You should always follow fantasy draft rankings you trust, or make your own, but some players are easier to rank than others. Fantasy baseball analysts Andy Behrens, Scott Pianowski and Fred Zinkie reveal who’s causing them the most trouble this draft season.
Should you fade a legend?
It’s basically impossible to express the full range of Mike Trout’s possible outcomes in a simple fantasy ranking. At the high end, Trout might actually make 450-plus plate appearances this year, benefitting from the position shift to right field. If that happens, he’s an obvious threat to launch 35-40 bombs while maintaining an OPS in the neighborhood of 1.000. In that scenario, he’d deliver a massive profit for anyone who drafts him at ADP.
At the low end, however, Trout might once again find himself dealing with various assorted injuries and the Angels could shut him down in June or July. Which, of course, would be a fantasy disaster. It’s not difficult at all to imagine this man finishing as a top-10 outfielder, nor is it difficult to imagine him finishing outside the top 150. Everything is on the table for Trout.
So: OF31, overall 110.
[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2025 MLB season]
The deeper the league, the more problematic it is to draft him. — Andy Behrens
Fantasy headaches from an entire team
I have no idea what to do with the Dodgers pitching staff.
This team should win 100 games in its sleep; I have never seen a team so guaranteed a playoff spot before a single pitch is thrown (part of that is the bloated playoff format these days). But Los Angeles will probably play a load-management game for six months too, getting ready for October. Don’t forget that just two LAD pitchers got past 90 innings last year and none of them qualified for the ERA title (the 162-inning requirement really should be altered to fit the times, but I digress). With every burp of an elbow or hiccup of a shoulder, starts will be skipped and IL stints will be utilized. Drafting into this uber-talented rotation has plenty of gifts, but there are unintended consequences of being this good, too. — Scott Pianowski
A youngster with tantalizing upside — and scary red flags
The toughest players to rank are usually those who present dilemmas in terms of both performance and durability. Such is the case with Matt McLain, who may be the hardest player to properly rank this year. The infielder was dynamite in 89 rookie-year games in 2023, producing at a level that extrapolated to 29 homers, 25 steals, 118 runs, 91 RBI and a .290 average across 162 games. Both those numbers came with a .385 BABIP, and his expected stats (.256 average, .436 SLG) were far below his actual marks. Overall, the speedster (90th percentile average sprint speed) profiled as an average player in key offensive areas such as average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage.
McLain also showed poor plate discipline (0.27 BB/K ratio) and there were concerns that his production wasn’t sustainable even before he suffered a torn labrum that wiped out all of his 2024 season. The 25-year-old’s upside is tantalizing, as he could produce game-changing numbers hitting in front of Elly De La Cruz while calling home to hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park. But we can’t say for sure that his shoulder is completely healthy, and whether the long layoff will impact his skill set. McLain currently has a Yahoo ADP of pick 84, and I would need him to fall at least one more round before drafting him. — Fred Zinkie
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