
Ryan Kirksey projects which 10 hitters will finish the season in the top 10 for the 2025 fantasy baseball season as we head into Week 7 of MLB action.
We are getting to the point of the fantasy baseball season where there are certain thresholds a player must have to even sniff the top-10 hitters for 2025. Around 30 runs and 30 RBI are a must. Double-digit home runs are required in most cases, and if you don't have those, you'd better have a very high batting average or at least 10 steals.
This is also about the time of year when many players' performances begin to stabilize. That's why you will see eight players overlap between the current top-10 hitters in fantasy baseball and the projected top-10 list. In only a couple of cases do I believe players have some fixable or mechanical adjustment they can make to propel them to this elite list for 2025.
In some cases, the numbers are starting to stabilize; in others, more plate appearances are needed to make a firm decision. But in fantasy baseball, the stats we have are all that we can use. Making future judgments based on current data is the name of the game! It's a long season, and much baseball is left to be played. I will take a closer look at the current top-10 hitters in fantasy and make some predictions about who ends up there when it's all said and done in October.
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Current Top 10 Hitters for Fantasy Baseball
According to Yahoo's player rankings, here are the top 10 most valuable hitters in 5x5 roto leagues as of May 12, 2025.
Hitter | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG |
Aaron Judge | 39 | 14 | 40 | 3 | 0.414 |
Shohei Ohtani | 44 | 12 | 21 | 10 | 0.308 |
Kyle Tucker | 33 | 10 | 33 | 10 | 0.268 |
Corbin Carroll | 33 | 13 | 30 | 5 | 0.282 |
Fernando Tatis Jr. | 34 | 10 | 24 | 8 | 0.316 |
Pete Crow-Armstrong | 31 | 10 | 28 | 13 | 0.259 |
Kyle Schwarber | 30 | 14 | 32 | 4 | 0.268 |
Bobby Witt Jr. | 27 | 5 | 25 | 14 | 0.319 |
Pete Alonso | 28 | 9 | 36 | 14 | 0.318 |
Francisco Lindor | 28 | 9 | 26 | 6 | 0.304 |
With Corbin Carroll's entry into the top five fantasy hitters, I think these five will largely remain all season. With perhaps some minor movement, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, Corbin Carroll, and Fernando Tatis Jr. will likely all finish in the top five or six hitters, barring some kind of unforeseen injury.
Judge continues to rake and managed to RAISE his batting average a couple of points to .414 this week. He remains first in MLB in many (most) offensive categories, even though it seems he has stopped running after the first couple of weeks of the season. As much as we may want to be greedy for our fantasy rosters, there is no reason to expose him to additional injury risk.
Aaron Judge over his last 162 games:
- Hit 65 HR
- Drove in 163 Runs
- Committed Only One ErrorNo one else in MLB HISTORY has had such a 162-game span ever. pic.twitter.com/vIDLiuiMcn
— Greg Harvey (@BetweenTheNums) May 12, 2025
Tucker, Ohtani, Carroll, and Tatis represent the four best options in baseball for high homers, steals, runs, and batting average. Tucker has cooled off slightly, as has the entire Cubs offense. But the windy Wrigley days are still ahead of us, and he is going to have a huge summer.
Corbin Carroll seems to have traded some speed for power and batting average. We would love to have the 54 steals from 2023 again, but if Carroll hits .290 with 35 home runs and 20 steals, that's enough to keep him in the top five all season.
Corbin Carroll strikes AGAIN!
He now has 13 home runs on the season 😮
(MLB x @CitizenWatchUS) pic.twitter.com/sXeIWcB3AC
— MLB (@MLB) May 13, 2025
Pete Crow-Armstrong continues to amaze with his .525 slugging percentage to go along with 13 steals and 31 runs. He continues to only strike out 23 percent of the time, with a 5 percent walk rate his only real nitpick this season. PCA finally hit leadoff a couple of times the past week and might see more action there with Ian Happ going on the injured list.
Kyle Schwarber moved up from number 10 last week to seventh this week as he can not stop hitting home runs. He is also currently stealing a base per week, which would just be icing on the cake in what looks to be another 40-home run season incoming.
Bobby Witt Jr. finally finished his long climb from 75th among fantasy hitters two weeks ago to eighth as we head into Week 7 of the fantasy baseball season. His power search continues, but he is among the league leaders in batting average and steals so far in 2025.
A New York Met entered the top 10 for the first time this season, but it still was not Juan Soto. Francisco Lindor hit .385/.429/.692 with two homers and three steals over the last week to skyrocket into the 10th spot. If he keeps up this pace, he will surely jump teammate Pete Alonso, who hasn't homered in a week and a half, but is still producing enough batting average to keep him on this list.
Projected Top 10 Hitters for Fantasy Baseball
Using a blend of ATC projections, Nick Mariano's projections, and my own opinions, here is my projected top-10 finish for hitters in the last five months of the 2025 fantasy baseball season.
Hitter | Projection | Current Rank |
Aaron Judge | 1 | 1 |
Shohei Ohtani | 2 | 3 |
Corbin Carroll | 3 | 4 |
Elly De La Cruz | 4 | 15 |
Kyle Tucker | 5 | 3 |
Fernando Tatis Jr. | 6 | 5 |
Bobby Witt Jr. | 7 | 8 |
Juan Soto | 8 | 88 |
Pete Crow-Armstrong | 9 | 6 |
Francisco Lindor | 10 | 10 |
There are three players who I feel have the best chance to find their way onto this list and replace players like Pete Alonso and Kyle Schwarber as the season goes along. The first is the "other" New York Met who has not found his stroke yet this season -- Juan Soto. Soto hit three home runs this past week, but a low batting average (for him, at least) keeps him stuck outside the top 80 hitters in baseball.
Soto has had horrible luck with batting average on balls in play (BABIP) this season. Even though he has eight home runs, his BABIP is an unlucky .261, more than 40 points lower than his career average. Once that turns back into something closer to his career number, Soto should start piling up base hits, runs, and RBI.
Juan Soto in May
- 52 PA
- .279/.385/.674
- 5 HR
- .395 ISO
- 64.7% hard hit%
- .415 xBA
- .633 xwOBA
- .323 xwOBA Over Expectation (insane number, nobody else is above .110) pic.twitter.com/k75NXyEYDr— Jon Anderson (@JonPgh) May 13, 2025
Elly De La Cruz has been on the top-10 list for many weeks already this season, but his low average finally caught up to him this week. He is down to .244 after a disappointing series against Houston. However, he is still at 14 steals and six home runs, which puts him among a very small group of players who have 20 combined homers and steals.
Another player on that list is Oneil Cruz. His 16 steals lead baseball, but his average has dropped to .238. Hitting leadoff for the lowly Pirates also is not doing him any favors in terms of his RBI. With just 18, Cruz is outside the top 75 hitters in run production.
Players with 10+ HR, 10+ SB this season:
- Pete Crow-Armstrong
- Shohei Ohtani
- Kyle Tucker pic.twitter.com/5h9ext2iaM— MLB (@MLB) May 12, 2025
Perhaps the most controversial name on this list is Pete Crow-Armstrong. Many people keep waiting for his strikeout rate to rise, for his inexperience (just 23 years old) to catch up with him, and for pitchers to solve him. I don't presently see any signs of that happening.
PCA's contact rate is up, his swinging strike rate is down, and his barrel rate is almost double what it was during his 123 games in 2024. This is a legit talent who is going to be a power/speed force in fantasy baseball for years to come. It might end up being a fascinating NL Central battle to see who among Oneil Cruz and PCA ends up on this final list.
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