{"id":483718,"date":"2026-02-16T13:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483718\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T13:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:15:13","slug":"ranking-mlbs-best-at-every-position-for-2026-olneys-top-10s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/483718\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranking MLB’s best at every position for 2026: Olney’s top 10s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Buster OlneyFeb 16, 2026, 11:00 PM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Senior writer ESPN Magazine\/ESPN.com
\nAnalyst\/reporter ESPN television
\nAuthor of “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty”<\/p>\n

Multiple Authors<\/p>\n

As spring training camps begin, it is time to look at the state of baseball. As part of our 2026 MLB season preview, ESPN’s Buster Olney surveyed those around the industry to help him rank the top 10 players at every position as part of his annual positional ranking series.<\/p>\n

The objective of this exercise is to identify the best players for the 2026 season, not who might be best in five years or over their career.<\/p>\n

We will roll out a position per day over the next two weeks. Here’s the rollout schedule: starting pitchers (2\/16), relievers (2\/17), catchers, (2\/18), first basemen (2\/19), second basemen (2\/20), third basemen (2\/23), shortstops (2\/24), corner outfielders (2\/25), center fielders (2\/26) and designated hitters (2\/27).<\/p>\n

Who are the best players today? Check out who makes the list at every position.<\/p>\n

Top 10 starting pitchers<\/p>\n

The question seems simple: Who is the best starting pitcher in MLB, Tarik Skubal<\/a> or Paul Skenes<\/a>? But the debate around baseball’s top starting pitcher was the one that confounded evaluators more than any other. See our top 10 \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buster OlneyFeb 16, 2026, 11:00 PM CloseSenior writer ESPN Magazine\/ESPN.com Analyst\/reporter ESPN television Author of “The Last Night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-483718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}