This isn't a typical analytical column for me or for our site; however, I've made it a point over the years to be transparent about the way I manage my fantasy teams. There's been a lot of talk in our industry about fantasy analysts not being good fantasy players, and while I do believe those are two separate skills, I also believe it's valuable for you to see how I use the insight I glean from my work to run my teams.
That's not because I will always be right. In fact, some of the value for you will likely be seeing what I did wrong. Breaking down data trends, player profiles, pitch mixes, etc. can give me a lot of information to use, but perhaps I held onto a player too long or I was too quick to move on a small data point I noticed.
This article will cover the players I drafted the most on my teams this year and a brief explanation of why. Maybe they're still available in your league, or maybe it will reveal how I feel about the player landscape overall. At the bare minimum, I hope it's an interesting discussion of players and draft strategy.
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This season, I did seven NFBC drafts (three 12-team draft-and-hold, two 15-team mixed leagues, and two 12-team mixed leagues). I drafted a 15-team mixed team with OBP instead of AVG for Tout. I drafted two 12-team shallow bench Yahoo leagues for Pitcher List and NBC Sports, and I drafted a 12-team mixed team with OPS instead of AVG for my home league. Below you'll see the player shares for my NFBC leagues because they're all in the same place, but I'll also discuss some players I drafted in a lot of my non-NFBC leagues as well.
Jason Adam - RP, San Diego Padres
This one is pretty simple: the Padres have been openly trying to trade Robert Suarez, and he has not looked good this year. His velocity is down 3mph, and I think there's a strong chance he is removed from the closer's role either because he's traded or because he struggles. Adam was drafted outside of the top 300 and was one of my favorite late-round relief pitcher picks. I'd snag a reliable top-end closer and then wait on my RP2 to grab a guy like Justin Martinez, David Bednar, Kenley Jansen before taking a flier at the end of drafts on Adam. That strategy has worked for me in the past, so I figured I'd keep it going.
Gavin Williams - SP, Cleveland Guardians
By now, if you read my work, you probably know why I'm interested in Gavin Williams. I wrote about him as a post-hype sleeper, and I wrote about him as one of my favorite late-round starting pitchers when he was going late, he was my choice for our Rotoworld staff breakouts article, and I interviewed him at spring training and wrote about the improvements to his mechanics in the off-season. I'm dangerously all-in this year.
Willson Contreras - C/1B, St. Louis Cardinals
A catcher who doesn't catch. What more do we want? In all seriousness, I have always been a fan of Willson Contreras. He is a solid hitter with good power and a good feel for the barrel. He's a consistent 20-homer bat with double-digit barrel rates and a .260 career batting average. You just don't find that much at the catcher position. Now, we're getting him as an everyday first baseman, which will mean potentially 600 plate appearances. I know the Cardinals' lineup is not that exciting, but they only lost Paul Goldschmidt from last year's team, and we could see steps forward from Lars Nootbaar, Victor Scott, Jordan Walker, and some of the other young(ish) bats. If you're giving me that many more plate appearances at catcher than my competitors, that's a major advantage for me.
Dylan Crews - OF, Washington Nationals
I covered Dylan Crews in my article discussing second-year hitters who were likely to far outperform their 2024 MLB debuts. In that article, I mentioned that Crews’ 34% hard-hit rate in Triple-A last year suggests that quality contact is well within his range of outcomes, and his overall Process stats were above average for almost the entirety of his MLB action. I like that he doesn’t chase out of the zone, with just a 29.5% O-Swing%, and his poor average had nothing to do with swinging and missing, since his SwStr% was just 9.9%. I also love that he plays for a Washington team that is embracing their young talent, so there really isn’t a scenario where Crews is taken out of the starting lineup this season. I think he has the potential to hit about .250-.260 with 18 home runs, 140 Runs+RBI, and 30 steals while getting over 600 plate appearances in Washington.
Spencer Strider, Cristopher Sánchez, and Christian Yelich are on the rise while Thairo Estrada’s injury takes him off the board.
Nolan Schanuel - 1B, Los Angeles Angels
Schanuel was mainly a pick for me in deeper formats, particularly in draft-and-hold leagues where I took him as my third first baseman. I also drafted him in an OBP format. In that sense, I'm a big fan of his locked-in plate appearances and his elite plate discipline. He has a career .354 on-base percentage and 5.6% swinging strike rate, so you have a hitter who has a tremendous understanding of the strike zone and rarely swings and misses. That's a solid foundation for a hitter who is just 23 years old to build off of. This spring, Schanuel has been pulling the ball noticeably more and also swinging far more often, which tells me that being aggressive in the strike zone towards his pull side is something he is working on. He also started to lift the ball more in the second half last year, which led to a .756 OPS in 59 games after the break. I see a talented hitter who is continuing to grow and evolve, and I'm OK getting shares of that in deeper formats.
Michael King - SP, San Diego Padres
As I discussed in my article on my starting pitcher draft strategy, I'm a proponent of waiting to draft starting pitching. That often led to me not drafting a starting pitcher until the fifth or sixth round, and Michael King was my preferred choice to lead my pitching staff if I waited. I have King as my 9th-ranked starting pitcher, and I don’t believe we’re giving enough credence to the fact that he posted a 2.81 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, and 27.6% strikeout rate in his final 29 starts of the season. I’m expecting 180 innings of goodness from King this year, and I think he is talented enough to b the ace of a fantasy staff.
Justin Steele, SP, Chicago Cubs
Since my strategy was to wait to draft my ace, I wanted to make sure I landed a solid SP2, and Justin Steele was one of my favorite targets to fill that role. Steele hurt his hamstring on Opening Day last year and then struggled to get back into rhythm when he returned, which is typical for pitchers after a lengthy absence. However, from May 27th to the end of the season, he posted a 2.47 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and 112/31 K/BB ratio in 109.1 innings. That’s pretty elite production. With the Cubs looking like a much-improved team, Steele should be a good bet for double-digit wins and 170 or more innings while producing solid ratios.
Max Fried - SP, New York Yankees
My starting pitcher draft strategy often led me to Max Fried. In leagues where I got sniped on Michael King, I waited even longer and made Fried my ace. However, in some leagues, Fried continued to fall, and I was actually able to draft him as my SP2 in the eighth round or later. I'm sure that he fell in those drafts (all 12-team leagues) because of his past forearm issues; however, I was happy to take the gamble when he dropped because he has been so consistent for the last four seasons, never posting an ERA higher than 3.25 or a WHIP higher than 1.16. Fried saw regression in his changeup in 2024, but that’s important for Fried since he’s a lefty, and that pitch is crucial for his success against righties. We have enough of a track record with that pitch that I think Fried can get it back on track, and his move to Yankee Stadium isn’t much of a downgrade from Truist Park, so I'm still in on the veteran.
Max Meyer - SP, Miami Marlins and Jack Leiter - SP, Texas Rangers
Once I fill my starting rotation, I'm looking just for upside with my bench starting pitchers. I want to take fliers on pitchers who have a pathway to elite upside. Those pathways don't always have to be easy, but I don't want safe and boring on my bench. I want to watch one or two starts of a starter and see if they're doing the thing I want them to do to unlock their upside. If not, I'm going to drop them and pick up a pitcher who looked dominant in their early outing. Meyer and Leiter were two of my favorite targets for that purpose, and I discussed both of them in detailin an article on pitchers being drafted late, who have top-25 upside.
Matt Shaw - 3B, Chicago Cubs
I drafted Shaw a lot early on when he was going around pick 250 and seemed like a good bet to open the season as the Cubs' third baseman. His minor league season last year showcased him as one of the most advanced hitters in the high minors. Add to that a power/speed combination that's alluring for fantasy, and I'm in. I do expect hiccups; transitioning to MLB pitching is a massive jump. However, Shaw has never struck out over 19% of the time at any level of the minors, so he's going to make contact. He also should run and will likely push for 20 steals this season since his walk rates have been high enough that he should continue to get on base even if the hits don't fall. Pencil in a .250 average and modest power in a rookie season, but you add 20 steals in a good lineup, and that makes him somebody worth grabbing for a bench role or CI role. The plus is that, in Yahoo formats (where a lot of my drafts were), Shaw is 2B/SS/3B eligible, which made him an ideal depth piece.
Jorge Polanco - 2B/3B, Seattle Mariners
Polanco was playing through a knee injury last year, but he's a career .263/.330/.435 hitter. Even in his poor year last year, he posted an 8.9% barrel rate, an above-average chase rate, and slightly below-average SwStr% and contact rates. His overall contact rates and swinging strike rates have been headed in the wrong direction for the last two seasons, but for the vast majority of his career, he has been a 77% contact rate guy or better. In spring training this year, he has an 85% contact rate and just a 7.2% SwStr%, so perhaps a lot of that regression was due to injury. Seattle is one of the worst offensive environments in baseball, so I don’t believe Polanco is getting back to his peak seasons; however, he could easily be a .260 hitter with 15+ home runs and 120 Runs+RBI in a decent lineup. Considering he will also be 2B/3B eligible early in the season after he starts the requisite number of games at third base, I think Polanco is a solid bench option in deeper formats.
David Bednar - RP, Pittsburgh Pirates
A lot of people were fading Bednar because the Pirates refused to name him as a closer, but I wasn't fazed. Who else were they really going to turn to? Plus, I was reading the great work at Reliever Recon, and they broke down each outing by Bednar this spring. He was solid early on and only had two bad outings, both of which were impacted by poor defensive plays behind him, which cost him outs and kept innings alive. His velocity has been good, and he started getting the fastball up in the zone, which has helped. He also spent the offseason tweaking the mechanical issues that he believed led to him tipping his pitches last year. Considering he was going around pick 190 in drafts over the last few weeks, I was happy to take some shares.
Bryson Stott - 2B, Philadelphia Phillies
I found myself waiting on 2B in some drafts when I locked up other positions earlier, and I had no problem turning to Stott as my 2B. He makes an elite amount of contact in the zone, has just a 6% swinging strike rate, and has stolen 30 or more bases in each of the last two seasons. We also know that he played through a knee injury last year, so I think we can attribute some of the massive dip in batting average to that. This spring, Stott has looked more patient at the plate, something he is admittedly working on, taking 13 walks to just six strikeouts in 17 games. Stott will likely push for a .260 average while hitting 15 home runs and stealing 30 bases in one of the best lineups in baseball and one of the best home parks for offense in baseball. I'm happy to have that profile on my team.
Yu Darvish - SP, San Diego Padres
Most of my Darvish shares were early in the draft season before he dealt with elbow inflammation, but I still believe there is a solid season coming from him. He battled through a few injuries in 2024 and also a mysterious personal issue that caused him to leave the team for an extended period and be placed on the exempt list. However, he had a decent year when he was on the mound, posting a 3.31 ERA and 1.07 WHIP in 16 starts. If you also take out the two starts in May before he went on the IL, where we know in hindsight that he was pitching through an injury, then he allowed 21 earned runs in 76 innings, which is a 2.47 ERA with 71 strikeouts. That’s a solid stretch of production. He has a deep arsenal of pitches that he can adjust depending on who he’s facing and what pitch feels good on a given day, which I like. I also like that he leaned into his slider more in 2024 because that’s been his best pitch. I’d have him ranked higher if he weren’t 38 years old and a bit of a health risk (which I can say because I’m 40).
Xander Bogaerts - 2B/SS, San Diego Padres
I guess I'm higher on Bogaerts than many others, but I think he's in for a solid floor type of season, and I was happy to keep waiting in drafts and add him as my MIF option. I see that many projections and fantasy analysts have him hitting around .250-.260 this season, and I don't know why. I know his batting average dipped last year, but he also fractured his shoulder and had to come back from that, which impacted his swing and swing mechanics. He's still an elite contact hitter, and I think a good bet for a .270 average, even if we bake in regression for his age. He has also maintained a floor as a 15-home run hitter and stole eight bases AFTER coming back from his fractured shoulder, so I still believe he's a good bet to swipe 15-20 bases in 2025. That means, I think drafting Bogarets gets you a .270 hitter with a 15/15 floor in a good lineup. I'm all for that as my MIF if I wait to fill the position.
Josh Jung - 3B, Texas Rangers
In drafts where I waited on 3B, I was more than happy to take Jung as my starter or my CI to ensure I had a decent backup 3B option. Last season at this time, Jung was the talk of the town. People were anticipating a major power breakout, and he was locked into an everyday role in a good lineup. The only thing that has changed a year later is that Jung battled wrist injuries throughout last season. Now, that's not nothing, but isn't that baked into the cost if you're getting him near pick 250? He's still 27 years old and barreled the ball 12% last season. His 25 home run upside remains, and he's a career .257 hitter, so he's not going to hurt you in batting average either. I think the Rangers might have the best lineup in the AL, and Jung should hit somewhere near the middle of it, which will help his counting stats, so I think he's been criminally overlooked this year.
Pavin Smith - 1B/OF, Arizona Diamondbacks
My Smith shares are limited to draft-and-hold formats and deeper mixed leagues, but he's 1B/OF eligible in Yahoo formats, and he's going to start at designated hitter against right-handed pitching. He's hit .300 this spring with an .882 OPS and looks ready to build on his solid season from last year. As I wrote in my article discussing hitters entering their peak seasons: "He has elite plate discipline, rarely expanding the strike zone or chasing pitches he can’t do damage on. Of course, that’s mainly against right-handed pitchers, and the Diamondbacks know that. Last season, 85% of Smith’s at-bats came against right-hand pitching, and he hit .270/.348/.547 with nine home runs and a .896 OPS in those 158 plate appearances. While that’s a small sample size, that’s a pretty strong indication of what Smith is capable of doing in a strong side platoon."
Matthew Pouliot