aaron Judge or Junior Caminero and then you come back with Kyle Schwarber, or you're one of the guys who takes a pitcher, Christopher Sanchez or Cam Schlittler, you might need Chandler Simpson because that might be your only way to compete in steals, and you might have to draft him like 100th overall. So it's not that he's tough to figure out. He's a very straightforward player. It's just how do you account for that disparity in value in rankings when most of the teams in your league are going to have no need for him on draft day? That's super tough. It's a super tough question to figure out.
Speaker 1The last name on this list is Kyle Harrison, who was cruising to a breakout season and then injury struck. First 15 starts with the Brewers, 257 ERA, 104 whip, 11.2K per nine. First reported elbow soreness on July 9th. His first start back from the IL was good, and then he just fell apart. His final 10 games, he had an 867 ERA, a 237 whip. He was moved to the bullpen because he was so bad down the stretch.
Speaker 3And he was bad in the bullpen, too.
Speaker 1And it's left wondering, like, A, what's going to happen to him? What version of Kyle Harrison are we going to get? And is he healthy? We have no idea.
Speaker 3Yeah, my initial, I mean, I thought he was going to be a top 15 starting pitcher back in July. Yeah. And now it's like, is this guy even a top 40 starting pitcher? I don't think I ranked it that way. I think I had him outside of the top 40. And even that might be a little too high, because then when you look at the overall numbers at the end of the season, okay, the 28% strikeout rate, that's a breakout. But the ERA 420, that's right in line with where he's been for his career. The XERA 401, that's a mild improvement over 2025, but not much of one. And I understand that the shape of the season was very different. We saw the high highs, and he looked like an absolute ace for three months. But at the end of the day, this is a guy who's going to be 25. He's got a couple hundred innings under his belt at the major league level. And it's a 432 career ERA. And he was basically that. This season. I know the ceiling is there. We can say that for sure. But man, it does not feel like a good bet. Even at just like a 41 or 42 at starting pitcher. I feel like that might be too high for Kyle Harrison.
Speaker 1All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express. And we'll be back again later this week. Bye-bye. ♪ music playing ♪
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