No Major League Baseball team has played more than seven games as of February 26, and none of them have actually counted for anything, but what else are we going to use to evaluate who we need for our fantasy baseball squads? This early in Spring Training, we are living and dying by every home run and 99 mile per hour pitch. It’s all we’ve got!
In the aggregate, Spring Training stats are mostly meaningless, but things like playing time, usage, and lineup spots can be useful information. Players who are buzzy who end up with tremendous or terrible springs are also hard to ignore.
There are still several big names yet to debut in Spring Training, such as Jose Altuve, Wyatt Langford, Shohei Ohtani, and Rafael Devers. But most players are several games into 2025 Spring Training, including many of the fringe fantasy baseball pieces who are fighting for a job and playing time. This piece will look at some MLB fantasy assets that have seen their fantasy value rise and fall in the first week of Spring Training games.
ADP is taken from the past seven days of NFBC drafts.
Spring Training Risers
Michael Busch (1B), Chicago Cubs – NFBC ADP: 248.1
After an uneven season that at times saw Michael Busch hit homers in six straight games and at times looked like he needed a trip back to the minors, Busch was looking for a hot start to spring. Mission accomplished. In his first 13 plate appearances, Busch is hitting .417/.462/.750 with five hits and seven RBI. He has looked patient and decisive at the plate and is destroying every pitcher he faces.
Most of the Cubs’ offseason chatter centered around Kyle Tucker, rookie Matt Shaw, the chase for Alex Bregman, and the development of Pete Crow-Armstrong. Busch has been lost in the shuffle, but he might have just as much potential and room for improvement as anyone on the roster. Busch’s splits took a nosedive in the second half last year, thanks to an increase in his ground ball rate. If Busch can keep the ball in the air more in 2025, the sky is the limit for his immense power.
Matt McLain (2B), Cincinnati Reds – NFBC ADP: 83.3
Perhaps you saw what Matt McLain did in Wednesday’s game against the Los Angeles Angels. Before he was removed, McLain went 3-for-3 with two doubles, a home run, and two RBI. He is now hitting .500 with a 1.625 OPS this spring and looks fully recovered from 2024 injuries that kept him out of the entire season. Drafters have been cautious with him and his immense upside, taking him after pick 80, but that might change after his blistering start to Spring Training.
Lest we forget, in 2023, McLain went off for a .290 average, .507 slugging percentage, 16 home runs, and 14 steals in just over half a season. It’s that tantalizing talent that made him a top 70 pick on many sites heading into last season. He, of course, became one of the biggest busts when he did not play a game last year, but all signs point to “Healthy” for 2025. Despite the roster crunch in Cincinnati, if McLain is healthy, he is going to play second base and likely bat third in this potent lineup in one of the best hitter parks in all of baseball. This ADP might look like a steal a month from now.
Clay Holmes (SP), New York Mets – NFBC ADP: 268.0
Injuries to Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas have kicked the door wide open for Clay Holmes to claim a starting spot in this New York Mets rotation and never look back. He is starting to creep up draft boards and ADP trackers thanks to this news, but he is still languishing closer to pick 300 than 200 because Holmes has not made a start in the Major Leagues since 2018. He moved to a reliever role, although his background was as a starter. When the Mets signed him this offseason for three years and $38 million, they made it clear they wanted him to start. And it’s a good thing considering the infirmary state of their rotation.
Holmes has four straight seasons with a K/9 rate over 9.2 and has an ERA of 3.60 or lower in each of those seasons. He never gives up home runs (0.53 HR/9 for his career) and has a 66% groundball rate in his seven seasons in MLB. That’s the key to success as a starter, and as he gets stretched out this spring, it’s more important than ever that he give the Mets those kinds of quality innings. Some drafters are starting to take notice. He has been selected as high as 235 in the last seven days.
There may come a time this spring when his ADP is approaching 200 with some strong outings in Florida.
Spring Training Fallers
Nolan Jones (OF), Colorado Rockies – NFBC ADP: 257.7
You remember Nolan Jones, right? The fantasy darling of 2024 who was drafted around pick 55 overall ahead of last season because of a 2023 campaign that saw him go 20/20 in just 106 games. The injury bug struck in 2024, which sapped his batted ball and speed abilities. Badly. Jones finished 2024 with just three home runs and five steals in 79 games. A .227/.321/.320 line with a 30% strikeout rate was the icing on the crap cake, leading to Nolan Jones being drafted a full 200 picks later this offseason.
With Jones fully healthy, he had something to prove this Spring Training. But if he wants to do that, he is going to have to do something, ANYTHING, to make fantasy managers buy back in. Through 13 plate appearances, Jones has a .000/.077/.000 slash line with four strikeouts and no RBI. We can’t read too much into this small a sample, but if you’re a Jones truther, this is music to your ears. He will continue to be drafted around pick 250 or later until he shows signs of life.
He will hit in the middle third of the Colorado lineup and will play half his games in Coors Field. There is potential here, but Jones isn’t tapping into it yet.
Jo Adell (OF), Los Angeles Angels – NFBC ADP: 292.9
Jo Adell had a lot of questions to answer heading into 2025. First, how does one hit 20 home runs and steal 15 bases in just 130 games when he can barely keep his average above the Mendoza line (.207)? Second, considering 130 games was more than 40 more than he had ever played in his career with the Angles, can he ever stay consistent and healthy enough to play a whole season? Adell put up the counting stats in 2024, and he cut his strikeout rate and bumped up his walk rate. But is he actually reliable? His start to spring does not inspire confidence.
I’m not sure how many .000/.000/.000 guys are making a case for fantasy relevance, but that’s what Adell has put up through four games. Right now, Jo Adell is penciled into the centerfield spot for the Angels (thanks to Mike Trout moving to right field), but Adell is not free from competition. Mickey Moniak is right there on the roster and provides a left-handed bat that would make up a strong side of a platoon. If Adell doesn’t pick it up, he could be looking at an OF4 role on this team before too long.
Luis Castillo (SP), Seattle Mariners – NFBC ADP: 108.0
There are some troubling trends settling in for Luis Castillo, and now the once-upon-a-time top-12 pitcher has fallen outside the top 100 in early drafts this spring. In 2024, Castillo’s K/9 rate was just 8.98, his lowest since his first full season in MLB in 2018. That’s partly due to the fact that his fastball velocity last year (95.7 mph) was the lowest of his entire career. Combine those two things with a 39% ground ball rate (for his career, he is at 48.5%), and that’s a recipe for potential disaster this season. This spring, Castillo must show some course correction here to keep fantasy managers confident that his skills have not eroded to the point where he is no longer trustworthy.
Castillo still has cavernous T-Mobile Park as his home stadium, so that always helps. But even with that assistance, his 1.28 HR/9 was his highest ratio since 2018. His 41.7% hard hit rate tied the highest of his career, and his 16.3-degree launch angle allowed was by far the highest. At age 32, it’s possible this is just a pitcher in slow decline, but a cliff could always come, and we don’t want Castillo on our fantasy teams when he finds it.
