Prospect News: Spring Winds or Is There A Draft In Here?

February 22, 2026 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 8 Comments

My plan for the day is to share some of my first-year-player drafting process, starting where I left off with the Razz 30 write-ups. Click here to see the first three rounds. In the article, you’ll find the first 90 picks from a highly competitive 30-team league in which everyone has a pretty good idea what they’re doing.

My first four picks were Padres 2B Sung Mug Song (1.26), Tigers P Drew Anderson (2.56), Dodgers RP Edgardo Henriquez (3.80) and Reds RP Connor Phillips (3.86).

I still feel good about the third-rounders, but the Padres and Tigers have both added a lot of playing time competition where there was once an open runway. I still like both players, and I’d still make the Song pick, but it’s a peak at how quickly things can change this time of year.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Prospect News: First-Year-Player Draft Dynasty Rankings

February 18, 2026 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 11 Comments

by: The Itch

My FYPD rankings have changed more over this winter than any I can remember. Some of it is just the OCD in action, but I think it’s mostly because class is especially tricky to sort. This sequence is the best I could come up with for now for a typical dynasty league, but every context is different in every dynasty league. I just drafted Red Sox C Carlos Narvaez at the end of the 2nd round in a league I won last year. Sure, I could’ve tried to draft a prospect and trade that for a catcher, but sometimes it’s better just to take the guy who best fits your build during a contention cycle. Good luck out there in your leagues.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Prospect News: Razz 30 First-Year-Player Draft

February 8, 2026 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 8 Comments

by: The Itch

The Razz 30 off-season is a tradition like no other. Owners slowly trim their rosters from 50-something players (43 spots with unlimited IL) down to the required 25 total, bartering over mid-round draft picks and borderline droppable players. It’s quite the party, and after a couple hundred trades have been made, we begin the First-Year-Player Draft.

1. White Sox 3B Munetaka Murakami

2. Blue Jays 3B Kazuma Okamoto

3. Astros RHP Tatsuya Imai

4. Mariners LHP Kade Anderson

I wouldn’t put Murakami in the top group, but he’ll probably go that high in most leagues, and Okamoto will probably go a little lower as people chase upside over present production at the top of their drafts. Likely wouldn’t be picking that high if they had enough right-now juice in the categories to contend. Even in a rebuild, I’d be tempted to take Okamoto. If he hits right away, you can trade him for more or just build around him heading into 2027. I don’t advocate for rebuilds with long tails anyway. I think the goal should be an 18-24 month turnaround, and you have to start stacking functional pieces at some point. Why not start with Okamoto? Well, if he doesn’t hit in his first MLB season, his value will be pretty much shot. There’s some safety in far-away players like Ethan Holliday because he doesn’t have to generate big outcomes to keep his dynasty stock alive for a couple years. Or so goes that theory anyway. Every league is different though. In the Razz 30, a bad 2026 from Holliday could tank his stock just as quickly as a bad 2026 would tank Okamoto’s.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Cleveland Guardians Top 10 Prospects For 2026 Fantasy Baseball

December 3, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 7 Comments

by: The Itch

Format = Position Player | Age on 4/1/2026 | Highest Level Played | Estimated Time of Arrival

1. OF Chase DeLauter | 23 | MLB | 2025

Here’s what Grey had to say the other day in his 2026 Fantasy Outlook for DeLauter:

“He’s a monster lefty bat who takes a ton of walks. That’s who he is. It’s who he’s been for a few years. He went 7/1/.264 with a 15.8 walk and strikeout rate. Yes, 15.8% for both. He’s a .380 OBP guy with power. In my rookie outlook post for him last year, I said, “So, he’s old. Not like dinosaur old, but Chase DeLauter is 23 and played less than 40 games last year in the minors. Does he have proclivity for injuries? By the way, you can’t say proclivity aloud without sounding like Dr. Evil.”

Great take. You don’t even have to say it aloud. Once you put “proclivity” in your head with Dr. Evil’s voice, that’s the way it stays. And it’s fun. I kinda can’t stop doing it. Anyway, I think DeLauter is the front-runner for rookie of the year. Unless Cleveland sends him back to Triple-A again, where he would almost certainly get injured riding a bus or sleeping on a couch or picking a fight with a mascot who hits the gym a lot.

PS: I’ve been watching TENET off and on today, and I feel like there’s a connection to DeLauter’s development path. I mean he just POOF appeared out of nowhere in the playoff lineup. Perhaps his timeline has been inverted.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Prospect News: 2025 First-Year-Player Draft Rankings

July 27, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 5 Comments

by: The Itch

Off the top, I want to point out how this draft and the one before it are great examples of why you should NOT tank in dynasty leagues. Last year’s class was so stacked, you could’ve landed Cam Smith with a pick at the end of round one, as happened in one of my leagues. This year, there’s not much of a difference between the top fifteen or so, and there’s no fast-moving monster among the college bats.

1. Mariners LHP Kade Anderson

2. Rockies SS Ethan Holliday

3. Marlins SS Avia Arquette

4. Reds SS Steele Hall

In a class without an obvious bat at the top, Kade Anderson in Seattle represents the best combination of proximity and upside. Easily the top pick in a league where quality pitching is at all hard to find. The shallower the league, the more I’d lean Holliday here.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Collegiate Corner: The Big Zaborowski

April 3, 2025 | 2025 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 5 Comments

by: Hobbs

College baseball is in full swing. Conference play is underway, games are hitting ESPN’s family of networks, and I can be found perusing ballpark exteriors sampling various hot dogs and sausages until my stomach turns into a hodgepodge of partially-cooked Southern meats. There’s almost too much baseball to take in this time of year, when the heart of the college slate meets the excitement of the start of the MLB season. But look no further than the Houston Astros’ Opening Day roster, which features 2024 draftee Cam Smith starting in the outfield on a regular basis. Smith played just two seasons at Florida State before becoming a first-round draft choice by Houston last summer, and is now positioned to be a regular fantasy contributor throughout the remainder of the campaign. We’ll see the same in 2026, 2027 and 2028. There is no question. College baseball is developing elite prospects faster and better than ever before and for this reason, a plethora of top-level players are making it to campus and getting their names called in their early twenties. We’ll dive into a handful of players that could fit that bill in this week’s collegiate corner.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Top 10 College Prospects To Target In Dynasty Leagues – 2025 Edition

February 20, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 4 Comments

by: Hobbs

Hello, dear Razzball readers! Although it has been many moons since we last checked in on the college game, my crack staff has been busy analyzing and organizing reports on countless prospects across the sport’s lanscape. My crack staff consists of two dogs with ADHD, an eight-month-old infant, my retired neighbor named Bill, and a cardinal that has been endlessly pecking on my window. His name is Jean Claude.

Suffice to say, I have had my work cut out for me. Bill has spent significantly more time woodworking and making homemade canes in his garage than scouting this offseason. Not to mention, he sometimes takes the “crack” in crack staff a bit too literally. As for Jean Claude, well, he still thinks the love of his life is on the other side of the glass windows. He has been relegated to a new social role, Tweeting. The change has been quite unproductive.

As for myself, the top-10 prospects for the beginning of the 2025 college baseball season have been completed. It is not a dazzling class, but it isn’t shallow, either. Still, as I wrote these breakdowns, I couldn’t help but feel that it was one of the weaker top-10s since I started covering college prospects at Razzball in 2020. Sure, Jace LaViolette, Jamie Arnold and Cam Cannarella are awesome, but none of them scream slam-dunk, 1-1 overall to me. And the 8-10 spots could be beefier. Like a Runza.

As always, this list is a lot different than the industry consensus and what you’ll see elsewhere. These rankings take future fantasy contributions into account, especially a player’s ability to assist across multiple statistical categories. So, who is at No. 1 this year, and are there any major surprises? Here’s the list:

Please, blog, may I have some more?