2025 MLB Risers And Fallers: Mid-Spring Training Edition

With only about two weeks left until every Major League Baseball team has had their Opening Day, we are officially on the back nine of 2025 Spring Training. If you haven’t had it already, your fantasy baseball draft is likely coming up in one of the next two weekends. That means it’s time to take stock of which players have helped and hurt their positions this spring.

There are still plenty of players coming back from injury (Ronald Acuna Jr., Grayson Rodriguez, Spencer Steer, etc.). We also know of some players who are likely to be out for a long time (Looking at you, Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, and Giancarlo Stanton – yikes, imagine being a Yankees fan). But this piece will look at who has impacted their stock just by their play alone.

Spring Training stats may not count for much, but they’re all we’ve got here in mid-March. ADP is taken from the past seven days of NFBC drafts.

Spring Training Risers

Rhys Hoskins (1B/DH), Milwaukee Brewers – NFBC ADP: 260.4

The 2024 season was a mixed bag of results for first baseman Rhys Hoskins after he missed all of the 2023 season with a knee injury. He did end up with 26 home runs and 82 RBI, but it came with a .214/.303/.419 slash and a 29% strikeout rate. The hard-hit rate was way down. So were his exit velocity and walk rate. Some rust was expected after missing an entire year, but now the Brewers hope he is all the way back. If Spring Training this year is any indication, he definitely is.

Hoskins is second in all of baseball with five home runs this spring, to go along with a .350/.480/1.100 line that includes five walks and just six strikeouts. Those five home runs have come in just 25 plate appearances so far. It appears the power is back, as well as his timing. The best news for Hoskins is that the loss of Willy Adames to the Giants means he is likely hitting fourth or fifth every day. Hitting right after on-base machines Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich, and William Contreras should help Hoskins easily pay the return on investment after pick 250 in drafts.

Pete Crow-Armstrong (OF), Chicago Cubs – NFBC ADP: 128.0

Though just 27 plate appearances before the Chicago Cubs flew over to Japan, Pete Crow-Armstrong had a whopping 14 hits. While that’s impressive enough, he also has three home runs and 11 RBI. For context, PCA had 10 home runs in 410 plate appearances last season. Is there power beginning to emerge from the 22-year-old phenom? If so, PCA is going to be drafted in the top 50 next year if he realizes the power/speed potential (27 steals last season).

Last season, PCA hit 38% of his batted balls on the ground, and just 19.9% were line drives. So far this spring, he has 25% balls on the ground and 40%(!) line drives. Even if those line drives don’t turn into home runs during the regular season, it is a recipe for getting his batting average up over the .237 he displayed in 2024. I’m drafting PCA wherever I can this spring. For me, it’s a clear “come for the steals, stay for the unexpected pop” situation brewing.

Casey Mize (SP), Detroit Tigers – NFBC ADP: 445.5

If you’re looking for that deep, DEEP sleeper pitcher that is being drafted in almost zero home leagues outside of Detroit Michigan, Casey Mize might be your guy. He has been getting a lot of buzz in camp, including a crazy 106 miles per hour pitch that (while likely not accurate) shows his velocity bump in this post-hype sleeper. Mize has 14 strikeouts in 11.1 innings and has not given up an earned run as of March 12th. Because of injuries to many of their veterans, Mize now appears locked into a rotation spot to start the season, and now he just needs to show that he deserves it all year.

If you recall, the scrutiny on the Tigers in their improbable postseason run last season was that they had Tarik Skubal and not much else among starters. Now, with Skubal, Jack Flaherty, Mize, and the up-and-coming Jackson Jobe, the Tigers’ rotation looks formidable. For now, however, Mize is buried around pick 450 in drafts and can be had literally for free. If there are many more innings like he has already compiled this spring, we are going to start to see that ADP begin to shoot up.

Spring Training Fallers

Jasson Dominguez (OF), New York Yankees – NFBC ADP: 136.7

Not that the Yankees have much choice with all of the injuries that have plagued their camp, but prized rookie Jasson Dominguez is not making things easy for himself with the bat this spring. He has knocked a pair of home runs but has just a .229/.270/.400 line. Most importantly, Dominguez has struck out eight times in 35 at-bats and has a 5-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio.

Dominguez will be the Yankees’ primary left fielder this season, but he has some work to do to get to the 20/20 with a .250 average that most projection systems have for Dominguez right now. The problem has been with ground balls so far this spring. He has a 56.5% ground ball rate after having a 62.2% ground ball rate in 2024. That’s not enough improvement if Dominguez wants to reach his full potential.

Kristian Campbell (2B), Boston Red Sox – NFBC ADP: 303.5

The stars are seemingly aligning for Krisitan Campbell to take the Boston Red Sox’s second base job as a rookie right out of camp. Rafael Devers finally came out and said he would be willing to DH. That moves Alex Bregman to third, Masataka Yoshida to the bench (or outfield platoon), and Campbell or David Hamilton at second base. I think the Red Sox want to see what they have in Campbell, but what they’ve seen so far is “not much.”

Boston is giving him all the chances in the world to win the job, especially with 13 games and 35 plate appearances already. But in those chances, he has only hit .167/.286/.200 with no home runs or RBIs, and 12 strikeouts to just five walks. Deeper leagues are still drafting this rookie, even just based on potential. But if he can’t get his swing together, this is going to be a long audition just for him to end up back in the minor leagues for a little more seasoning before he is ready to take over the keystone position.

Jose Soriano (SP), Los Angeles Angels – NFBC ADP: 325.9

On seemingly everyone’s deep sleeper pitcher list this offseason, Jose Soriano has done a lot to try and temper those expectations with his performance this spring. The elite strikeouts are still there, with 12.5 K/9 during Spring Training. But basically, everything else has gone off the rails. His ERA is 5.79 across 9.1 innings. He has walked 7.7 batters per nine innings, which is clearly not acceptable to be a part of any Major League rotation.

The thing working in Soriano’s favor is that the Angels really don’t have many other options for the starting rotation. Yusei Kikuchi, Tyler Anderson, and Kyle Hendricks are locks. Reid Detmers is likely a reluctant lock after his digression last year. Prospect Caden Dana will eventually come up this year, but he is not quite ready yet. That means Jose Soriano is in this rotation, but it looks like it might be a bumpy ride, at least to start the season. If Soriano can harness his control, he can rely on his strikeouts and a 60% groundball rate from 2024 to fool batters. But he’s got to get it in the strike zone first.