2025 Fantasy Baseball SS Rankings, Draft Targets & Sleepers

Is this the deepest pool of shortstop talent the league has ever seen? Unclear. I’m only 33-years-old and, shockingly, I don’t have that many takes about MLB in the 1970s and 1980s. Still, it really does feel like there’s unlimited potential at this position, with a solid mix of young phenoms and sturdy veterans.

Drafting a shortstop you like won’t be difficult, but getting some value will be key. Let’s sort through the top 30 at the position, highlighting some names that you should be keeping in mind the next couple of weeks.

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

2025 Fantasy Baseball SS Rankings

12. Xander Bogaerts, Padres

While you may quibble with the order, the first 11 shortstop-eligible players taken in most drafts this spring are going to be set in stone. It’s No. 12 where things start to get really interesting. It’s a tier where we find a couple former All-Stars looking to rebound from a poor campaign, a few young assets with lot of speed but more flaws and, finally, a man with a World Series MVP in his trophy case. It’s quite the group. Still, I find myself gravitating towards Bogaerts, who will be back at short for the Padres in 2025 with Ha-Seong Kim in Tampa Bay. Bogaerts is also the man that I feel has the best chance to be a solid five category contributor of the remaining names on the board. The 32-year-old hit .285 and went 19/19 in his last full season in 2023. In 2024, Bogaerts got off to a terrible start and then found himself on the IL. It was a hole he was never going to fully get himself out of, yet he still managed to slash .299/.338/.432 with a 117 wRC+ from July 1 onwards. I’m not going to let two bad months completely sour my view of a perennially good player.

13. Zach Neto, Angels

This doesn’t change anything I just said about Bogaerts, but if Neto was going to be ready for Opening Day, he’d be inside the top 12 on this list. While he’s likely to start the season on the IL, Neto will be good to go in early April according to Ron Washington. That’s good enough for me. The former first-round pick broke out in a huge way in his sophomore campaign, hitting 23 home runs and stealing 30 bases with a respectable 117 wRC+. Heck, if you remove an underwhelming first month of the season, Neto slashed .254/.327/.463 with a .209 ISO across his final 494 plate appearances. When he’s healthy, he’ll be hitting atop an Angels lineup that should, in theory, be much better than in 2024, with Jorge Soler and Mike Trout providing some much-needed run production and power. If anything, the Neto injury is almost a positive for prospective buyers, as it’s created a dip in his price point. Take advantage.

20. Tyler Fitzgerald, Giants

I can understand why people look at Fitzgerald’s rookie numbers and immediately see some red flags. The strikeout rate is high (31.7%), his .380 BABIP is unsustainable and, maybe most daunting off all, his .357 wOBA outperformed his far more modest .292 expected mark by a worrisome margin. At the same time, after pick 200, we’re dealing with a lot of flawed fantasy assets. At the end of the day, Fitzgerald is someone who registered 15 long balls and 17 steals in just 341 plate appearances in 2024. In fact, Fitzgerald has hit for power and swiped bags at every level he’s played at. Considering his 100th percentile sprint speed (30.0), I’d say there’s a decent chance that Fitzgerald threatens a 20/30 season in 2025. He’s not a .280 hitter, but if Fitzgerald can find a happy medium between that figure and his .227 expected batting average, he’s going to do some damage this coming year.

21. Xavier Edwards, Marlins

I’m simply not sure I get the Xaiver Edwards hype heading into 2025. While I’m as excited as anyone about Edwards stealing 31 bases in only 70 games in 2024, there’s nothing about his profile that suggests he’s more than a one-trick pony in fantasy baseball. To say that Edwards lacks power is an understatement. Beyond a 50.7% ground ball rate and a 6.7-degree average launch angle, Edwards’ mustered a paltry 1.8% barrel rate in 2024. Yes, he hit .328 in a limited sample, but he also benefitted from a laughable .398 BABIP, and that’s clearly reflected in the 25-year-old’s .252 expected batting average. I’m not even sure Edwards is going to last the full season at shortstop, as he grades out terribly in Outs Above Average (-10) and arm strength (79.5). To me, there’s legitimately a scenario where Edwards ends up back in Triple-A at some point. He’s the shortstop version of Brice Turang. It’s an archetype that I’m not ever going to be a fan of. Too much risk, especially while getting at-bats for what might be MLB’s lowest-scoring team. Hard pass.