RADIO
Tim's 2025 fantasy baseball bust candidates - players to avoid drafting based on overvalued ADPs. Consider fading these players in fantasy baseball drafts.
Fantasy baseball players shouldn't wait until the weeks before their draft to prepare. Winning preparation starts in the offseason. It's understandable to take a break, but hopefully not for too long.
Participating in and seeing external results of early offseason mock drafts -- or the industry pundits who gather for regulation leagues that start the previous winter -- can help us players set the market as early as possible. Equally, if not more, important steps involve monitoring trends and value changes that follow initial reactions and average draft position (ADP).
Eyeing several players who may command too high a draft price in early games could inform decisions that will come months away when you select your official team. This RotoBaller winter primer aims to identify 2025 fantasy baseball bust candidates, connecting the dots between last year's performance, this coming season's expectations, and overzealous early drafters in National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) games.
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Top Fantasy Baseball Avoids for 2025
Corey Seager, SS, Texas Rangers
ADP: 43.74
As a batted-ball-data trustee, it pains me to list the player who matched Bobby Witt Jr. as tied for fifth in barrels per plate appearance (10.9%). However, the plan to build a roster puts Seager square in this fantasy busts conversation.
The second base and shortstop pools feature a smorgasbord of elite stolen-base contributors -- many with nearly equal profiles in hitting homers. Selecting an early-rounds bat who's basically a zero in that column is punting your chances to get an impact total from shortstop or, in deeper leagues, middle field.
For someone who relies solely on being elite in the other four categories, Seager has holes in his game. His no-doubt homers column cratered from 15 in 2023 to 8 last year, and Seager truly needs to hit 30 homers to justify his profile's cost.
Nitpicking here but trying to get ahead on a possible warning sign: His Bat Speed, Squared-Up%, Chase %, and Whiff% look like vulnerabilities, which could continue to slow as he ages.
Plus, we have to acknowledge the health history: Seager has played more than 123 games just once in the past four seasons and underwent hernia surgery in September. Seager's age of 31 also has much more mileage on it than most others, given that he's logged nine seasons and 4,442 plate appearances.
Seager certainly could maintain upper-echelon output in that quartet of columns, but accounting for your statistical strategy and the wear and tear he's accumulated requires the perfect plan to justify drafting him this early, when drafters can find his stats among options at other positions where speed options aren't plenty available or expected to steal bags.
Michael Harris II, OF, Atlanta Braves
ADP: 39.88
In this early NFBC ADP list, context about trying to win the overall contest factors into play, as well. Many drafters are trying to secure batting-average studs so they could compete for the overall category against thousands of other players.
Harris appeals to that mindset. From 2022-2023, the former highly touted prospect slashed .295/.334./.494, giving him the type of batting eye that would make any power gains a bonus. That reward came when he hit 11 homers in just 40 games after returning from a two-month absence due to hamstring issues.
Look closer, though: Harris enjoyed a bit of luck there. Just 6 of those 16 big flies were "No Doubters," per Statcast, meaning they'd clear the fences of all 30 MLB parks. That 35.3% rate ranked Harris tied for 267th among qualified batters.
Heading into just his age-24 season with three seasons' worth of action under his belt, sustaining his late-season power growth sits well within the zone of potential outcomes. After all, 20-homer, 20-steal players remain immensely important to have in your fantasy lineup.
I love this ADP for dynasty leagues, certainly. However, this redraft ADP already bakes in significant power growth as a requirement.
Though chasing our favorite breakout candidates and trusting our guts lead to many fantasy titles, sometimes they leave little margin for error.
Emmanuel Clase, RP, Cleveland Guardians
ADP: 35.09
Important context: Closers are chased early in high-stakes NFBC drafts.
Clase is the 6th overall pitcher taken on average. Not just relievers -- relievers and starters. Even with this slightly different strategy, players of all experience levels should ask about the reality of the saves category.
How valuable is purchasing the first closer in your league? Could those resources be better spent elsewhere?
Clase certainly has looked like the league's best savior many years, but his 7.99 K/9 and 24.4 K% proved the righty was fortunate to have sparkling control.
Those whiff rates on the Statcast graphic below are, unfortunately, an improvement on previous years:
A similar profile that produced a 3.22 ERA in 2023 spits out a pristine 0.61 in 2024. Clase's true profile lies somewhere in the middle, which still will help many fantasy players.
Important context, Part 2: Due to the small sample size of their innings and appearances, combined with randomness within those outings, relief pitchers can overperform as lucky year-to-year in several key statistics and indicators to yield elite results.
That being said, an overaggressive backing of the righty's .195 batting average allowed on balls in play and 85.1 percent left-on-base percentage (LOB%) might disappoint when the difference between Clase and other top closers appears so stark in early drafts.
High-groundball, low-strikeout closers should not earn this much blind trust, regardless of how historic we consider the end-product ERA of a lucky season.
Clase remains one of the better options at his position, but reaching strongly for him when the market provides a more beneficial return on investment at other positions -- and possibly huge bargains for saves in later rounds -- should not happen.
More Fantasy Baseball Avoids for 2025
I'm not ready to entirely fade these names yet, but I could see their markets becoming unwieldy as we get closer to Real Draft Day.
Jarren Duran, OF, Boston Red Sox
ADP: 21.97
The power-speed combo will play, but his 111 runs scored from 2024 likely inflate his value. It's tough to repeat that and the 735 plate appearances that helped pad that column.
Plus, the extent to which he'll expand or even keep his pop that produced 21 big flies last year remains up for debate. (Click to read more on how trustworthy Jarren Duran's breakout was)
Jacob deGrom, SP, Texas Rangers
ADP: 41.22
Not to pick on the Rangers with a second candidate, but the combination of elite skills and continued durability risk must be acknowledged here.
In shallower mixed leagues where you can replace your ace or, ideally in his case, the No. 2 starting pitcher more easily, deGrom probably is worth the confidence. However, when the margin for error surrounding your top 1-3 fantasy starting pitchers gets thinner in deeper games, the more caution you should deploy when selecting the 36-year-old.
Pablo Lopez, SP, Minnesota Twins
ADP: 64.69
I fear this could become one of those instances where the market chases indicators too aggressively. Lopez's 25.6 K% and 5.3 BB% should generally produce better results than his 4.08 ERA from 2024, and many drafters who wait on pitching likely will bold his name as a "bargain ace."
But that may become too popular a strategy and erase any profit margin we might gain by waiting on him, compared to similarly priced and likely steadier arms.
This ADP may climb as more hype from pundits pushes him upward. However, he hasn't posted an ERA below 3.66 in any of the past three seasons, so banking blindly on skills correction is not recommended.
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