The Cycle: Early 2026 Mock Draft (Ep. 1139)

FantasyPros - Fantasy Baseball Podcast

iHeartPodcasts and The Volume

Sports

4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Turn the page to the next MLB season with a new edition of "The Cycle," where Mike Maher and Kelly Kirby complete a 2026 fantasy baseball mock draft!

Is Los Angeles Dodgers SP/DH Shohei Ohtani still the consensus 1.01 selection? Does Seattle Mariners C/DH Cal Raleigh make the cut as a first-round pick? Plus, where do elite arms like Detroit Tigers SP Tarik Skubal and Pittsburgh Pirates SP Paul Skenes land?

The Pros take a first-look at early rankings risers, fallers and breakouts!

Timestamps: (May be off due to ads)

Intro - 0:00:00

World Series Predictions - 0:01:44

2026 Mock Draft Mindset - 0:05:36

1.01 Shohei Ohtani (SP, DH - LAD) - 0:06:50

1.02 Aaron Judge (OF, DH - NYY) - 0:08:01

1.03 Juan Soto (OF - NYM) - 0:10:29

1.04 Bobby Witt Jr. (SS - KC) - 0:15:39

1.05 Jose Ramirez (3B, DH - CLE) - 0:17:11

1.06 Ronald Acuna Jr. (OF - ATL) - 0:22:35

1.07 Corbin Carroll (OF - ARI) - 0:23:59

1.08 Tarik Skubal (SP - DET) - 0:26:04

1.09 Elly De La Cruz (SS - CIN) - 0:26:35

1.10 Cal Raleigh (C, DH - SEA) - 0:27:09

1.11 Fernando Tatis Jr. (OF - SD) - 0:27:58

1.12 Garrett Crochet (SP - BOS) - 0:29:14

2.01 Paul Skenes (SP - PIT) - 0:29:41

2.02 Junior Caminero (3B, DH - TB) - 0:33:27

2.03 Kyle Schwarber (OF, DH - PHI) - 0:34:30

2.04 Julio Rodriguez (OF - SEA) - 0:36:03

2.05 Nick Kurtz (1B, DH - ATH) - 0:37:08

2.06 Francisco Lindor (SS - NYM) - 0:37:49

2.07 Jackson Chourio (OF - MIL) - 0:38:16

2.08 Kyle Tucker (OF, DH - CHC) - 0:40:19

2.09 Pete Alonso (1B - NYM) - 0:40:55

2.10 Hunter Brown (SP - HOU) - 0:42:17

2.11 Gunnar Henderson (SS, DH - BAL) - 0:43:29

2.12 Cristopher Sanchez (SP - PHI) - 0:43:49

3.01 James Wood (OF, DH - WSH) - 0:43:57

Hard Rock Bet - 0:45:25

3.02 Yoshinobu Yamamoto (SP - LAD) - 0:47:37

3.03 Christian Yelich (OF, DH - MIL) - 0:48:55

3.04 Bryan Woo (SP - SEA) - 0:50:18

3.05 Freddy Peralta (SP - MIL) - 0:51:05

3.06 Joe Ryan (SP - MIN) - 0:52:10

3.07 Vladamir Guerrero Jr. (1B, 3B, DH - TOR) - 0:53:16

3.08 Pete Crow-Armstrong (OF - CHC) - 0:55:30

3.09 Logan Webb (SP - SF) - 0:56:35

3.10 Max Fried (SP - NYY) - 0:58:19

3.11 Freddie Freeman (1B - LAD) - 0:59:29

3.12 Josh Naylor (1B, DH - SEA) - 1:02:00

Mock Draft Recap - 1:02:22

Outro - 1:08:48

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:07.0	The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years,
0:14.0	until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.
0:20.9	America, y'all better work the hell up.
0:22.9	Bad things happens to good people in small towns.
0:32.5	Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge
0:39.4	the entire season, ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
0:48.3	Hello everybody. Welcome back in to another episode of The Cycle.
0:57.8	I'm your host, Mike Mayer.
0:58.9	I am joined once again by Kelly Kirby.
1:01.2	You haven't seen this in a few weeks, but we're back.
1:03.8	The season is over.
1:04.9	The MLB playoffs are happening.
1:07.4	And naturally, we're going to start looking ahead to next season and turn the page.
1:11.7	And we figure we're going to do that with a way too early, 2026 mock draft.
1:16.0	We're going to do three rounds, draft three rounds for 12 different teams.
1:20.7	Kelly and I will alternate.
1:22.3	And throughout that, we'll kind of sprinkle in some analysis, some maybe big wins that we had, some major
1:29.2	Ls that we had, some bold predictions that went poorly.
1:31.7	We won't talk about Mike Trout.
1:33.5	That's not allowed.
1:34.2	We're not going to discuss that on this show.
	...

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