We’re over a quarter of the way into the 2026 season, and we’ve now reached the point where many players who got off to slow starts are starting to turn it around. In some cases, players who had a modest or even bad April have looked elite in May, making many wonder if their recently discovered production is sustainable. That’s the point of this series, where we look at the hottest players over the recent stretch of games and analyze whether their performance is real or just a flash in the pan that will be forgotten by June. Without further ado, let’s get into the data, as we have three new players to discuss.
Daylen Lile, OF, WAS
After a pretty slow start to the season, Daylen Lile has turned things around quickly as of late, batting .308 with 10 runs, four home runs, 11 RBI, and two steals in the past 14 days. That’s good enough to make him the fourth most valuable hitter in 5×5 Roto over that time frame, and he has six home runs in the past 30 days. His season slash line now sits at .263/.324/.437 with seven home runs and three steals, and those numbers are looking better by the day. The underlying metrics actually suggest he was getting unlucky to begin the season, as his .272 xBA and .446 xSLG grade out as slightly better than his actual stats.
If you tuned out fantasy baseball to focus on football toward the end of last season, you may think this breakout is coming out of nowhere. However, he was one of the hottest hitters in baseball in September of 2025, slashing .391/.440/.772 with six home runs in 25 games. If we take a look at the second half of 2025 combined with his current 2026 stats, we can see a very good hitter over the course of 105 games.
Last season, he managed to post a 100th percentile launch angle sweet-spot rate of 44.2% and a .302 xBA. While the sweet-spot rate is down to 35.9% this season, he still shows off enough pop to leave the yard thanks to an above-average 17% pull air rate. The 23-year-old has also flashed a 95th percentile sprint speed this season, suggesting there could be more stolen bags in his future if he is willing to start running more.
Verdict: Legit. If you extrapolate Lile’s last 105 games into a 162-game pace, you’re left with 103 runs, 21 home runs, 89 RBI, and 12 steals with a .300 batting average. That’s a great fantasy asset, with upside for even more if he starts getting more active on the basepaths. Batting average is one of the toughest categories to fulfill for fantasy once you get outside of the non-elite talent, and he looks like a good bet for it. On top of the batting average, he has the chance to deliver above-average pop and speed, and will tally more runs and RBI than you may think, with the Nationals currently leading the major leagues in runs scored.
Gavin Sheets, 1B/OF, SD
Gavin Sheets has been on a tear as of late, winning Player of the Week honors and hitting .526 with four home runs in the past seven days. On the season, he’s slashing .256/.333/.543 with 19 runs, nine home runs, 21 RBI, and three steals in 43 games. He enjoyed a nice 2025 season in his first year with the Padres, but even then, he still only totaled 19 homers in 145 games. He’s already almost halfway to that number in less than a third of the games, so is this something he can keep up moving forward?
His quality of contact metrics certainly paint him as an above-average hitter, with an 11.1% barrel rate and 45.5% hard-hit rate that are both firmly above average. However, his 2025 numbers look eerily similar, with a 9.6% barrel rate and 46.5% hard-hit rate. You may think to check his pull air rate as a possible explanation for his power breakout, but that’s actually down from 24.2% last year to 19.2% in 2026. The other glaring flaw is that he doesn’t play against lefties, as he’s managed just a 54 wRC+ against them in his career. That makes the slugger pretty difficult to utilize in any weekly fantasy leagues, as he’s a much better fit for daily roto.
Verdict: Slightly Legit. I don’t think he’s going to continue this pace and end up with over 30 home runs with slightly limited plate appearances as the strong side of a platoon, but it’s important to note that Sheets is no longer the player he was with the White Sox to begin his career. Last season was clearly the best year of his career in his debut with the Padres, and it was a far cry from the .357 slugging percentage and 10 home runs he had in 2024 in his final year in Chicago. He should have a good chance to top 20 homers and be a real factor in fantasy as a corner infield or outfield option in deep roto leagues, but don’t expect him to be a must-start player in shallower leagues from here on out.
J.T. Ginn, SP, ATH
J.T. Ginn entered the bottom of the ninth inning working a no-hitter in his start on Monday night, before giving up a single and then a walk-off home run to be saddled with a brutal loss. Still, he ended the night with eight innings of two-hit baseball while punching out 10, which is a performance that any fantasy manager would be happy with. He induced 14 whiffs on 105 pitches and ended the night with a 27% CSW, which is everything you want to see from a pitcher whom many just picked up to be a two-start streamer.
The caveat is that this came against the Angels, who are one of the most strikeout-prone teams in the league, but that shouldn’t be a concern if you check out Ginn’s most recent starts. He tossed six shutout innings with three strikeouts two outings ago, and the start prior to that was a nine-strikeout, eight-inning gem against the Phillies. It may seem hard to suddenly trust a guy who bounces back and forth between Triple-A and the majors for the Athletics, but he actually showed moments of upside last season, too, with a couple of 8+ strikeout outings.
He stood out last year for having an 89th percentile groundball rate of 52.3% along with a 71st percentile 25.3% strikeout rate that is much higher than you typically see with groundball pitchers. Both of those numbers have decreased slightly in 2026, down to 48.6% and 21.7%, respectively, but he’s offsetting it with an excellent 33.6% hard-hit rate.
Verdict: Somewhat legit. He’s not going to turn into an ace all of a sudden, and there are surely plenty of bumps along the road ahead, but Ginn has shown enough to warrant an add in any league where pitching is thin, which at this point, is most leagues. He showed enough under the hood last season to give him some buzz as a late-round sleeper in extremely deep leagues this offseason, and now he’s delivering on that hype. The 26-year-old is at worst a streaming option at this point, but he should likely be rostered as a back-end rotation piece to see just how long he can keep this up, as I do think there’s a decent chance he remains relevant in fantasy permanently from here on out.
