Sal Stewart breakout: Fantasy baseball outlook, stats and top-5 upside

Sal Stewart probably isn’t the best player in baseball now. I know, I know, it’s hard to hear that. But it’s true. Probably. 

Since he debuted on Sept. 1 of last season, Stewart ranks 13th among all hitters with a 155 wRC+. He is hitting .275/.353/.601 in that span, and he’s actually been even better to open this season, upping that line to .289/.388/.639 through the first 23 games, and he’s doing it as a 22-year-old in a key lineup spot for a competitive team. And he’s leveled up in the early going despite teams getting a scouting report on him last season.

It’s undeniably impressive. Whether you’re looking at the top-line numbers or the underlying numbers, it all tells pretty much the same story: Stewart looks like an elite hitter right now. In 2025, Stewart’s solid .355 wOBA came along with an even better .398 expected wOBA, and so far in 2026, his .438 wOBA comes paired with a .419 xwOBA. Since 2021, there have only been 13 individual hitter seasons (out of 670 qualifiers) with an xwOBA over .419; use his .411 career mark, and you only add four more seasons. 

Of course, there have almost certainly been many, many more 41-game stretches where hitters have been better than Stewart has been. Just taking one random stretch from last season, from June 11 through July 31, and there were six hitters with an xwOBA of at least .411. Some of them are superstars, like Kyle Schwarber, Corey Seager, and Juan Soto. But that sextet also includes Willy Adames, a good hitter, but not much more than a pretty good hitter; it also includes Nick Kurtz and Kyle Stowers, two hitters for whom the jury is very much out as to exactly how good they are. 

But it would be foolish to write off a hot start as meaningless when it comes to projecting a player forward. And you don’t have to take my word for it. Let’s just look at how the rest-of-season projections for Stewart have changed, using THE BAT X projections from FanGraphs.com:

Projection systems are notoriously conservative, especially for young players, who face a steep learning curve at the MLB level. And yet, even after just 20 or so games, we’ve already seen a substantial increase in the expectations this system (typically the most accurate for Fantasy Baseball) has for Stewart. He’s gone from the 14th-best projected first baseman by wRC+ to the seventh-best already. That’s serious movement, and it’s meaningful. 

I can say this much with confidence: Stewart is almost certainly at least a good hitter. BaseballProspectus has a stat they call “Deserved Stats,” and they’ve got Stewart down for a .264/.342/.495 hitter for his career, with a very similar line so far this season. If that’s all he is, he’s a top-12 first baseman, and would rank even higher when he gains eligibility at either third base (where he needs one more appearance to qualify in CBS Fantasy leagues) or second base (where he needs three more). And, given his excellent home park, it feels fair to say that mid-.800s OPS line is probably close to his floor.

That might not be enough for you. I know. Some of you want us to declare that Stewart is already a top-three third baseman, better than Nick Kurtz even. Memories can be short, and reacting to what you’re seeing in the moment is exciting and fun, and Stewart has the look of an absolute star right now. He probably won’t keep being this good moving forward – he hits the ball hard, but not astronomically so (75th percentile average exit velocity) and his plate discipline metrics suggest he probably deserves something more like average-ish results with his strikeout and walk rates; he has also dipped down to a 15.2% pulled-air rate, making his current elite power production harder to buy into. There will be regression. 

But from a 20-ish game sample, Stewart has moved from a corner infielder we like to someone who will be starting a starting-caliber first baseman in all leagues moving forward. Is he a top-12 first baseman right now? Absolutely. Top-10? I’d lean that way. 

Top-five? Well, I’m not ready to go there yet. The ceiling is certainly that high, especially with his rare out-of-position, 15-steal upside. But we’ll see Stewart slow down, and we’ll see pitchers adjust, and then it’ll be incumbent on him to adjust back. That’s when you really learn how good a player is.

But the ceiling? Well, that’s what we’re seeing right now, and it’s tremendous. And if Stewart ends up as a top-five first baseman in all Fantasy formats by the summer months, I won’t be too surprised.