That’s What I Like: 2025 Brazen Predictions

WAKE UP IT’S BASEBALL O’CLOCK. Maybe. I mean, I don’t know where you live or your time zone or whether you believe in the passage of time. But I know what you do believe in — at least if you’re here and not at RotoDongEmpire.com — is that you believe in hot takes. Your friends made fun of you for believing that hot sauce is the best toothpaste, yet here you are in the year 20 and 5×5 (fantasy baseball’s favorite year) with no cavities and a shiny set of implanted teeth made out of marble quarried from an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. Mmmmm, tastes like mummy juice.

Here’s the deal: my weekly schtick — called That’s What I Like — is slated to start today.  Thing is, it’s still spring training for most teams for the next couple weeks. And spring training is basically meaningless, except to eliminate Gerrit Cole from the draft pool. So I have one of two options: I can write a post about how many Rockies you should draft now and then you call me up in May screaming that you want a refund for your Zac Veen teams. Or! Or I can give you a bunch of hot takes that make you think provocatively while you watch games from Japan over a sketchy feed you got off of Reddit. One moment – the Razz lawyer is calling. [muffled chip crunching sounds]. Alright, our esteemed Chris B. Bunz, Esq., has informed me that our Razzball War Chest can’t afford litigious Zac Veen owners at this time. Therefore, I give you — Brazen Predictions 2025! Because that’s what I like — hot takes!

Haven’t read one of my brazen prediction pieces before? Here’s the rules: 1) no stupid “bold” predictions. You’ve been around the internet and read a lot of articles. I’m way over takes like, “Shane Bieber won’t be a top starter in 2025”. Great. Thanks a lot. Rule 2) Abandon logic. A lot of what we do as writers is barrage y’all with stats and data. Great. Now we’re going full-on America style with hubris and swagger and taking 25% of Marmos’ Top 100 Pitchers article. Also we’re still using data because otherwise I’d submit this article to RotoDongEmpire, where they just inform their articles with the cheapest chat bots they can find. Rule 3) No more rules — we’re brazen!

Brazen Prediction #1: Corbin Carroll finishes outside the top 30

Corbin Carroll is a consensus first rounder in all formats except those uber-competitive 8-team leagues that are holdovers from the years where we mailed in lineups to USA Today and some mailroom intern ran all our leagues. He’s got an ADP of 10 across major sites and has been taken as high as third overall over on NFC. And I’m telling you — he’s not going to return first round value, or second round value, and maybe not third round value either. In Grey’s words, he’s a schmohawk.

CC — no, not Sabathia — has been propelled by his combo of speed and slight power to the top of the draft charts. In a world where Runs guys are often a drag on your team, Carroll provides an elite ability to cross home plate (2023 – 116 Runs; 2024 – 121 Runs) while adding to other categories. Sounds tasty, right?

The underlying stats are worrying. Carroll’s barrel rate has never topped the mid 7.5% range, which sandwiches him between Ty France and Jurickson Profar. His batting average last year plummeted to .231, and what’s worse, is this xStats — those fun expected performance ratios — were in agreement with his crappy year. His xBatting Average was .241 and his xSlugging was .391. That puts him in league with three players — Andrew Benintendi, Ty France, and Cody Bellinger. Not saying that two comps to Ty France are bad, but…let’s see what I write next.

Carroll’s 2024 season was saved by a massive August campaign, where he slammed 11 homers. His power evaporated in August, but was replaced by speed when he swiped 13 bags. Put another way, half of his homers came in 1 month, and 30% of his steals came in another month. For his first 350 at bats, though? 2 homers and 14 steals. Yeesh. The only consistent fantasy tool he displayed last year was a proclivity for Runs. [insert poop joke]

I’m not here to bury Corbin Carroll — he’s only 24 and he’ll be a great player for years to come. But I am here to say the hopeium on his draft cost is wild. His underlying stats predict a season that looks more like 10/35 with a .250 average, which is something like a 7th rounder than a first rounder.

If you’re at the turn in your fantasy draft, you’ve got a lot of great hitters — Mookie, Vlad, and maybe even Kyle Tucker, Juan Soto, and/or Gunnar Henderson if you’re lucky. I can name nearly a round of players I’d take before Corbin Carroll this year, so unless you’re in a keeper league, I’d take one of those guys first.

Brazen Prediction #2: No SP in the Top 10 overall

Every year, there’s some lucky starter who gets a pile of Wins and IP and strikeouts and surges into the top 10. Remember Tony Gonsolin’s 2022 campaign where he went 16-1? That’s why pitchers shouldn’t be your top targets in fantasy drafts. Last year, Chris Sale and Zack Wheeler eeked into the top 10 of the Player Rater by claiming the #9 and #10 spots, respectively.

And I’m here to say that the pitching field in 2025 is terrible, and none of them are returning top 10 overall value. No, not Paul Skenes. No, not Roki Sasaki. No, not even the esteemed inspiration for all things I do in life Randy Dobnak.

Recall that I discussed what it takes to make a top fantasy starter in a post about Paul Skenes earlier this year. TL;DR — Innings Pitched, Strikeouts, and Win Luck. In particular, top starters need at least 175 IP, and the more, the merrier — more IP = more chances for Wins, and more strikeouts. If y’all navigate over to Grey’s Top 500 and sort by “SP”, you discover that there are basically ten good starting pitchers for 175+ IP, and a quadrillion OK starters. That is to say, the “field” of average pitchers is huge. We’re also entering the era where Roleless Robs are having increasing impact on Win rates and ratios.

This isn’t to say that pitchers are bad. Not at all! But when we’re thinking about impact on fantasy team and contributions to fantasy success, 2025 starting pitchers are a dismal class. I bet none of them finish the year in the Top 10 of the Player rater, and you’d be better off drafting a pile of hitters first.

Quick Takes

• Jazz Chisholm is fantasy MVP for his ADP (currently 26, or third round). With both infield and outfield eligibility and batting in the Yankees lineup? Y’all realize his 2024 second half was basically the same as Corbin Carroll, but with better average and less runs? If CC is going in the first round and Jazz is going in the third round, I know who I’m targeting.
• Shohei Ohtani turns into a hitter-only by the end of the year. He’s coming off of TJ #2 and the track record of successful 2 TJ pitchers is pretty sketchy. The Dodgers’ bullpen is crammed with pitchers and Ohtani as a hitter is simply the best there is. While we probably hear stories about Ohtani taking bullpen sessions and maybe even taking the mound once in a while, I bet by the end of the year we hear that he’ll be a hitter only going forward. Think about it this way — would any team allow a pitcher to take the mound in MLB without minor league rehab starts? And who’s going to send Ohtani to Triple-A so he can ramp up innings, when he could simply stay put in the majors and crush? Ohtani as closer simply doesn’t make sense, and Ohtani as starter doesn’t justify the risk of losing hitting time. Plus, he’s nearly 31 now. The two-way play thing is a young-man’s game, and the signs are lining up to say that Ohtani’s days as a pitcher are dwindling.
• Heliot Ramos is your FAAB league winner. Currently, he’s undrafted in most leagues, with an ADP of 200. He strikes out a bit too much for anybody’s liking, but he’s 25 and has a 14%+ barrel rate over 600 at-bats in the majors (double that of Corbin Carroll, bee-tee-dubya). He crushes line drives and actually has a pretty good speed rating (4.2 in 2024, 4.8 in 2025 spring training). So it’s just a matter of time until he breaks out as a 30/10 player. I’ve got him on every team this year, and you should too.

All right folx! Let me know your brazen predictions for 2025 down in the comments. News note — this week, I’m making my annual pilgrimage to Japan through the end of March. Unlike previous years, I am not going to write articles while in Japan — I’m taking the time off to enjoy the inevitable bounty of cherry blossoms and chu hai that await me. So I’ll see y’all again in April when the games become meaningful. See you then!