Now that almost 50% of the season is in the books, it’s a good time to check in on baseball’s top hitting prospects from a projections-based perspective. You can see the preseason list here and last year’s midseason list here. Those articles also feature more methodological detail if you want to read more about the projections process. Briefly, the projections capture prospect performance across the (non-DSL) minor and major leagues in recent years, making use of aging curves, major league equivalencies, league environment adjustments, park factors, regression, and more, to project peak (late-20s) prospect performance in the majors. They do not capture scouting, defense, or amateur performance. Starting this offseason, they also capture bat speed, which was made available for a decent handful of prospects this spring training.

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With about 20% of the season in the books, I wanted to see which arms have altered their projections the most relative to the preseason, like I did a few weeks back for bats. To do this, I’ll refer to OOPSY rest of season (ROS) projections, a system I introduced at FanGraphs this offseason. So far this year, OOPSY has held its own with other top projection systems featured at FanGraphs. I have a great respect for each of those systems, and would be happy enough to not embarrass myself in comparison. For each player, I’ll also offer my best guess on where I’d draft them in a standard 15-team Main Event league that was starting today, informed by a healthy mix of the FanGraphs auction calculator using OOPSY ROS and vibes.

Bear in mind that, across all projection systems, pre-2025 data still weighs much more heavily than 2025 data as pre-2025 covers a much larger sample of data. Like for bats, a single season typically never comprises more than half of the weight in a projection for arms, as projection systems usually weigh at least three years of historical data. The quickest ways for a pitcher to improve their projections are to improve their stuff, rack up strikeouts and limit walks, and keep the ball on the ground. These are reliable indicators of pitching talent that weigh heavily in all projection systems, not just OOPSY. In contrast, BABIP, home run per fly ball rate, and left-on-base percentage are less reliable metrics that typically require a large sample of data to significantly alter projections. The numbers referenced in this piece were collected on May 6th.

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Now that one month of the season is in the books, it’s a fine time to check which hitters have improved their projections the most. To do this, I’ll refer to OOPSY rest of season (ROS) projections, a system I introduced at FanGraphs this offseason. OOPSY ROS is updated each day. Even though I focus on OOPSY ROS in this article, most of the referenced players have improved their projections across the different systems available at FanGraphs. For each player, I’ll also offer commentary on where I’d draft them in a standard 15-team Main Event league that was starting today, informed by a healthy mix of the FanGraphs auction calculator using OOPSY ROS and vibes.

Bear in mind that, across all projection systems, pre-2025 data still weighs much more heavily than 2025 data as pre-2025 covers a much larger sample of data. In fact, a single season typically never comprises more than half of the weight in a projection system, as projection systems usually weigh at least three years of historical data. Nonetheless, enough of the season is now in the books for certain players to have meaningfully altered their projections. The numbers referenced in this piece were collected on April 26th. I’ll take a look at pitchers in my next piece.

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This article highlights my bold predictions for the 2025 fantasy baseball season. I’ll set the over/under at three of these being right, as my goal is more to make you think than anything.  I have tried my best to embody these predictions in my various redraft and dynasty league decisions this offseason (that’s right, I still have Keston Hiura rostered in a few, admittedly deeper, formats!). I have listed them in approximate order of least to most bold.

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The reliever landscape has faced some of the biggest changes in recent years as many teams have gone away from anointing a single guy to be their closer, instead embracing committees where they trust a number of relievers to close the game out in the 9th. The committee strategy often includes putting their best guy in a fireman role meaning he could come in for any sticky situation from about the 6th inning on. This is undoubtedly a smart way to run a bullpen from a “real life” standpoint, but it can be rough on us fantasy folks where Saves remain a prominent category.

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This article ranks the top 25 hitting prospects by peak projected MLB wRC+ heading into 2025, continuing an annual tradition (skip to the bottom for the ranking!). It is a counterpart to the top 25 pitching prospects piece I published last month.

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Continuing an annual tradition, this article ranks the top 25 starting pitching prospects by peak projected MLB ERA heading into 2025 (skip to the bottom for the ranking!)

Like the other projection systems at FanGraphs, my projections capture the usual ingredients: past performance weighted by recenecy, regression to the mean that accounts for a player’s probability of making the major leagues, major league equivalencies to adjust for minor league difficulty, aging, park effects, and league scoring environment. The peak projections make use of aging curves to translate a player’s forecast to a late-20s peak forecast. Regardless of where the “true” peak age is, there is broad consensus that most growth happens in the teen years and early-20s, however.

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I have once again been called up from Triple-A for the spot start with Jeff away, as I have minor league options remaining. This article approximately follows his methodology, focusing on players widely available at the start of this week (I use a <75% owned in the Main Event threshold). The players are ordered for redraft leagues roughly by my rest-of-season preference–only two weeks to go (!)–grouped by starters, relievers, and hitters. I tend to put a lot of weight on recent playing time trends and popular weekly (e.g., Razzball) and rest-of-season projections, including the various systems published at FanGraphs, and my own system. I play in a lot of NFBC 15-teamers, so that’s the context I have in mind when writing this. Happy bidding!

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Should you still trust pitching projections in the final month of the season? Or is it enough to just look at how a player has performed this year? This article explores some strategies for how to better project September pitching performances. Read the rest of this entry »

How can Statcast improve hitting prospect valuations? This article examines the predictive power of prominent Statcast metrics at the Triple-A level.

With Statcast data now publicly available for every Triple-A game since 2023, I wanted to look at how much it helps us evaluate hitting prospects compared to more traditional data. Specifically, this article considers how well several Triple-A metrics from the full 2023 season — wOBAcon (wOBA on contact), xwOBAcon, barrel rate per batted ball event, and 90th percentile exit velocity — predict MLB wOBAcon in 2024 (MLB wOBAcon through the games of July 26th, as I have been working on this piece for a little while now).

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