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The Itch

Author: The Itch

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The Itch

Prospect News: Dynasty Rankings: 2025 First-Year-Player Drafts

February 12, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 19 Comments

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1. Dodgers RHP Roki Sasaki 

He’s alone in this year’s class. I saw the 1.1 pick get traded for Logan Gilbert in a 15-team dynasty league. Other pieces were involved, but nothing to make the previous sentence untrue. Seems like a bit much for me. I prefer Gilbert by a long way and struggle to see how Sasaki could get even close to Gilbert’s 208.2 innings from 2024, never mind his 0.89 WHIP. This kind of trade is what makes dynasty leagues go round: sex v. substance. Door number three v. a car you could drive on the autobahn right now. Shop Sasaki if you have the chance to do so, is what I’m suggesting.

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The Itch

Top 100 Prospects For 2025 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball

February 9, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 11 Comments

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76. Mariners SS Colt Emerson | 19 | A+ | 2026

After the success of Cole Young, the Mariners went for a similar prospect at the 22 spot in the 2023 draft: Colt Emerson, a left-handed hitting middle infielder at 6’1” 195 lbs with excellent hands in the batter’s box. He came roaring out of the gate in his draft season but battled injury in 2024, missing two stretches and playing 70 games total, the final 29 coming at High-A, where Emerson was overmatched for the first time as a pro, slashing .225/.331/.317 with two home runs and nine stolen bases. If you’re looking at this ranking and thinking he’s way better than most guys you find in the sixth spot, you’re right. The Mariners have a handful of 50’s here; you could toggle them three-through-six to your specifications.

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The Itch

Top 75 Prospects For 2025 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball

February 5, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 12 Comments

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51. Rangers RHP Alejandro Rosario | 23 | A+ | 2025

At 6’1” 182 lbs, Rosario throws some of the easiest 100 mile-an-hour heat you can find. He mostly lives between 94 and 98, and the balance throughout his simple, from-the-stretch delivery allows all of his offerings to look the same, something that’s particularly devastating when paired with his 90 mph splitter. He can spot the slider well enough to bury or steal, and I’m not sure he’s going to find much resistance at Double-A after posting WHIPs of 0.87 and 0.99 at Low and High A ball.

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The Itch

Top 25 Prospects For 2025 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball

January 29, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 27 Comments

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1. Red Sox IF OF Kristian Campbell | 22 | AAA | 2025

Thanks in part to Campbell’s cooking in 2024, Boston has baseball’s best collection of position-player prospects right now. A fourth-round pick in 2023, he’s not exactly found money, but it’s not common to see a college hitter go from the 132nd pick to a consensus top five prospect in a calendar year, and a glow-up like that can alter a whole organization’s outlook. A right-handed hitter at 6’3” 191 lbs, Campbell worked with Boston’s coaches to alter his swing and unlock bat speed and generate a little more loft, and Soup responded by slashing .330/.439/.558 with 20 home runs and 24 steals in 115 games across three levels. He closed the season with 19 games at Triple-A, where he posted a .412 on base percentage with four homers and four steals. He’s listed here at all the positions he’s been playing in the minors, and while it seems likely he’ll settle in at second base or left field, it’s hard to put a ceiling on someone we just saw make a developmental leap on the other side of the ball. And for what it’s Werth, I wouldn’t quibble if anyone flipped Campbell and Anthony on any list. I swapped them back and forth a few times.

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The Itch

Prospect News: Cue The Synthesizer or The Price Of Valor

January 26, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 15 Comments

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I went as fast as I could this winter. Faster, sometimes. Last year, I completed the top ten lists when Razzball published the Rangers on February 7. This year, Razzball the Rangers’ list went live on January 22. No trick to it, really, just grinding it out, learning on my own in the fresh powder of rankings season. One of the true joys of this gig is having a reason to watch six-month-old minor league baseball games when it’s below zero around here. 

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The Itch

Texas Rangers Top 10 Prospects For 2025 Fantasy Baseball

January 22, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 9 Comments

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1. SS Sebastian Walcott | 19 | AA | 2026

Here’s what I wrote for last year’s list:

“An extreme athlete at 6’4” 190 lbs with double-plus power and easy plus speed, Walcott has a path to becoming baseball’s top prospect by this time next year. He’s smooth enough on defense to project a future at shortstop and jumped Low-A to join the High-A team as it headed toward the playoffs. In 35 games on the complex, Walcott slashed .273/.325/.524 with seven home runs, nine steals and 51 strikeouts. Anyone pumping the brakes on him is especially concerned with this last piece because Walcott has some swing-and-miss in his game that could become an issue if the contact skills don’t make a leap as he ages up.”

I dropped that in here because it’s pretty close to what I’d write about Walcott this winter, particularly the number one prospect part, the best argument against which might be that he’s there already. In 121 games, the final five in Double-A, Walcott slashed .265/.344/.452 with 11 home runs, 27 stolen bases and a 25.6 percent strikeout rate. He was 4.1 years younger than the average at High-A and 6.2 years younger than the average in Double-A. 

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The Itch

Seattle Mariners Top 10 Prospects For 2025 Fantasy Baseball

January 19, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 7 Comments

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1. OF Lazaro Montes | 20 | A+ | 2026

At 6’4” 256 lbs with a picturesque swing from the left side, Montes invites visual comps to Yordan Alvarez and embraces them, incorporating regular video study and modeling his own game after the Houston slugger’s. In 116 games across two levels, he slashed .288/.397/.484 with 21 home runs, five stolen bases and 105 RBIs. I don’t mention RBIs much around here, but that’s almost a ribbie per game, which you don’t see a lot these days in the minors, especially among guys who take their walks (14.4 percent for Montes in 2024). All in all, I’ve been among the high rankers on Montes throughout his pro career, ranking him first on this list last season. He’s still ranked after Cole Young and Colt Emerson by a lot of outlets despite both of those guys having down seasons in 2024. That’s understandable given they were young for their levels, and Young had to hit in tough park at Double-A Arkansas, but if Montes produces power at 20 years old in that setting, he should earn the prospect shine elsewhere that he’s been getting here.

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The Itch

Sacramento Athletics Top 10 Prospects For 2025 Fantasy Baseball

January 15, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 13 Comments

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1. 1B Nick Kurtz | 22 | AA | 2025

At 6’5” 240 from the left side, Kurtz fits the prototype of a high-OBP, big-power corner bat. The Athletics selected fourth overall and sent him to Low-A, where he slashed .400/.571/.960 with four home runs in seven games. So naturally, the team sent him right by High-A and onto Double-A Midland, where he hit .300 for five games before a hamstring strain ended his regular season. He got back in action during the fall and played well enough that he might get a long look in training camp as the team will be eager to generate fan interest. 

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The Itch

Los Angeles Angels Top 10 Prospects For 2025 Fantasy Baseball

January 12, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 1 Comment

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1. 2B Christian Moore | 22 | AA | 2025

Grey wrote about Moore the other day. Here’s a link to his 2025 Fantasy Outlook. 

After leading Tennessee to a national title, Moore slashed .322/.378/.533 with five home runs and two stolen bases in 23 Double-A games. We might’ve seen him in the majors if not for injury, and he might open the season in the majors. 

 

2. RHP Caden Dana | 21 | MLB | 2025

A prototypical innings-eater type at 6’4” 215 lbs with easy velocity and three off-speed pitches, Dana repeats his delivery well and commands his arsenal with a deftness beyond his years. He dominated Double-A as a 20-year-old and forced a late-season promotion to LA of A even in a lost season. Well, that might be stretching it a bit. They could’ve just promoted him to Triple-A after he logged a 2.52 ERA in 135.2 innings in Double-A, but that wouldn’t have the same flair as sending him straight to the majors. Probably should’ve sent him to Triple-A around the hundred-inning mark.

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The Itch

Houston Astros Top 10 Prospects For 2025 Fantasy Baseball

January 8, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 10 Comments

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1. 3B Cam Smith | 22 | AA | 2025

The 14th overall pick by the Cubs in this summer’s draft, Smith skipped blissfully through the A-levels in just 27 games, blasting six home runs in 15 Low-A games and slashing .333/.421/.500 in 12 High-A games before rounding out the season with five games with Double-A Tennessee. Houston saw enough to target the 6’3” 224 lb righty in the Kyle Tucker trade. Smith gives the club a ready-soon third-base prospect in the wake of Alex Bregman’s departure, though with Isaac Paredes also in town, Smith may have to try some outfield.  

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The Itch

Minnesota Twins Top 10 Prospects For 2025 Fantasy Baseball

January 5, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 10 Comments

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1. OF Walker Jenkins | 20 | AA | 2026

A left-handed hitter at 6’3” 210 lbs, Jenkins walked more than he struck out and slashed .282/.394/.439 in 82 professional games during his first full season. The sixth overall pick in the stacked 2023 class, Jenkins took the top spot on this list last year and is the odds-on favorite to claim it again next season unless the Twinkies really slam the gas on his development: an outcome he might invite with a hot start at Double-A. 

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