The 2026 MLB season is almost here and that means you’re likely prepping for your fantasy baseball draft. One of the best ways to prepare is to do as many mock drafts as possible. Of course, sometimes it’s tough to find an accurate representation of your league settings by using the public mock draft lobby.

Not to fear! If you’re a Yahoo Fantasy+ subscriber, you have access to the Instant Mock Draft tool, allowing you to practice your draft in seconds. You can test different strategies, pick from various draft slots and experiment with roster construction as many times as you want, anytime, instantly. Now is a great time to subscribe to Yahoo Fantasy+, so you can use the wealth of tools for your draft prep.

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In this series, we’re going to be using the Instant Mock Draft tool to pick from each of the 12 slots in a 12-team fantasy baseball league. In this piece, we’ll be drafting from the No. 9 overall pick. We went with a balanced approach in this draft, alternating between selecting two batters and two pitchers.

More Mock Drafts

• No. 1 Pick

• No. 2 Pick

• No. 3 Pick

• No. 4 Pick

• No. 5 Pick

• No. 6 Pick

• No. 7 Pick

• No. 8 Pick

• No. 9 Pick

Note: We’re using Yahoo’s default points league settings for these mock drafts.

Full Roster

C: Ben Rice, Yankees
1B: Salvador Pérez, Royals
2B: Brice Turang, Brewers
SS: Jacob Wilson, Athletics
3B: Matt Chapman, Giants
OF: Ronald Acuña Jr., Braves
OF: Kyle Schwarber, Phillies
OF: Dylan Crews, Nationals
UTIL: Brendan Donovan, Mariners
UTIL: Luis Arráez, Giants
SP: Bryan Woo, Mariners
SP: Logan Webb, Giants
RP: David Bednar, Yankees
RP: Aroldis Chapman, Red Sox
P: Emmet Sheehan, Dodgers
P: MacKenzie Gore, Rangers
P: Matthew Boyd, Cubs
P: Aaron Nola, Phillies
Bench: Shane Smith, White Sox
Bench: Noah Cameron, Royals
Bench: Willi Castro, Rockies
Bench: Andrés Giménez, Blue Jays
Bench: Reid Detmers, Angels

Strategy overview: The idea here was balance and I like how things turned out. We also prioritized utility with how the roster is constructed. Four players have dual-position eligibility and two players have tri-eligibility. This isn’t something you should worry too much about while you’re drafting, but if the opportunity presents itself, it’ll make some roster decisions easier and serves as a nice tiebreaker when you’re debating who to take. It also helps if injuries pop up (which they will) and if players struggle at a certain position (which they also will).

Bats are best: Unless I can corner the market on elite starting pitchers and snag both Paul Skenes and Garrett Crochet at the back-end of the first and early-second, I’m going to almost always prioritize a bat in the first round. Acuña possesses the highest ceiling of players who are falling to the back-half of the first, so we opted to go that route (even though one of my other mocks has me reaching on him a bit). The Acuña-Schwarber stack gives me two NL MVP candidates who solidify the outfield position.

[Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season]

World Woo Webb: I was able to grab two top-10 starters, according to Yahoo’s expert rankings from Scott Pianowski and Fred Zinkie. Woo and Webb are both starters in their primes in good situations, players you can “set and forget” in your lineup if they stay healthy. We didn’t take too many risks in this draft, at least not initially.

Webb has finished top-10 in NL Cy Young voting in three straight seasons. Woo had great numbers in 2025 (2.94 ERA, 198 Ks over 186.2 IP) but gave up a lot of longballs. If he can keep more pitches in the park, he could be an AL Cy Young finalist.

Not just for points: If you’re in a category league and not a points league — like the Yahoo default — this roster also appears to be very balanced. I snagged guys like Turang, Wilson, Arráez and Giménez to counter likely low averages for players like Schwarber, Chapman and possibly Pérez. You could also group Crews in there but he’s young enough that we should see some improvement.

Heated rivalry: Taking the Yankees and Red Sox closers wasn’t some weird narrative type of play. Like I said, we alternated between batters and pitchers, and it just made sense to grab two reliable closers in the seventh and eighth rounds. Similar to my two SPs, we shouldn’t have to worry too much about job security when it comes to Bednar and Chapman. Both are ranked in the top-10 RPs in our rankings.

Takeaways from the 9th pick: This felt a bit cookie-cutter in terms of strategy but was effective. I wasn’t scrambling to fill one of my starter spots late in the draft because I ignored a position or had a massive run on batters/pitchers. You do have to force a few picks, so it’s not the perfect approach if you really like a batter or pitcher who happens to fall to you. You can’t just blindly go 2-2 the entire draft. Stray from the path if you need to. But if you make a priority list of players you really like going into your draft, you can easily execute this strategy and feel like you came away with a win.