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Tim Heaney's 2025 fantasy baseball sleeper hitters who will rebound. These infielders had poor seasons last year and are undervalued draft picks for 2025.
Bounce-back candidates for fantasy baseball show up at every stage of a draft. Most names that disappointed fantasy managers the previous season, even those who carry a helpful history in the box scores, will naturally slip down draft boards as recency bias and bitterness kick in among the draft competitors.
This early look at 10 fantasy rebound hitters for 2025 aims to cover both ends of the player pool: those who should return to serving as bankable names every week and those with past success who are nearly completely, unjustifiably forgotten, who present nearly full profit.
Generally, this will look at batters with an Average Draft Position (ADP) of, at best, 150. I'll use averages from the hardcore drafting lot that is the National Fantasy Baseball Championship to identify buying opportunities, which should hold up in readers' leagues as long as our buzz doesn't boost their prices too strongly in the coming months.
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Francisco Alvarez, C, New York Mets
ADP: 152.8
Identifying a "bounce-back" catcher isn't typically a mystery. Even moderately successful catchers barely break into positive dollars in fantasy baseball earned value with their end-of-season statistics.
However, relative to the position scale, Alvarez's power and plate-appearance dip -- due to missing seven weeks with a torn UCL in his left hand -- dinged his end-of-year returns.
At least he launched 11 homers in just 342 plate appearances last year, including 5 in September/October regular-season play to close out the year:
WE DO A LITTLE TROLLING!
A 3-RUN SHOT FOR FRANCISCO ALVAREZ! pic.twitter.com/PFAEEUabwi
— SNY (@SNYtv) September 13, 2024
He's still the 12th-highest catcher drafted, so faith remains that the former top prospect will grow into a bigger fantasy ceiling at age 23. While catchers don't typically surge so quickly, Alvarez already launched 25 big flies in 423 plate appearances as a rookie in 2023.
Even in his down season, Alvarez ranked tied for 20th in dollars returned among catchers (-$7).
While banking on Alvarez isn't necessarily a secret, it's worth highlighting because of the immense upside in the middle rounds, especially in one-catcher setups.
Trevor Story, SS, Boston Red Sox
ADP: 235.5
Story's three-year history with the Red Sox has become a nightmare packed with injuries. Between a right-hand fracture, left heel contusion, right elbow surgery, and fractured left shoulder, the infielder has just barely played more than one full season (163 games) over three seasons (a possible 486 games).
Heading into 2025, fantasy players should again use his bargain price to see if he can recapture at least a portion of his production from his days at the Colorado Rockies. Though not having Coors Field as a home hurts upside, Fenway Park ranks tied for the second-highest Park Factor for right-handed batters (104).
Story stole 10 bases in just 43 games in 2023 and 6 in 26 games in 2024, so he's proving he enjoys the more baserunner-friendly rules when he's had the chance to suit up.
In a middle infield where fantasy players need speed to compete, Story at least can offer upside for his ADP. Still, just 32, Story likely still has a few more years to produce close to a 20-homer, 20-steal (at least) pace over a full season.
Jonathan India, INF, Kansas City Royals
ADP: 262.31
Knee-jerk reactions would put India moving from the Cincinnati Reds' Great American Ball Park to KC's Kauffman Stadium as a major downgrade for environmental hitting impact.
However, a closer look proves that KC's charming park actually sits in a three-way tie with Fenway Park and ... GASP.
India likely will lead off, at least against lefty pitchers, and while his batted-ball profiles have not popped off the page, volume hitting before an increasingly more dangerous lineup could yield 5-category prominence.
Offseason cleanup surgery on his ankle might fix a potential problem with generating power, as well.
Ryan Mountcastle, 1B, Baltimore Orioles
ADP: 272.9
If you missed out on the likes of Boston Red Sox's Triston Casas, dig deeper.
Statcast identified that Mountcastle's HR-xHR tied for the fifth-worst luck among all qualified hitters in 2024. Mountcastle should've had 3.5 more homers per Baseball Savant's estimates.
For whatever reason, Mountcastle's Pull% dipped. If this was a conscious decision to avoid the less favorable outfield fence distance, reverting back to his old early-swinging days could help his pop come back.
He also missed nearly a month during the summer due to a left wrist sprain.
Another important development: The O's have decided to revise Camden Yards' left-field dimensions again, aiming to create a slightly more favorable condition than what they did when they last changed things up in 2022.
From #Orioles: the new proposed left-field wall https://t.co/NZ1t9YqlQg pic.twitter.com/sZVmHhjZff
— Jake Rill (@JakeDRill) November 15, 2024
Per MLB's Jake Rill:
The wall will still begin at the previous 333-foot mark just to the right of the left-field foul pole and move back at an angle to the 373-foot crevice. However, the rest of the wall -- over to the bullpen area -- will be pulled in at varying distances between 9 and 20 feet.
Instead of needing to clear parts of the former wall that were once 384 and 398 feet, the deeper parts will only be 374 and 376. The height of the wall will no longer be 13 feet, but rather 8 in some areas and 6 feet, 11 inches in others.
Environmental and health improvements should bring Mountcastle closer to past season-long homer totals of 33 (2021) and 22 (2022).
One of my favorite buys of the early offseason, his clearance-rack price demands only a modest revival to generate significant value in what should remain a stacked lineup with maturing young stars.
Alejandro Kirk, C, Toronto Blue Jays
ADP: 281.2
With Danny Jansen's trade to the Rays, the backstop role opens up, at least a time of publication. With modest averages of .258/327/.358, 7 HR, and 49 RBI over his past two seasons, Kirk has seen his fantasy hype has quieted following his All-Star breakout in 2022 (.285, 14 HR, 63 RBI, and meme-worthy build).
For this price, dive back in. The Jays' offense should improve, which should help support growth in his peripheral counting stats.
Also, Statcast shows a buying opportunity, especially in OBP fantasy games: Kirk finished as the 12th-unluckiest batter last season with a wOBA-xwOBA difference of -0.027.
Kirk should retain a walk rate of nearly 10% and, as an experienced backstop with 1,563 plate appearances in his age-26 season, might line up for a major step forward with the bat, which already was the enticing reason many have speculated on further growth.
Christopher Morel, 2B/3B, Tampa Bay Rays
ADP: 305.2
Morel stands out as a clear "expected stats" example to use when mining for value. Statcast ranked Morel tied as the third-unluckiest hitter for batting average purposes (a difference of -.029 points, with a .225 xBA).
Is that a fantastic, hopeful result? Not really, but he has just about nowhere to go but up from that super-ugly .196 season-long BA. It was an insane drop, considering how his BB% and K% improved year-to-year.
The major contributor to his cratered clip is his spike in infield fly-ball rate. As shown below, it swelled to 17.6% from an admittedly lucky 7.6% the previous year.
At least falling somewhere in the middle of his '23 and '24 percentages should get him back on track.
The erratic yet talented bat landed with one of the best philosophical organizations to fix a swing. A better bat path should produce crisper contact -- and at least it's not expensive to see if he can figure it out.
His raw skill profile, positional versatility, and multi-positional opportunity with a team that knows how to play platoons and timeshares should prompt drafters to bold his name for the late rounds.
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