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Fantasy baseball managers, on the whole, aren’t always quick to jump on a player’s stardom bandwagon.
Take last week’s top name profiled in this space, Jac Caglianone. He’s a player whose continued recent excellence provides the impetus for today’s column discussion. Since then, Caglianone has hit another six home runs — bringing his total to nine in 20 June games thus far — all of them traveling at least 400 feet. He’s now fifth among batting title-eligible players for the season in terms of hard-hit rate (58.5%), and 11th in Statcast’s Barrel rate (17.0%).
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Yet, only in the past couple of days has Caglianone begun to move the needle in ESPN leagues, his roster rate jumping by more than 16% since Sunday (it’s 49.3% currently). Until now, he was the consummate 2026 example of the underrated fantasy baseball player.
Caglianone isn’t alone on any proverbial “all-underrated” list. The four names examined below also have absurdly low ESPN roster percentages, but warrant much more attention than they’ve attained to date.
This isn’t to say that any of the quartet’s statistical ceilings is equal to Caglianone’s, being that last week’s examination sought players with the greatest upside rather than simply underrated players. Still, every one of them is well worth acquiring in any fantasy league, and each could be as profitable a pickup as the Kansas City Royals slugger.
Dominic Canzone, OF, Seattle MarinersOnly five qualified hitters this season have at least a .280 batting average, a .380 wOBA and a 15% Statcast Barrel rate: Yordan Alvarez, Nick Kurtz, Shohei Ohtani, Ben Rice … and Canzone. All of Canzone’s contact-quality metrics — Barrel rate, hard-hit rate, average exit velocity, etc. — have placed in the 80th percentile or better both this and last year, signaling he’s a much better hitter than you might think.
The fourth-year, 28-year-old outfielder might be regarded a strong-side platoon man, but credit the Mariners for giving him a chance to improve against lefties, as Canzone has made three starts against them over the past 10 days alone. Between this and last season, he’s a .263/.374/.355 hitter with a .331 wOBA against lefties, significant in that all lefty hitters during that time average a .295 wOBA against same-handed pitchers. If this is a trend, rather than “well, all our alternatives were hurt at the time” logic, Canzone’s ability to hold his own against lefties, coupled with his excellence against righties, might sum up to a top-20 fantasy outfielder.
Canzone’s rostership in ESPN leagues reached a career-high 18.0% on Saturday, only to drop by nearly 6% since after he left Sunday’s game due to a hamstring injury. It’s being regarded a minor ailment, so consider this an opportunity to add him in a wider scope of leagues or a trade window in deeper leagues where he’s already rostered.
Kyle Stowers, OF/1B, Miami MarlinsRemember this guy? The one who hit 25 home runs and made the All-Star team in his first full year with the Marlins in 2025? It sure doesn’t seem like you do, considering his rostership in ESPN leagues is about half what it was on Opening Day (28.7% now, 56.9% then). Oh, sure, his missing the first three-plus weeks due to a hamstring injury, then posting a sub-.600 OPS across his first 25 games, will do that. However, it’s hard to believe that a 28-year-old who had better-than-90th-percentile Barrel and hard-hit rates during mentioned breakthrough 2025 would taper off statistically this swiftly.
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The truth? He hasn’t, being that his seasonal hard-hit rate remains 95th-percentile — even his Barrel rate is a sound 70th — and since June began, he’s looking a lot more like his 2025 self, batting .229/.337/.529 with five home runs and top-15 numbers in terms of Barrel (20.5%) and hard-hit rates (56.8%).
Stowers continues to maintain his heart-of-the-order, everyday role, and he’s now getting time at first base due to the Marlins’ mediocre production there (as well as the injury to Liam Hicks), beefing up his positional flexibility. That the Marlins are scrappy and have on-base specialists they can place atop their lineup — Otto Lopez (.369 OBP), Xavier Edwards (.375) and Jakob Marsee (.324) have all seen time batting first or second — can only benefit Stowers in terms of RBIs.
Kazuma Okamoto, 3B, Toronto Blue JaysHis rostership in ESPN leagues has fluctuated following his hot-and-cold patterns to date, reaching 58.4% on May 12 but hovering near 45% since Memorial Day. Homers in back-to-back games on Sunday and Monday could suddenly make him a popular pickup this week. Should Okamoto remain available in your league, however, scoop him up now, being that his recent uptick in production could be more a signal of his getting settled in MLB, rather than just a mere hot spell.
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To date, Okamoto has been very much as advertised: Good eye, demonstrated by his 75th-percentile chase rate (swing percentage at non-strikes); elite contact quality, as his 90th-percentile hard hit rate shows; good pop, reflected by his 91st-percentile Barrel rate. Despite this, he ranks only barely inside the top 20 third basemen in terms of fantasy points, largely because he has nearly three times as many strikeouts (100) as he did in his final year in Japan (36), in only two more trips to the plate (316 so far in 2026).
That penchant for whiffs might never disappear, but it could fade, being that, over the past five seasons, only three batting title-eligible hitters finished with as high a strikeout rate (31.6%) and wOBA (.345) as Okamoto has now: Javier Baez and Joey Gallo in 2021, and Brent Rooker in 2023, all of them definitively different hitters in style than Okamoto. Considering the Blue Jays’ offensive depth, boosting Okamoto’s runs and RBI potential, he could be on the verge of a second-half breakthrough.
Landen Roupp, SP, San Francisco GiantsPerhaps the sneakiest breakthrough candidate of them all this season is Roupp, whose 1.48 WHIP last season was eighth-worst among pitchers who made at least as many as his 22 starts. Rostered in only 26.0% of ESPN leagues, Roupp finds himself just outside the top 50 starting pitchers in terms of fantasy points, and his 3.00 FIP ranks 11th among the 63 who qualify for the ERA title.
What has made the difference for Roupp thus far has been better command of his sinker, which is generating 6% more ground balls and allowing 9% less hard contact than in 2025, which is helping making both his curveball and changeup shine. Both secondary pitches are getting 34% whiff rates or better and, naturally, he’s now in the upper half of the league in terms of his overall whiff and strikeout rates. Unsurprisingly, opponents are batting 31 points lower against him this year than last.
This isn’t to say that Cy Young votes, or even fantasy ace chatter, are in Roupp’s near future, but he’s quickly becoming a pitcher you’ll want in your lineup for all but his scariest of matchups (think Coors Field, Sutter Health Park, at the Los Angeles Dodgers, at the Milwaukee Brewers). That’s not someone you’ll often find available in as many leagues that he currently can be.
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