Fantasy Baseball 2025 Redraft Top 500 Rankings & Trade Value Version 2.16

This week: An impact fantasy catcher, a top prospect to potentially add ahead of time and a veteran starter to add for quality starts.

May 16, 2025

In this week’s Top 500 update, a catcher enjoying a strong start to the season at the plate in his first year in the Majors.

Plus, a recent first-round draft pick who could be worth adding ahead of time if your team has minor league spots or deep benches.

Also, a veteran starter who could bring potentially impactful quality start production along with solid run-prevention numbers.

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Drake Baldwin (#92, 75 trade value).

The real headline of this article is probably “Why Drake Baldwin is in My Top 100 2025 Fantasy Rankings.”

Which is true for a handful of reasons, as Baldwin has quickly become an impact fantasy catcher early in his first Major League season.

The 24-year-old is batting .360 with a .407 on-base percentage and a .980 OPS in 81 plate appearances so far, adding four home runs in the process, which is all super encouraging.

And sure, it’s a small sample size, but what the 24-year-old is doing from a quality of contact standpoint makes the above-average production look very much sustainable.

There’s a .367 xwOBA and a .416 xwOBAcon, plus a 65.5% hard-hit rate. Baldwin has also collected eight barrels so far on 58 batted ball events, good for a 13.8% barrel rate.

Among batters with at least 75 plate appearances, only six catchers (Adley Rutschman, Will Smith, Carson Kelly, Cal Raleigh and Luis Torrens) have a higher xwOBA.

Apply those same parameters, but this time with xwOBAcon instead of xwOBA, just nine catchers have a higher xwOBAcon than Baldwin.

Which, all that is all really good. Really good. But the catcher is also doing all of that while also striking out just 16.9% of the time.

Among batters with at least 75 plate appearances and a strikeout rate south of 17%, only 10 have an xwOBAcon higher than Baldwin’s.

Those 10 batters: Paul Goldschmidt, Corey Seager, Fernando Tatis Jr., Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Bo Bichette, Tommy Edman, Ketel Marte, Jorge Polanco and Kyle Tucker.

Erick Fedde (#277, 25 trade value).

There’s probably some unsustainability in Erick Fedde’s production this season. His strikeouts per nine innings rate (5.50) and walks per nine innings rate (4.30) are uncomfortably close. He has a not small gap between his ERA (3.44) and FIP (4.12).

So, just to get that out of the way, the ERA might rise a bit moving forward. Thankfully, due to the FIP and a 0.52 home runs allowed per nine inning rate, it might not spike to significantly.

Which is key here.

Because Fedde is very much an addition if your league uses quality starts instead of wins.

You know the reliever you add purely for saves, even though their strikeout and WHIP numbers are dicey? The starter you add to help boost your pitcher-win total because they pitch for a team with an elite lineup but have decidedly unideal run-prevention stats?

Apply all that to Fedde, but just for quality starts. The veteran has five of them in nine outings this year and had 13 in 31 starts last season.

But the thing is, even if his ERA does regress a bit and even if the strikeouts and walks numbers stay similar, Fedde’s FIP still suggests a reasonably solid run of pitching production should follow. In other words, he’s not going to negatively impact other pitching categories while adding quality starts.

Particularly if you’re in a strong place from a pitching staff standpoint in generally keeping weekly ERA and WHIP numbers down, Fedde is more than worth a look to boost your quality start numbers.

Jac Caglianone (#382, 17 trade value).

On the one hand, the Kansas City Royals just drafted Jac Caglianone last season and he finished 2024 at Advanced-A. He’s started the season at Double-A this season. And while the 22-year-old has thrived at the plate in Double-A, hitting .319 with a .390 on-base percentage, a 10.7% walk rate, a 21.4% strikeout rate and a 157 wRC+ in 159 plate appearances (to go along with nine home runs and two stolen bases), 2026 seems like a more reasonable debut date for the 22-year-old’s first Major League appearance.

Right? That would seem like what should happen.

But, on the other hand, the Royals are in the midst of a playoff chase and have generally struggled to score runs.

Kansas City has outscored just three other teams this season. The same applies for collective wRC+ numbers. Kansas City has outscored just three teams.

Looking specifically at outfielders, the Royals’ outfield has a higher wRC+ than just three teams this season.

Speaking of outfielders, and partly (likely) due to Vinnie Pasquantino being entrenched at first base, the American League Central club has started to get Caglianone reps in the outfield at Double-A.

So could the Royals call up Caglianone reasonably soon and have him skip Triple-A entirely? It’s certainly possible. Of course, this is all speculative, mind you, and while I’d lean towards him not being called up from Double-A soon, if your fantasy league has minor league spots available or a very deep bench, now’s not the worst time to add Caglianone (potentially) ahead of time.

Beware the Open Roster Spot (Or lack thereof)

Oh and one more quick note, beware the open roster spot, or lack thereof rather, in trades.

While a two-for-one or even a three-for-one or four-for-two deal might line up from a trade value standpoint, the roster spots are worth considering. Essentially, if you’re having to cut someone, it turns into you giving up another player or players in addition to potentially the best player in the deal. It’s obviously a different story if you’re working with a flexible roster or open roster spots, but it adds another layer to deals that can potentially change the calculus of things considerably.