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Judge's 62-homer 2022 may have seemed like a historic, once-in-a-lifetime-type season, but his 2024 was even better for Fantasy purposes, featuring nearly as many home runs, more combined runs and RBI, and a higher batting average. What it means is that he's a historic, once-in-a-generation-type player, with Shohei Ohtani being his only real competition for the top overall pick.
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| 2 | |
Getting Soto out of San Diego indeed returned him to his former studliness, and getting him to Yankee Stadium helped him to establish a career in home runs. Because venue has been a sticking point for him, there will be a temptation if he signs elsewhere to move him down a couple spots in favor of better base-stealers (though not in points leagues, where his walks are so valuable).
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Only a year removed from one of the all-time Fantasy seasons, Acuna faces a great deal of uncertainty coming back from his second torn ACL (albeit to the opposite knee) in four years. If his recovery follows the same timeline as last time, he should be about ready for opening day, but whether he can get back to his 40-homer, 70-steal ways right away is another matter.
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| 4 | |
Betts loses eligibility at second base but retains it at shortstop, which is less helpful given the distribution of talent for 2025 and likely means you're just going to use him in the outfield. He remains a perennial MVP candidate at 32, offering such routine studliness that you might be tempted to pass him over for some of the razzle-dazzle that follows.
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| 5 | |
Though already established as a first-rounder in Fantasy, Tucker was trending toward his best season by a long shot when he suffered a stress fracture in his shin in early June and wound up missing three months. He basically picked up where he left off in his September return, but I do think a return to his usual numbers is more likely than him sustaining a 45-homer pace.
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| 6 | |
Carroll was the bust of all busts to begin 2024, boasting a .192 batting average and .557 OPS as late as June 5. But from that point forward, he was the second-best outfielder in both Rotisserie and Head-to-Head points leagues. The batting average still lagged a bit during that time, but the power was enough that no one is questioning the integrity of his shoulder anymore.
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In the two years since his year lost to wrist surgery, shoulder surgery, and a PED suspension, Tatis has hit .265 with a .796 OPS, which is a far cry from the numbers he was putting up before then. Statcast showed him to be one of this year's biggest underachievers, though, and perhaps if he hadn't missed two months with a stress fracture in his femur, he would have lived up to his .304 xBA and .554 xSLG.
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| 8 | |
Among those who stayed relatively healthy, Rodriguez was the most disappointing of the 2024 first-rounders and will have his share of detractors in 2025 as a result. But the notoriously slow starter actually was showing signs of a turnaround before hurting his ankle in July, missing a month, then catching fire in September. His Statcast readings were also basically the same as in 2023.
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| 9 | |
You could argue Alvarez is safer than Tatis and Rodriguez, given that his production has fluctuated less from year to year, but then you'd be forgetting the baseline durability issues that have prevented him from playing 150 games in a season. Between that and his lack of base-stealing, he doesn't have the same upside, even if you can pencil him in for a .300 batting average and 35 homers.
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| 10 | |
Being a newcomer to the elite ranks naturally builds in some skepticism for Duran, though his 2024 was basically a continuation of his 2023, just over more at-bats. Nothing in the underlying data suggests it was a fluke either, so if you're willing to exercise a little trust, you have another opportunity for Corbin Carroll-like numbers, only a round later.
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| 11 | |
After looking overmatched in most every way through his first two months in the majors, Chourio did what so many prospects of his ilk have done the past few years and caught fire in June, batting .303 with 16 homers, 15 steals, and an .883 OPS the rest of the way. The contact skills are impressive for a player so young, and it wouldn't take much to bring him up to first-round production.
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| 12 | |
Merrill's rookie season played out similarly to Chourio's, seeing him turn the corner at the start of June to deliver a .299 batting average, 21 homers, nine steals, and .901 OPS the rest of the way. By most skill indicators, he rates even higher than Chourio, but I rank him lower for two reasons: He seems slightly less inclined to steal bases and, at least so far, has batted lower in the lineup.
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| 13 | |
Chisholm's days as a Fantasy outfielder are numbered now that he's shifted to third base for the Yankees , and that's probably where you're going to want to play him this year. He was every bit the power/speed threat we hoped he'd be during his first more or less healthy season, but still has a concerning injury history and clear limitations in the batting average department.
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| 14 | |
Prior to needing back surgery in July, Yelich was enjoying his best season since his MVP and near-MVP 2018 and 2019 campaigns, hitting for average and power while continuing the stolen base gains from a year earlier. You could look at the back surgery as a positive, correcting a longstanding issue that's hindered a potential MVP bat, but there may be unforeseen consequences.
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My goal of setting more realistic expectations for unproven young talent next year may clash with this rather aggressive ranking of Wood, but he was pretty useful as a midseason call-up in 2024. He has launch-angle issues to sort out if he's going to meet his considerable power ceiling, but my hope is that his half-season head start leads to an earlier breakthrough for him than we saw for Chourio and Merrill this year.
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| 16 | |
Hernandez hits the free agent market again this offseason and could end up leaving a favorable situation with the Dodgers , but we've seen him perform well even in places like Seattle. He's not much for plate discipline if that's your thing, but he's a highly bankable slugger more likely to help than hinder in batting average and stolen bases, making him a B-plus contributor overall.
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| 17 | |
Already a one-dimensional player for Fantasy, Santander leaned even more into that one dimension with a career-high 55 percent fly-ball rate and wound up hitting a career-high 44 home runs, third-most in baseball. It cost him a few points in batting average, but looking at his home/away splits, it may translate into even better results elsewhere as he hits the open market this offseason.
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| 18 | |
The hype is at an all-time low for Harris, whose numbers have dipped with each subsequent year in the majors and who was unavailable for a big part of 2024 due to a hamstring injury. But he poured it on late, batting .316 with eight homers and a .923 OPS in September, and still profiles for a high batting average with enough power and speed to make this a potential value pick.
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| 19 | |
You might think of Langford's rookie season as a failure compared to Jackson Chourio's and Jackson Merrill's , but his 2.89 Head-to-Head points per game were basically in line with Chourio's 2.86 and Merrill's 2.90. Walks had something to do with it and matter more for points scoring than 5x5, but I'm betting Langford's big September is a precursor to a breakout season.
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| 20 | |
Seeing as he's played in only 41 percent of his team's games over the past four years, there's simply no getting around Trout's injury history, but sort of like with Chris Sale at this time a year ago, the studliness is still evident through all the injuries. Trout even got back to being a base-stealer for the one month he was healthy in 2024. As with Sale, there likely will come a point when the discount pays off.
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| 21 | |
Thought to be one of the few bright spots on the White Sox coming into 2024, Robert thudded just as hard as the rest of them, missing most of the first two months with a strained hip flexor and never looking right thereafter. It's reasonable to hope for a rebound from the 27-year-old, who still has the potential for a 60 combined homers and steals and, with any luck, is traded this offseason.
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| 22 | |
This may seem high for Nimmo, but his .224 batting average this year was so out of character that I'm choosing to focus on what he did right: hitting 20-plus homers for the second straight season, registering double-digit steals for the first time (a perfect 15 for 15) and delivering a ton of runs and RBI (despite the low batting average) while batting high in the Mets lineup.
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| 23 | |
Like Nimmo, Reynolds is a better-safe-than-sorry sort of pick and perhaps even the epitome of one, given how stable he's been the past four years. He's not an A contributor in anything but will give you a B in everything (more like a C in steals, perhaps) and has been remarkably durable as well.
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| 24 | |
Suzuki may be a little more exciting than Nimmo and Reynolds but is also more volatile, striking out more and having yet to play even 140 games in a season. Ultimately, he's a player in the same vein, making a positive contribution in everything without really standing out at anything, and if you prefer him of the three, hoping for a slightly better batting average or home run total, that's fine with me.
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| 25 | |
Greene took a big step toward meeting his top-prospect pedigree in 2024, improving his launch angle to get more out of his high-end exit velocities, but he still plays in a venue that's not well suited for left-handed power. His strikeout rate constrains his batting average, and he's shown little inclination to steal bases, which leads me to wonder if there's much room to improve still.
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| 26 | |
Part of me wants to rank Butler ahead of the four better-safe-than-sorry types after seeing him hit .302 with 20 homers, 14 steals, and a .943 OPS (along with a greatly improved strikeout rate) over the final four months. But he wasn't a prospect on the level of Jackson Chourio and Jackson Merrill, and I've been faked out by partial-season breakouts before.
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| 27 | |
I'm begrudgingly ranking Steer this high because he's eligible at the much shallower first base and followed up an impressive rookie season with a 20-homer, 25-steal campaign, but I'll be blunt: I don't like him. His poor exit velocities readings combined with a sell-out-for-power approach yielded a .225 batting average, including .198 in the second half.
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| 28 | |
Doyle had already endeared himself to the Rockies with superlative center field defense, but cutting his strikeout rate from 35 percent to 25 percent allowed that athleticism to play on offense as well, introducing him as a power/speed threat with 23 homers and 30 steals. He likely has little margin for error, though, judging by his unfavorable road splits and uneven month-by-month breakdown.
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| 29 | |
Arozarena's 2024 represented a big step back and could signal decline for a player on the verge of his 30th birthday, but when you dig deeper into the numbers, his shortfall was mostly confined to batting average. His plate discipline and exit velocity readings were basically in line with career norms, and he managed to eke out a 20/20 season despite hitting .158 the first two months.
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| 30 | |
With apologies to Ian Happ, Jurickson Profar, Cody Bellinger, Steven Kwan, and Tyler O'Neill, I'm rounding out my top 30 with Crews in the hopes of a top-prospect-makes-good scenario. He at least got a little foretaste late this year, and while the numbers weren't spectacular, he showed a strong inclination to run, swiping 12 bags in 31 games, and maintained a respectable 19.7 percent strikeout rate.
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