Our team has picked their favorite 2026 fantasy baseball sleepers among starting pitchers and corner infielders. We’re staying in the infield to cover 2B and SS this week, which may be the most important group, given the scarcity of top-end options.

Our sleeper selectors include Eno Sarris, Derek VanRiper, Andy Behrens, Owen Poindexter, Michael Salfino, John Laghezza, Chris Welsh, Al Melchior and Dalton Del Don.

Make sure you return next week for our final position — outfielders.

Average draft position (ADP) data listed in the bullets below is courtesy of FantasyPros.

Middle Infield SleepersOzzie Albies, ATL

The pool of middle infielders may feel deep at first, with 22 players going off the board in the top-140 picks, but don’t let it lull you into positional complacency. Once that initial wave disappears, there’s over a 30-pick gap without a single MI being drafted before ADP 200 — when playing time concerns arise. With that, I’m doing my best to scoop all three middle infielders before panic sets in.

Enter Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies. Outside of Ronald Acuña, Atlanta’s offense has dropped across the board in ADP due to last season’s letdown. Enough is enough. Just two years removed from a top-15 fantasy finish, Albies plays every day in a top-3 projected run-scoring offense with eerily similar projections to Mookie Betts, who is being drafted about 100 picks earlier.

Albies steals bases, brings an excellent approach, and compensates for underwhelming raw power metrics with an elite pull profile. A 20/20 season is incoming. — John Laghezza

Ezequiel Tovar, COL
Hitter: 141; Overall: 232

Tovar was a fantasy bust last year, when he suffered hip and oblique injuries as well as a dramatic drop in performance. However, he’s just one season removed from being the 11th-most valuable fantasy middle infielder as a 22-year-old. Tovar set career bests in K% (25.1) and BB% (5.4) during his down year in 2025, and his .209 BABIP on the road is sure to regress. Tovar’s elite defense helps solidify his role in Colorado’s lineup, where he’s slated to hit second to open the season. Tovar has his warts, but Coors Field remains a cheat code that will continue to pad his stats.

ATC’s aggregate projections value Tovar as fantasy’s No. 15 shortstop entering 2026, and he’d be the No. 4 second baseman; this highlights both the extreme depth of shortstop and Tovar’s egregiously low ADP that somehow sits outside 225. — Dalton Del Don

Luis Garcia, WSH
Hitter: 156; Overall: 252

Garcia is not an obviously good player in real life, but our objective here is not to fix the Washington Nationals. We’re simply building fantasy rosters. Garcia is just one year removed from an 18/22 season in which he delivered a batting average of .282. Those numbers will certainly play in any standard fantasy league. Last season, Garcia again produced respectable power/speed totals (16/14), but he wasn’t particularly fortunate on balls in play (.270 BABIP, .285 xBA). He figures to serve as a heart-of-the-order hitter for Washington, and he’s still only 25 years old. It’s not as if he’s on the downside of his career. He’s available well outside the top-200 picks at the moment, yet he’s perfectly capable of a 20/15 campaign with a .280-plus average. Garcia is off-limits in OBP leagues, but he can be an asset anywhere else. — Andy Behrens

JJ Wetherholt, STL
Hitter: 159; Overall: 256

The Cardinals’ rookie middle infielder is currently going outside the top 250 in NFBC Draft Champions drafts, and ranks as the 24th SS according to FantasyPros ECR. Wetherholt spent the 2025 season at Double and Triple A, hitting a combined .309 with 17 home runs, 23 stolen bases, and a .931 OPS. According to Prospect Savant, among Triple-A bats, Wetherholt had a 87th percentile barrel percentage of 12.4%, an 86th percentile hard hit percentage of 48.4%, and extremely elite walk and low chase rates. Wetherholt has an advanced feel for hitting, with an approach that has reminded me of Corbin Carroll lite, in how he can attack with bat speed across his body, and lift the ball for real power. The sell-off of Nolan Arenado and Brendan Donovan has created an opportunity for him to break camp with the Cardinals. His current draft range will look comically bad if we see a full season out of the top prospect. I am ignoring the current range and making him a must-draft as a prime Rookie of the Year candidate. — Chris Welsh

Colson Montgomery, CHW
Hitter: 108; Overall: 179

Montgomery slugged 21 homers in his first half-season of MLB action, and backed up that power with a top-shelf bat speed (77 MPH), barrel rate 14.5%, and pull air rate (27.2%). At 23, it’s easy to imagine aspects of his game improving, at least marginally, whether that’s his chase rate or his ability to manage off-speed stuff. The monstrous power means small improvements in his approach could lead to big gains in his production. With 600+ plate appearances, 35 homers is well within his reach. He’ll be a batting average liability, but we’re still talking about a Taylor Ward/Jo Adell season going 60 picks later than those two. — Owen Poindexter

Jorge Polanco, NYM
Hitter: 124; Overall: 209

I filtered all qualified hitters in five key Statcast categories, and only 17 made it through. Polanco was one. Two hitters ahead of him in the Mets lineup (he bats cleanup) also made the cut (Juan Soto, of course, and Francisco Lindor). Last year is being discounted as a fluke, but it’s not a fluke to reduce your K% by the greatest number of percentage points in recorded history. And even since 2019, Polanco’s OPS+ is 17% over average. The switch-hitter’s pulled fly-ball percentage was 25.2% (average is 16.7%). At 115 OPS+, he knocks in 100 runs, and at 130 OPS+, he’ll plate 120. — Michael Salfino

Andres Gimenez, TOR
Hitter: 184; Overall: 304

Everything old is new again. The price has fallen so far on this veteran that you’d expect he was 33 and coming off an obvious decline season. Instead, Andres Gimenez is 27 years old and was mostly just hurt last year. Maybe the Blue Jays won’t steal a bunch of bases, or maybe healthy quads will let him get back to near-30 totals in that category. It almost doesn’t matter. His projections are modest — 10 homers, .251 homers, and 20 steals if you average them out — and the cost is so low that Gimenez has become a bargain way to fill your deep league middle infield slot. If he hits a peak season at his peak age and socks 15 dingers and steals 30 bases, aging curves wouldn’t be surprised, just the market. — Eno Sarris

Willi Castro, COL
Hitter: 187; Overall: 310

When people talk about a Statcast page having “lots of red,” that means a player grades out well across a broad range of skills. Castro’s page is nearly devoid of red, and that may have something to do with him being drafted outside of the top 300 on most platforms. Aside from his 33-steal season in 2023 with the Twins, Castro has never wowed the fantasy world with eye-popping stats or an enviable skill profile. Yet he did well enough across the board in both ‘23 and ‘24 to have generated positive value for standard 12-team Roto leagues. A third straight season of Roto relevance was within reach until the Twins traded Castro to the Cubs just before last year’s trade deadline, and his production and playing time subsequently dried up.

Castro signed with the Rockies this offseason, and he figures to be a key part of the Colorado lineup. His line-drive approach ought to serve him well at Coors Field. Castro’s new home park gives him a good shot at getting his batting average back above .250 while potentially recording his first 15-15 season. — Al Melchior