Fantasy Baseball 2025 Redraft Top 500 Rankings & Trade Value Version 2.09

Happy Opening Day!

Mar 27, 2025

It’s officially Opening Day! With draft season officially coming to a close, we’re now officially in baseball season. Or, to be specific, the baseball regular season.

Call it officially official.

As such, all the in-season strategy kicks in. The waiver wire. Trades. Start/sit decisions. All of it.

I’m incredibly excited for the new season and perhaps even more excited to keep writing this Substack and build this community with you all. And oh yeah, help you win your fantasy league.

Also, as a very fun aside to celebrate Opening Day and the new season, I’m running an Opening Day special here on the Substack. If you become a paid subscriber today (or through April 2), you get 20% off for the next 12 months.

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(A quick note, if you’re having trouble reading the table in full in the Substack app, it can be viewed in full either in the email or in a web browser.)

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Manuel Margot (#498, 5 trade value).

Manuel Margot is now a member of the Detroit Tigers after joining the American League Central club to provide an additional outfield option in the wake of injuries to Parker Meadows, Matt Vierling and Wenceel Perez to begin the season.

Margot hit .238 with a .289 on-base percentage, four home runs and five stolen bases in 343 plate appearances for the Minnesota Twins last season. This spring with the Milwaukee Brewers, he batted .250 with a .314 on-base percentage and a stolen base in 35 plate appearances.

The veteran might end up making more of an impact from a real-life baseball standpoint than a fantasy standpoint (with fielding, base running, and from an fWAR standpoint compared to other potential alternatives for the Tigers), but he does well enough that Detroit values that there’s deeper league fantasy appeal in the short term for leagues with 14 or more teams.

Margot doesn’t strike out all that much. He’s struck out more than 20% of the time in a Major League season… well never. Margot’s career-high strikeout rate is exactly 20.0% and that’s happened on only two occasions, both of which came early in his career in 2017 and 2019 respectively.

Most recently he struck out just 15.7% of the time for the Twins last season.

Elsewhere, while Margot’s overall wRC+ has finished above 100 just once and came in at 79 last season, he has plenty of platoon upside, with a career .753 OPS, 108 wRC+ and 16.0% strikeout rate, .279 average and .337 on-base percentage against left-handed pitching in his career.

The Tigers generally tend to get the most out of their roster and tend to win on the margins. That has meant platoons and putting players in optimal situations, ergo players like Kerry Carpenter and Andy Ibanez being so impactful against right-handed and left-handed pitching specifically.

Margot likely won’t have the same elite splits versus one type (or handedness) of pitcher like Carpenter and Ibanez, but it’s not hard to imagine (speculatively speaking his stat line looking decidedly better than his career numbers with the Tigers deciding to play him plenty against left-handed pitching and limit his exposure to right-handers.

If that happens, he could also be worth a look as a short-term streaming option in the right matchups early in the season, regardless of league size.

Also of note, the Tigers open the season’s first month with series in three of the league’s top 10 stadiums where park factor was concerned last year in Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium (121, fourth highest per Statcast), Minnesota’s Target Field (113, seventh per Statcast) Milwaukee’s American Family Field (111, eighth, per Statcast).

Griffin Canning (#221, 26 trade value).

In part due to injuries, the New York Mets had some rotation openings heading into the season.

With Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas and Christian Scott all opening the year on the injured list, the National League East club certainly could use some rotation reinforcements.

Enter Griffin Canning, who thrived in Spring Training with a 1.88 ERA and a 2.63 FIP in four outings (three starts) spanning 14.1 innings. He struck out 22 of the 58 batters he faced during that span and limited opposing batters to just 11 hits, five walks, three earned runs and a home run.

Canning has flashed upside in the past. From 2019 through 2023 he finished in the 71^st percentile or better in whiff rate three times, logged a 4.29 FIP in 127 innings back in 2023 for the Los Angeles Angels and sported a strikeout rate (x, 69^th percentile), walk rate (x, 76^th percentile and whiff rate (x, 71^st percentile) in the each in 69^th percentile or better. Those three stats’ respective percentile ranking finishes in 2023 were as follows: 69^th, 76^th and 71^st.

Still, Canning struggled immensely in 2024, making 32 total appearances (31 starts) and pitching to a 5.19 ERA and a 5.26 FIP in 171.2 innings for the Halos, posting just a 17.6% strikeout rate while seeing his walk rate climb to 8.9%.

He was traded by Los Angeles to Atlanta for Jorge Soler and non-tendered by the National League East club before joining the Mets as a free agent.

The Mets have a reasonably pitcher-friendly fantasy schedule to start the year. After three games in Houston, the club will play 12 straight against the Marlins, Blue Jays and A”s, with six of those games coming against Miami. If even some of his early-spring performance carries over, Canning could be an early-season streaming option for more than just a singular start.

Parker Meadows (#202, 33 trade value).

The flipside to the Manuel Margot coin is that Parker Meadows will miss time to start the year due to injury. Per a report on Bluesky from MLB.com’s Jason Beck on March 22, “Meadows underwent a nerve conduction test this week in Arizona. No nerve damage, but he’ll be sidelined from throwing for another four weeks, further delaying his return.”

An elite fielder and impact base runner, Meadows made significant strides at the plate last season, hitting .244 with a .310 on-base percentage, nine home runs, nine stolen bases, a .189 ISO and a 111 wRC+ in 298 plate appearances. And while the batting average and on-base percentage weren’t eye-popping, Meadows was significantly better after a stint in the minors to tweak his swing. He hit .299 with a .344 on-base percentage, five home runs, six stolen bases and a .213 ISO (not to mention a 143 wRC+) in 213 plate appearances from the beginning of July through the end of the season.

Detroit’s usual leadoff hitter, at the very least against right-handers, Meadows should hit regularly ahead of Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter when healthy. Outfield is fairly deep as a position fantasy-wise, but Meadows is a zero-risk addition to add right into an injured list spot if you have the room. The upside is that of a regular outfield starter, regardless of fantasy format or league size.

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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.