FAAB Week 0: The Ground Rules

Helloooooo Razzballers! Welcome back to the weekly FAAB column, where I will cover players to add in fantasy leagues of all shapes and sizes out there along with my suggested bid levels.

It’s likely that your free agent bidding process isn’t even scheduled to begin until the official Opening Day occurs or if it is open, the movement might be minimal. So before we dive into some immediate pickups, let’s outline the important principles I use to create my suggestions.

1. Use the available tools. This column is a magical combination of me scouring depth charts, lineups and leaderboards over various timespans while relying on my 25-ish years (good god) of fantasy playing experience in leagues of all types and talent levels to get a solid list of addable players. However, one source of information rules them all – our Razzball tools. This includes the Player Rater (which I review religiously over all time spans for hot and cold players), the Hittertron, and the Streamonator. These are essential tools that keep my, at times, overly zealous takes in check and helps to uncover overlooked players.
2. Playing time rules. The main reasons we are driven to the waiver wire player pool is to replace injured and/or struggling players to fill lineup gaps. It’s impossible to win a fantasy league if stats aren’t being accrued. Because of those factors, I really emphasize playing time so volume stats can be gained in all roto categories. Players higher in lineups, not in platoons, and in the major leagues are the main focus. Of course, the deeper the league, the bigger shot required, so then I will start speculating on Triple-A players in Only leagues to find the next big thing.
3. Know your league. The first step in being successful at free agent bidding is understanding all the ins-and-outs of the rules. What day and time does the bidding run? What’s the total budget? Step two is knowing the league a bit. Do players bid aggressively at the beginning of the year or at the trade deadline? Are others streaming two-start pitchers too? What is everyone’s favorite team? My bid suggestions are a percentage of the overall FAAB budget, so they can be adjusted for all set ups, but toggle the bids up or down based on nuances of your leaguemates or desperation of your roster.
4. Be aggressive early. Considering points #2 and #3 above, I prefer to spend my budgeted dollars early because you get a sense of teams’ understanding of player talents and expected 2025 playing time pretty early. I want to snatch up those guys with solid lineup spots and rotation turns quickly to try and capture a whole season’s worth of value. The player pool only gets murkier and more diluted throughout the season. Need evidence? In week one last year, I was suggesting adding the likes of Garrett Crochet and Jordan Westburg. By the end… it was Frankie Montas and Brendan Rodgers. (One constant, as long-time readers around here will know, was and will always be Tommy Pham.) Stashing dollars away in hopes of adding the latest hot prospect in June now is often a fruitless endeavor. Plus, let’s hope I suggest you add such a prospect a few weeks early when he is much cheaper. Certainly, this strategy changes a bit in AL- and NL-Only leagues, in which players that cross the AL/NL divide at the trade deadline become available. But again, there’s a lot of risk in holding dollars in the hopes the right player comes along to fulfill a fantasy team’s needs and having to win that bid.
5. Watch trends. I source a lot of my data from CBS because they offer great tracking of the ups-and-downs of global roster rates in their standard league data. In addition, the CBS leagues tend to be relatively sharp because that’s where Tout Wars used to run, plus lots of expert leagues and competitive home leagues live there. And lastly, it’s easier to distinguish what type of league a player can be available in on CBS compared to elsewhere. My rule of thumb is always typically 20-to-50% rostership are available in 10/12-team leagues, less than 20% rostership is available in 15-teamers, and Only leagues are generally 5% and less. If you can get a sense of who the “hot” players are in your player pool using whatever metrics you can obtain (Fantrax will also provide great rostership change data), bids can be adjusted accordingly. It might cost more to obtain someone that is rising up those add charts while you could save some FAAB bucks if someone is flying under the radar.
6. Have fun. You’re getting fantasy advice from Razzball.com, fer cryin’ out loud. A fortnight ago, fellow member of the Saturday Crew, RotoSurgeon, titled his piece Call This Week Kirby, It Sucks And Blows with a pic of everyone’s favorite pink Smash Bros character (go to hell, Jigglypuff!). We are toying around with the backend of rosters with these pickups, so be aggressive and pursue players you want to watch. There’s also a reason they are available. They have flaws or are employed by the White Sox and Rockies. We have to laugh to keep from crying that the best outfield option in that NFBC league might just be Tommy Pham cause he’s leading off every day again.

With all of that in mind, I won’t do a full blown analysis of player blurbs with QUICK HITS per usual. Mostly because this is still pre-season for all teams but the Dodgers and Cubs, and we need some real game action outside of Spring Training to see how each MLB roster will be filled out and deployed. But until then, there are still some pretty easy wins that warrant adding to teams before Opening Day because they didn’t rise up draft boards or opportunities and skills have changed.

This column will also shade heavily into weekly streamers as the season progresses. I’ll call out juicy matchups, trips to Colorado (and now Sacramento and Tampa), two-start weeks, and other schedule anomalies. But for now, we’re focused on players that just need to be rostered for what 2025 could provide on the whole.

The stats and ownership percentages below are updated as of noon central time on 3/21.

As always, if you want advice on specific roster decisions you might have, feel free to leave a comment. You can also find me on BlueSky (@mcouill7.bsky.social).

CATCHERS

10/12 Team Adds

Ivan Herrera (STL, 44% CBS Rostership) – The Cardinals have said that Herrera will be splitting time at catcher with Pedro Pages in roughly an equal time share, but I don’t think that lasts long. With Paul Goldschmidt in the Bronx and Nolan Arenado’s mummified corpse biding time until a trade candidate bites, the Cardinals lineup is lacking dependable high-end bats. Herrera and his career .289/.365/.398 (117 wRC+) slash line over 325 plate appearances can provide a great boost to the St. Louis offense, making it easy for him to move up the order and claim more plate appearances. All of the projection systems have Herrera pegged for a .255 to .260 batting average, but he’s been hitting .280 or better at every stop since 2023. In addition, the 24-year-old rounds out his game with a solid plate approach and great eye. This is all of the makings for a breakout season from Herrera, who I think can easily push himself into the top 10 fantasy catchers in 2025. (5% FAAB)

15 Team Adds

Danny Jansen (TBR, 14% CBS Rostership) – Get ready for lots of Rays player suggestions around here this season, as it looks like George M. Steinbrenner Field is gonna be very pro-offense thanks to a jet stream in right field. In addition, just watch some Grapefruit League action, and one will see the wind is insane across all of Florida. Add in some heat along with the Rays getting out of a dome in which the lighting clearly toyed with batters’ ability to track pitches (just ask Willy Adames), and we could be seeing lots of Tampa bats with bloated home batting lines a la 2021 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in Dunedin. Jansen has locked himself in as the main Rays catcher thanks to a bananas .320/.452/.640 line (180 wRC+) in spring. 2025 could be the year we finally see the former Blue Jay crack the 20-homer mark along with solid run and RBI production.  (5-7% FAAB)

INFIELDERS

10/12 Team Adds

Luke Raley (1B/OF, SEA, 35% CBS Ownership) – After MLB.com’s Mike Petriello confirmed this offseason what most of us knew about T-Mobile Park (TLDR: it’s a dogshit place to hit a baseball), I’ve been heavily fading all Seattle players for fantasy purposes. However, someone with a nickname of Nuke like Raley is the type of player with other worldly power (and a 90th percentile sprint speed!) to overcome such a problem. The 30-year-old fared well in his first season with the M’s, posting a .243 average with 22 bombs and 11 steals in just 455 plate appearances. Stretch those numbers out to a non-even-full season of 600 PAs, and that’s 30/15 production, which I think Raley can easily reach since the cold corner is his for the taking in Seattle. (3-5% FAAB)

15 Team Adds

Michael Massey (2B, KCR, 12% CBS Rostership) – There were plenty of doubts about Massey’s role on the Royals following the trade for Jonathan India. However, the 26-year-old has carved out plenty of playing time with KC thanks to the acquisition of an outfielder’s glove, manning left field often in the Cactus League. Massey will pick up OF eligibility very quickly and can be a perfect utility player for fantasy in which .250 with 15 bombs and five steals is his baseline with plenty of upside given his 8.4% career barrel rate. (3% FAAB)

Ty France (1B, MIN, 9% CBS Rostership) – France was one of those players swallowed alive by T-Mobile Park the past few years, and then the injury bug, specifically a fractured heel, sealed his fate in a lost 2024 season. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli has already stated that the 1B job is Ty’s to start 2025 after signing with Minnesota on Feb. 15. With how thin first base is this year, France’s baseline offering of 18-20 homers with a .250 average and 70-ish runs and RBI is a much needed salve. Then you consider that he could easily move up in the Twins lineup thanks to Royce Lewis’ latest injury and Byron Buxton’s pending one, and you’ve got free money sitting on that waiver wire right now. (3% FAAB)

OUTFIELDERS

10/12 Team Adds

Jake McCarthy (ARI, 34% CBS Rostership) – Around this site through 2023 and 2024, we dogged McCarthy because his career 3.2% barrel rate and 26.2% HardHit rate just weren’t substantial enough to warrant his former draft prices. Now, the hate might have gone too far as McCarthy is sitting in free agent pools in shallower leagues (heck, he didn’t get drafted until deep in the reserves of my most competitive 12-team auction). His defense should keep him in the lineup regularly, which makes him a perfect pairing for a team that is lacking in speed if the first round pick was Juan Soto or Yordan Alvarez. I’m penciling in McCarthy for a .270 average with 8-10 homers and 35 steals this season, and that should play just about everywhere. (5% FAAB)

15 Team Adds

Victor Scott II (STL, 17% CBS Rostership) – Last season, I went a bit overboard in the first week’s column following Scott making the team out of camp. I was enamored with the 94 steals the speed demon accrued in his 2023 minor-league campaign but did also acknowledge it could fall apart quickly given that the Cardinals were looking to compete in 2024. Well, 2025 is a different story, and Scott looks like a much more well-rounded player as he’s slashed .359/.457/.692 with three homers and five steals across 46 spring plate appearances while steamrolling Mike Siani en route to the starting CF job. This is still a high-risk profile to acquire steals, but the ceiling is absurd especially if he carries over his plate discipline from the Grapefruit League to the regular season (currently sporting a 15.2% walk rate). If anything, you need to roster Scott just to prevent him from falling into the hands of a leaguemate and taking off. If the 24-year-old struggles out the gate, feel free to cut bait fast, but I’m holding out hope the second go at the majors clicks for Scott. (5% FAAB)

STARTING PITCHERS

10/12 Team Adds

AJ Smith-Shawver (ATL, 20% CBS Rostership) – The youthful Smith-Shawver entered Atlanta camp this season with a remote chance at a rotation spot given the cohorts around him and his 5.62 FIP in 89 minor-league innings last year. It was going to require either some injuries to others or significant performance for the 22-year-old to break camp. Well, it couldn’t have gone better for Smith-Shawver as his 1.49 FIP, 33.3% K-rate, and 5.6% BB-rate across 12 spring innings have earned him the fifth rotation spot in Atlanta. He needs to be rostered everywhere in case this is the breakout year in which he reaches 150 innings. AJ is capable of pitching to an ERA in the mid-to-low threes with more than a K per inning while staring down 15 wins. (5-7% FAAB)

15 Team Adds

Simeon Woods Richardson (MIN, 10% CBS Rostership) – Woods Richardson has been solid in the Grapefruit League, tossing a 0.82 ERA (3.83 FIP) with a 19.6% K-rate over 11 innings. Pretty okay stuff and enough to get him a spot in the Minnesota rotation, so what makes him the suggestion here? The Twins schedule is an absolute boon for pitching matchups to open the first month of the season, creating some of the best streaming opportunities. It goes as follows: @ STL (weak offense in a pitcher’s park), @ CHW (need I say more?), vs HOU (occurring April 3-6 in frigid Minnesota), @ KCR, vs DET, vs NYM, @ ATL (okay, skip this weekend), vs CHW, vs LAA, @ CLE. Every Twins starter should be rostered in just about every league until the calendar turns to May because of that mix of weak teams and home games likely to be played with snow flurries… buy now. (1-3% FAAB)

RELIEVERS

Tyler Holton (DET, 22% CBS Rostership) – I’m already dreading having to suggest and analyze relievers every week (thank god JKJ is masochistic enough to help out on this front). Bullpens across the league are pure chaos in the year of our lord 2025. There will be saves to be had in Colorado and Chicago (Southside), but do you really want them? Can you handle the frustration of owning the wrong dude in one of the myriads of committees? Lock in Holton now, who is a ratios savior and is the only arm in the league with a solid chance of sniffing double-digit wins and saves to avoid the game of Russian Roulette 2025 will hold in the reliever free agent pool. (3-5% FAAB)