There are only three more nights until Opening Day. It’s like Christmas Eve Eve Eve, if you will.
It truly feels like Spring Training started years ago at this point, but the first exhibition game of the season technically took place on February 20 between the Cubs and the Dodgers. So much has changed since then between on-field performance and injury. How has that impacted where players are being taken in drafts? I’m here to fill you in.
Let’s take a look at three notable fantasy baseball assets that have seen their draft stock rise across the last five weeks.
2025 Fantasy Baseball Risers
SP Garrett Crochet, Red Sox
NFBC ADP on February 20: 30.9
NFBC ADP from March 21 to March 24: 23.6
This might not seem like all that big a shift, but going from the middle of the third-round in a 12-team format to the backend of the second-round is no small feat. I mean, it’s not like you’re jumping replacement-level players this high on the rankings list, right? Case and point: Crochet is now being drafted juuuuuuust behind Zack Wheeler on average, which means the Red Sox’s LHP is now considered by some to be the SP3 of this class. That’s big news.
It’s not difficult to see how we got here. Crochet has looked utterly dominant in Spring Training, allowing only a single earned run over 15.2 innings of work and striking out 30. Numbers like this in March need to be taken with a grain of salt, yet they do seem to somewhat validate the version of Crochet we saw in the first-half of 2024 — the one before the White Sox started to mangle his workload down the stretch. Prior to the All-Star break, Crochet posted a 2.37 FIP with a 35.2% strikeout rate across 107.1 innings. Remember, we have little more than a 200-inning sample of Crochet at the MLB level, so any new data seems important. Still, if the 25-year-old can be this version of himself over the course of a full campaign, he’ll likely end up as SP1, so again, you don’t exactly have to squint to see the upside or what’s giving Crochet this helium on draft boards.
SP Spencer Schwellenbach, Braves
NFBC ADP on February 20: 92.1
NFBC ADP from March 21 to March 24: 71.1
I’ll try to be unbiased here, but Schwellenbach is one of my guys heading into 2025. In fact, somewhat ironically, I wrote up the Braves’ RHP as a NL Cy Young candidate back on February 19. At the time, Schwellenbach was +4000 on the DraftKings Sportsbook. His odds have now dropped to +3500. We’ve seen a similar phenomenon when it comes to Schwellenbach’s ADP in NFBC formats.
This rise feels like it’s a combination of both a dazzling Spring Training and a collective realization about just how good Schwellenbach was in his rookie campaign. He was overshadowed by a stacked NL class, but Schwellenbach’s second-half in 2024 wasn’t simply good for a first-year player, it was elite for anyone. As a great man put it over a month ago, “Schwellenbach ranked 10th in SIERA (3.15), 12th in ERA (2.73) and 12th in WHIP (0.97) across all of baseball. For his season as a whole, the RHP combined a 96th percentile chase rate (34.2%) with 95th percentile walk rate (4.6%).”
Now, Schwellenbach’s managed a 1.44 FIP in 18.2 exhibition innings, with 26 strikeouts compared to a paltry two walks. The 24-year-old has all the tools to be a force in fantasy baseball and I have no problem selecting him 20 picks sooner if that’s what it takes to get him on my rosters.
SS Bo Bichette, Blue Jays
NFBC ADP on February 20: 121.9
NFBC ADP from March 21 to March 24: 99.9
Welcome back to the Top 100, Bo Bichette! As with Crochet and Schwellenbach, it doesn’t take Shelock Holmes to figure out what’s happened here.
There’s no underselling how atrocious Bichette was in 2024. Even taking into account his injury woes, the veteran finished the season slashing .225/.277/.322 with a 71 wRC+ over 336 plate appearances. There was nothing particularly redeeming about a .303 expected wOBA or a 4.4% barrel rate, either. He was simply awful and, as such, a man who had consistently been a Top 50 pick in recent seasons saw his draft stock fall off a cliff — that is, until a fantastic Spring quelled some fears.
Bichette hit .373 with a .294 ISO in 56 exhibition plate appearances. The power was there. The exit velocities looked great. It was a non-stop party for five weeks in Dunedin for the pending free agent. However, even if Bichette can transform back into his old self, it raises questions about just how valuable that archetype was in fantasy baseball to begin with. From 2019 to 2023, Bichette was a batting average king with marginal power. If he bats leadoff for Toronto, which he might, he should provide runs at an elite level in 2025. Yet the real test will be Bichette’s willingness to steal. Bichette swiped 25 bags in 2021, but he’s managed only 23 total in the three seasons since. Even with the new rules, I’d wager against Bichette re-emerging as a steals guy, especially coming off his leg issues in 2024. Adjust expectations accordingly.
