Jackson Chourio, OF, Brewers
Jackson Chourio was finally activated from the injured list to make his 2026 debut after suffering a fractured hand in the WBC. He hit second in the lineup for the Brewers and went 4-for-4 with two doubles, a walk, and one run scored. Not only did he collect four hits, but all four of them were hit harder than 102 miles per hour. He certainly waited no time to start producing, as he'll be hoping to improve upon the .270/.308/.463 slash line with 88 runs, 21 home runs, 78 RBI, and 21 steals, he put up last season. While that is already elite fantasy production, the youngster has the tools to be even better, both in the power and speed departments. While it may be hard this season due to the delayed start, the 22-year-old will have plenty of chances in his career to start joining the 30-30 club on a consistent basis.
Payton Tolle, SP, Red Sox
Payton Tolle was masterful in his third start of the season on Monday against the Tigers, allowing two unearned runs on one hit and one walk with eight strikeouts over seven innings. While he only induced nine whiffs on the night, his strikeout prowess is well-documented at this point. His curveball was especially dominant in this outing, garnering a 44% whiff rate and 53% CSW%. The youngster displayed ace upside in the minor leagues, with a 31.1% strikeout rate this season and a 36.5% rate last year in his first year of playing professional baseball. A lefty standing at 6'6", he is a dominating presence on the mound who is clearly a must-own player for fantasy. He already has an 11-strikeout game under his belt from his first major league start of the season, and this should be the beginning of a very successful career for the top prospect.
Davis Martin, SP, White Sox
Davis Martin was lights out on Monday against the Angels, throwing seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts. He allowed five hits and walked none. He's been on an absolute tear in 2026, allowing three runs or less in all seven of his starts, with five of them being one run or less. This brings his season-long ERA down to a minuscule 1.64, with an above-average 25.4% strikeout rate and an elite 4.7% walk rate. The underlying metrics don't quite tell the same story of dominance, as heading into this start, he had a 14th percentile xBA of .284 and an 11th percentile hard-hit rate of 48.5%. While he's clearly not going to continue this ace production all season and is likely being benefited by soem good luck, he's still shown enough promise to be worth starting in fantasy until he shows signs of cooling off. After all, while he may have gotten lucky in his previous starts, there was nothing lucky about this 10-strikeout performance, where he induced 19 whiffs on the night.
Munetaka Murakami, 1B, White Sox
Munetaka Murakami continued the red-hot start to his major league career on Monday, going 3-for-4 with a homer, a double, a walk, three runs, and three RBI. He's now slashing .239/.383/.584 with 23 runs, 13 home runs, and 26 RBI. The fears of him being overmatched by MLB pitching coming into the season seem to be completely overblown, as he's been one of the sport's best sluggers despite a 32.6% strikeout rate. That strikeout rate is manageable when you have a 100th percentile hard-hit rate of 63.9% to go along with a 22.2% barrel rate and a 95.2 mph average exit velocity. On top of the elite power numbers, he's walked at an elite 18.1% clip, which makes him an elite option in OBP leagues. A slump will surely come eventually for someone with this much swing-and-miss in their game, but it looks like Murakami could be shaping up to be a better version of prime Joey Gallo, offering 40+ homer power production with great on-base percentages.
Trevor McDonald, SP, Giants
Trevor McDonald was excellent in his first start of the season on Monday, allowing one run on two hits and no walks with eight strikeouts over seven innings against the Padres. Although he's been in the minors this season up until now, he did make two starts in September of 2025, where he struck out 10 over seven shutout innings against the Rockies and held the Dodgers to one run over six innings. This is shaping up to be a pretty impressive major league resume for the youngster, who, for whatever reason, has struggled at Triple-A consistently. He posted a 5.31 ERA in 142.1 innings there last season and a 5.40 ERA in 15 innings there this season. In his dominant run last season, he put up a 48.1% chase rate, 3.3% walk rate, and 54.5% groundball rate that all would have graded out as elite. While the minor league numbers ended up pretty bad, he did show noticeable improvement over the last couple of months of the season, thanks to tweaking his arsenal. While this was most likely just a spot start for the rookie, he could be someone to watch in deep leagues to potentially slot into the rotation down the line.
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