2025 Fantasy Baseball Preview: Tout Wars Mixed League ADP Analysis and Draft Recap

On Tuesday night, 14 of the best and brightest fantasy baseball writers in the world gathered for the annual Tout Wars Mixed League Draft. I was also there, for reasons I can not comprehend.

Across 29 rounds and three hours, 435 players were selected in this 15-team, two catcher format. Below, I’ll break down some of my own picks and thought processes. Hopefully, you can take some of this insight and apply it towards your own drafts this month — or, you know, learn from my mistakes. Either way is fine.

See the full draft results here.

Garion Thorne’s Tout Wars Roster

Gunnar Henderson or Corbin Carroll?

Cards on the table, I was actually anticipating a debate between Carroll and Kyle Tucker in the eight-spot, but that decision was taken out of my hands when the Cubs’ newest star was taken fifth-overall. As such, I was left with the choice between Carroll and Henderson. Carroll is a really intriguing asset heading into 2025. For as underwhelming as his sophomore campaign felt, the one-time NL Rookie of the Year still finished with 22 home runs, 121 runs scored and 35 stolen bases. Just imagine what he can do when he’s not being weighed down by a .256 BABIP.

However, I ended up siding with Henderson, who simply feels like the safer choice, especially if he’s going to swipe 20 bags again this coming season. Henderson is only 23-years-old, which is an important thing to remember when looking at his power dip in the second half of 2024. As the young infielder continues to get stronger, he certainly has the potential to hit 40 home runs in a single season. Heck, he’s coming off a year in which he posted a 97th percentile hard hit rate (53.9%) with a 94th percentile expected wOBA (.374). The sky is the limit.

Is Zack Wheeler still elite?

When assessing the top of the starting pitcher class in 2025, I think it’s important to put the options into tiers, and to me, the first tier at the position is just three names: Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal and Zack Wheeler.

Wheeler was one of only four pitchers to throw 200 innings last season and it was the third time since 2021 that the right-hander has made 32 starts. Even heading into a campaign where he’ll turn 35, Wheeler has not shown any signs of slowing down. Well, not shown many signs. Wheeler’s average fastball velocity (95.5) has fallen each of the past three seasons, yet it remains in the 67th percentile for all pitchers. It also didn’t seem to impact Wheeler much in 2024, as he sported the league’s third-lowest ERA (2.57) and second-lowest expected ERA (2.80). Toss in a 28.5% strikeout rate and I’ll be riding with the Phillies’ ace until the wheels fall off — sorry.

What’s Sandy Alcantara’s value in 2025?

Let’s take a trip back in time. From 2021 to 2022, Alcantara was easily one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball, registering a 2.71 ERA and a 3.19 FIP across 434.1 innings and 65 starts for the Marlins. For his trouble, Alcantara was the unanimous NL Cy Young Award winner in that ’22 campaign. All was good in Miami. However, it’s been awhile since we’ve seen that version of the Marlins’ ace. Alcantara regressed in 2023 as his strikeout rate dipped below 20%. Then, on October 6 of that same year, the RHP announced that he would miss all of 2024 due to Tommy John surgery.

Alright. Back to the present. It wasn’t 100% clear coming into Spring Training whether Alcantara would be ready for Opening Day and that mystery was reflected in the pitcher’s draft stock, with Alcantara possessing a 174.8 ADP in NFBC formats during the first two weeks of February. Well, on March 1, the right-hander tossed two scoreless inning against the Braves and touched 100 mph twice with his fastball. Alcantara’s NFBC ADP since the day has been 148.1. People are such simple creatures. I got Alcantara at pick 158 on Thursday. That feels like a happy medium for a man who will likely only continue to catch helium over these final few weeks of the spring.

Hurry up and get to the sleepers

I’ve already written up some of these guys in different articles. I’ve got thoughts on Tyler Soderstrom here and takes on Will Wagner over here. But allow me to zero-in on two gentleman in this space: Andrew Benintendi and Kyle Harrison.

Benintendi is injured at the moment, though the veteran has stated he believes he can be back by Opening Day. Even if that’s unlikely, I assume we’ll see the 30-year-old with the White Sox by early April. Benintendi has had a nightmarish run since signing a five-year deal in Chicago, but it wasn’t that long ago that the outfielder hit .304 with a 121 wRC+ in 2022. There were also some reasons for optimism in 2024. Not only did Benintendi match his career-high with 20 home runs, but in his final 235 plate appearances, he slashed .263/.328/.502 with a .355 wOBA. Add in the fact that Benintendi owned the third-lowest BABIP of any qualified hitter (.245) for the season as a whole, and it’s pretty easy to get behind this pick in the 27th round.

As for Harrison, I’m buying into a post-hype sleeper. Remember, Harrison was 18th on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects list just two years ago, sandwiched between James Wood and Jackson Merrill. Now, not every prospect lives up to the billing, but the left-hander has been solid in 2023 and 2024 with the Giants, pitching to a 4.47 ERA with 118 strikeouts in 124.1 innings. The stats might not blow you away until you realize Harrison is still 23-years-old. Maybe Harrison takes a huge step forward in 2025. Maybe he doesn’t. Yet even in that second scenario, he remains a league-average arm that gets to make half his starts in the park where it’s been by far the hardest to hit a home run the past three seasons. There’s value in that in deeper leagues.