Fantasy baseball news: Nick Lodolo, Kirby Yates to start season on ILNick Lodolo will start the season on the IL due to a blister problem. Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn ImagesESPN FantasyMar 25, 2026, 11:06 AM ETClose
Everything that happens in and around MLB has some additional context when viewed from a fantasy baseball perspective. From lineup changes to minor league call-ups to injuries and so much more, the news cycle will constantly affect player values in fantasy baseball.
Our fantasy baseball buzz file, with contributions from our ESPN fantasy writers, aims to provide fantasy managers with the intel they need as news breaks around MLB.
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March 25: Wednesday morning’s roster news
By Todd Zola
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Randal Grichuk has made the New York Yankees, with Jasson Dominguez starting the season with Triple-A Scranton Wilkes/Barre. Grichuk will play primarily against left-handed starters, and the club will face LHP Robbie Ray in Game 2 of its road series with the San Francisco Giants on Friday.
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Ketel Marte was scratched from the Arizona Diamondbacks’ exhibition game last night due to lower-leg soreness, but the club isn’t concerned about his availability for Thursday’s opener on the road against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Still, it bears monitoring before lineups lock tomorrow.
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With Robert Stephenson and Ben Joyce both opening the season on the IL, Kirby Yates was set to be the Los Angeles Angels closer, but how he has been placed on the 15-day IL himself as a result of left knee inflammation. Jordan Romano and Drew Pomeranz are now expected to share closing duties.
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With the Cincinnati Reds placing Nick Lodolo on the 15-day IL due to a blister, Rhett Lowder, Chase Burns and Brandon Williamson will now start the third, fourth and fifth games of the season, respectively. Previously, two of those three were slated to “piggyback” for one game, with the other getting a standard start.
March 25: Forecasting the first weekend
Tristan H. Cockcroft: The 2026 MLB season begins with a Wednesday night game between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park. From there, 22 additional teams are scheduled to play on Thursday’s traditional Opening Day, with the final six kicking off their seasons on Friday.
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In ESPN leagues, this kicks off what’ll be a 12-day fantasy Week 1, spanning from Wednesday, March 25, through Sunday, April 5, although this week’s Forecaster previews only the next five days ahead before a new edition covering the games from March 30-April 5 comes out on Friday.
To see all projections and ratings for the next 10 days, go here for pitchers and here for hitters. These will be updated daily throughout the season. For the March 25-29 games, you can find all of the opening weekend’s Forecaster ratings, scheduling quirks and pitcher projections right here.
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Weather can be a concern during the season’s opening weeks, especially in northern and eastern cities where temperatures remain low. Eight host cities — Baltimore, Chicago (Cubs), Cincinnati, Milwaukee, New York (Mets), Philadelphia, St. Louis and San Francisco — have scheduled off days following their first games as a safety net for possible Opening Day postponements. As things stand, however, the weather looks generally good for the opening weekend, other than a chance of rain across most of the northeast in the early portion of Friday and somewhat colder temperatures in the same region on Saturday.
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While most teams have declared their Opening Day starters and some have declared full rotations, many remain in flux. Expect frequent updates to the Forecaster grids and rankings over the coming days, but for now, all projected pitchers beyond those formally declared are exactly that, projections, based upon team announcements or spring training usage patterns.
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If your league counts only the March 25-29 games as its Week 1, bear in mind that not all starting pitchers will get an assignment during the opening weekend. Among the more notable names who are not currently projected to pitch before Sunday are Kris Bubic, Edward Cabrera, Bubba Chandler, Zach Eflin, Jack Leiter, Shane McClanahan, Casey Mize, Shohei Ohtani, Cody Ponce, Max Scherzer, Emmet Sheehan, Ranger Suarez, Justin Verlander and Brandon Woodruff.
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If your leagues uses the entire March 25-April 5 period as its Week 1, be aware that there is one projected three-start pitcher, Max Fried of the Yankees. The Yankees plan to go with a four-man rotation through at least that deep into the season, meaning that Fried, their Opening Day starter on Wednesday, will get two more starts during the opening scoring period.
March 24: AL East teams make rotation decisions
Ryan Pepiot is not expected to miss a ton of time, but he will miss out on the first week of the MLB season. Mark Taylor/Getty ImagesTristan H. Cockcroft: Both the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays delivered unexpected news regarding their rotations on Tuesday, boosting a pair of sleepers worth adding in larger-than-standard leagues.
The Rays declared that Ryan Pepiot, their team leader in innings pitched last season, will begin the season on the IL due to right hip inflammation. It’s an unexpected setback for a pitcher potentially set to take a big step forward with the team’s return to pitcher-friendly Tropicana Field this season, although the team indicated that the right-hander’s absence shouldn’t be lengthy. He might miss only three turns in the rotation and could be ready to return by mid-April. Since that’s still early in the season and there’s less likelihood of your IL slots getting bottled up, Pepiot clears the bar as a pitcher you should retain until his return.
Joe Boyle will assume Pepiot’s rotation spot on Saturday against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium, which would be a favorable matchup on paper except for the probability that it will be a “piggyback assignment” with Ian Seymour. The wiser move is to stash Seymour, who had a 2.70 ERA and a 28.8% strikeout rate in six spring relief appearances. He could use this opportunity to solidify a more permanent rotation spot, likely at the expense of Nick Martinez. Martinez, by the way, had his first start of 2026 pushed back to Monday against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field — a much worse matchup for him — due to a minor hamstring issue.
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The Red Sox, meanwhile, awarded rookie Connelly Early their fifth and final rotation spot ahead of Johan Oviedo, per MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo. Oviedo will begin the year in their bullpen, while Early will make his first start on Sunday against the Cincinnati Reds in Great American Ball Park, which is a suboptimal matchup for the left-hander. Nevertheless, as Early has a six-pitch repertoire that helped him post a 31.5% career minor league strikeout rate, he’s a highly intriguing prospect. That’s potentially even true for ESPN standard leagues, so long as you mind his matchups initially.
Early should be one of your top pickups, ranking slightly behind similar upside pitchers like Shane Baz, Kris Bubic and Edward Cabrera, but ahead of pitchers like Joey Cantillo, Parker Messick and Chad Patrick. Seymour would place somewhere among the latter group, but he’s a priority add exclusively in AL-only and 15-team-plus mixed leagues.
