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Please see our player page for Jamie Arnold to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.

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. 

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76. Pirates RHP Seth Hernandez | 19 | NA | 2029

I might wind up low on Seth Hernandez despite loving the player. How could you not? He throws a hundred miles an hour with an adult change-up and solid command. Comes down to timeline stuff. Pittsburgh can develop pitching, but they won’t be in any kind of hurry with Hernandez. They have Oneil Cruz and Paul Skenes today. Jared Jones is on the way back and Bubba Chandler is on the way up. Why take a player who’s five years away? It’s certainly defensible because Hernandez is awesome, but it also feels like old thinking in that a front office shouldn’t draft for short-term impact. We have all seen the opposite over the last several years. Amateur baseball has come a long way. Then I think of Jackson Jobe and Andrew Painter, who’ve both been great in the minors at times but have battled injuries throughout their careers. Can’t predict that, of course, but it’s just hard to point to a high school right-hander who has returned a ton of dynasty value. There’s Hunter Greene, but he’s been hurt, too

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1. SS Leo De Vries | 19 | AA | 2027

We don’t often see a prospect like De Vries get traded before his 20th birthday, if at all, so it was kind of shocking to see him moved for a reliever, even one as dominant as Mason Miller. Sacramento pushed the switch hitter to Double-A at age 18, where he slashed .281/.359/.551 with five home runs and two stolen bases in 21 games. He even showed plus plate skills: 9.7% walks against 19.4% strikeouts. It’ll be interesting to see how they time this out because he’s got a legitimate case to open the season in Triple-A at 19, an age he’ll stay until October 11th this year. Seems probably we’ll see him in the majors before he turns 20, and that’s a pretty consistent predictor of sustained stardom. Incredible work on the trade market by Sacramento in my opinion. 

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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?