2025 Fantasy Baseball 1B Rankings, Draft Targets & Sleepers

Remember when you were a kid and it seemed like every MLB team employed a big, slugging first baseman that could pump out 30 home runs without breaking a sweat? Yeah. That reality doesn’t really exist anymore. In fact, it almost seems like there are less appealing options at the position every single season, making it even more important to grab an elite one early on in drafts.

As we inch closer to the start of the 2025 season, here are the Top 30 1Bs in fantasy baseball.

2025 MLB Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP | Top 250

2025 Fantasy Baseball 1B Rankings

6. Christian Walker, Astros

You can debate the order of the top five first baseman on this list, but there’s almost no denying that those are definitively the best five players at this position. The fun really starts at No. 6, though I feel like Christian Walker is far and away the best of the rest. Walker’s strikeout rate did tick up in his age-33 campaign (24.1%), but he was basically the same asset he’s been since his breakout in 2022, finishing with a .217 ISO and a .351 expected wOBA across 552 plate appearances. A 90th percentile barrel rate (13.3%) and 86th percentile hard hit rate (48.8%) are pretty promising, as well. I’d expect Walker to be the next in a long line of right-handed sluggers that really enjoy playing 81 games with Houston’s Crawford Boxes.

11. Yandy Diaz, Rays

While I’m willing to admit that Yandy Diaz’s 2023 season is probably going to be an outlier at the end of his career, I’m also not going to let two bad months in 2024 sour my view of a great pure hitter. There’s no way to sugarcoat Diaz’s start to last season, but from June 1 onwards, the 33-year-old looked to be in All-Star form. In Diaz’s final 373 plate appearances, he managed to slash .305/.357/.460 with a .357 wOBA and a 137 wRC+. This, following a 145 wRC+ in 2022 and a 163 wRC+ in 2023. That’s a large enough sample for me to trust the positive signs — especially for an asset that currently going outside the Top 200 picks in NFBC drafts. Diaz won’t be a source of power or steals, but he should carry an elite batting average and be a sneaky source of counting stats hitting atop the Rays’ lineup.

21. Tyler Soderstrom, Athletics

You’ve probably heard the term “post-hype sleeper” before. I feel like Tyler Soderstrom takes that to a whole new level. The former first-round pick is just 23-years-old and he’s two seasons removed from being a Top 40 prospect according to MLB Pipeline. However, due to a very underwhelming cup of coffee in 2023 and the fact he wears an Athletics jersey, it doesn’t feel like people are excited enough about what Soderstrom pulled off in 2024. Granted, it was only across 213 plate appearances, but Soderstrom hit nine home runs with a .348 expected wOBA and a manageable 24.9% strikeout rate. He obviously didn’t have the at-bats to qualify, but Soderstrom’s 14.6% barrel rate, 91.9 mph average exit velocity and 49.6% hard hit rate would’ve all been around the 90th percentile of MLB. He’ll be playing his home games in a Triple-A park in 2025 and it feels like 30 home runs are well within the range of outcomes.

23. Jonathan Aranda, Rays

If you miss out on Soderstrom, don’t fret! Jonathan Aranda is pretty similar and he’s going 75 picks later in most drafts. Aranda is another left-handed bat that hasn’t taken a ton of swings at the MLB level, but has flashed enough in his advanced statistical profile to be quite interesting. Aranda only had 143 plate appearances with the Rays in 2024, yet he produced a .195 ISO to go along with a .362 expected wOBA. He also possessed a 16.5% barrel rate that would have been the ninth-highest mark in baseball had he the PAs to qualify. The raw power is easy to see. The only real question with Aranda is volume. The 26-year-old has just 30 career at-bats against LHPs and it remains to be seen if he can even be more than a platoon bat in Kevin Cash’s lineup. Still, Aranda could do damage in 450-500 plate appearances, if that’s the case.