Fantasy Baseball Dynasty Top 700 Rankings & Trade Value Version 2.11
The one about Brice Turang, Sandy Alcantara, Drake Baldwin and Dillon Dingler.
It’s a quick intro this week (so we can get to all the analysis and the statistical good stuff), but if you’re looking for dynasty content, consistently updated trade values, waiver wire advice, trade targets, trends. All of it as it pertains to dynasty, this is the column (and Substack) for you.
Of course, there’s similar redraft content – the trades, the waiver wire, the statistical trends, consistently updated trade values, reliever content – here as well, but every Tuesday here means a dynasty top 700 update.
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Brice Turang (#306, 32 trade value).
We’re probably too early into the season, at least from a sample size standpoint, to declare Brice Turang a league winner already given his past track record in the Majors, but we need to talk about what Brice Turang is doing at the plate.
One of the game’s best-stolen base threats since he made his Major League debut in 2023, Brice Turang has generally not made too much in the way of hard contact. His barrel rates have finished below 3.0% in each of the last two campaigns – he also had just 20 total barrels on 777 career batted ball events entering this season.
Turang has also never seen his hard-hit rate eclipse 30.0% in a single season and has seen his xwOBAcon finish at .305 and .322 in the last two seasons.
Put slightly differently, he had 18 batted ball events with an exit velocity north of 103 MPH last season in 619 plate appearances and 462 total batted ball events.
So far this year, Turang already has two barrels and three batted ball events with exit velocities between 103 and 109.8 MPH. A fourth was at 101.6 MPH.
His average exit velocity last year was 87 MPH (a number that ranked in the 14th percentile league-wide). So far in 2025, eight of his 12 batted ball events have eclipsed the 92 MPH mark.
File this one away under something to watch as it remains to be seen how Turang’s quality of contact numbers will look at the end of the season, but if Turang continues to make this much loud contact and continue to steal all the bases he always has, the 25-year-old is going to be a league winner with a fantasy ceiling in the top 25 players overall.
Sandy Alcantara (#73, 63 trade value).
If January initially seemed like the time to trade for Sandy Alcantara in dynasty leagues, now really is the time to trade for Sandy Alcantara in dynasty. Especially before the Miami Marlins trade him in real life.
Alcantara rejoined the Marlins rotation to open the season and while his surface-level numbers might seem fairly unexciting, there was a lot to be encouraged about by the veteran’s first start of 2025.
Alcantara limited the Pirates to four walks, two hits and two earned runs in 4.2 innings of work and 91 pitches.
More importantly, he logged an elite 33% CSW rate and generated 16 swinging strikes, five of which came via his changeup, which logged a 50% whiff rate on 10 swings.
Is it wise to make overarching decisions based on a small sample size, particularly in dynasty leagues? No, not it is not. But, this early start comes on the heels of Alcantara throwing 12.1 scoreless innings this spring while logging 10 strikeouts against three walks allowed in the process.
Alcantara’s second start was sort of the opposite in that his surface-level stats were a bit better (he logged a win in five innings while scattering three hits, two earned runs and a home run while striking out four on 70 pitches. The veteran’s CSW rate finished at 21%.
It’s still early, but if the veteran continues to post CSW% rates like he did in his first start, he’ll be to producing like a frontline fantasy starter on a regular basis.
Drake Baldwin (#136, 42 trade value) and Dillon Dingler (#568, 17 trade value).
Let’s talk briefly for a moment about catchers, specifically these two, both of whom are early in their careers. Both are on playoff teams from last season who look likely to contend again in 2025 and both could see themselves in something of a timeshare moving forward, where they aren’t getting the majority of the starts.
Baldwin with Sean Murphy once he’s healthy and Dingler with Jake Rogers.
Neither Murphy nor Rogers seem likely to suddenly lose all of their playing time – Murphy finished in the 96th percentile in xwOBA as recently as 2023 and Rogers brings elite fielding and framing behind the plate for the Tigers, as well as catching all of Tarik Skubal’s starts – but there is potential for Baldwin and Dingler to eventually see the bulk of the reps behind the plate.
Murphy posted career-low xwOBA (.308) and xwOBAcon (.364) outlays last season, while the Tigers lineup could do with a bit more depth in the short-term with Parker Meadows, Matt Vierling and Gleyber Torres all on the injured list.
It also doesn’t hurt that both young catchers are off two strong starts in 2025.
Entering play Tuesday, Baldwin is just one-for-16 with a walk, but he’s already collected three barrels and is in the 81st percentile in average bat speed. His xwOBA in that tiny sample size is .415. Again, tiny sample size, but ignore the batting average (it’s currently .067).
Elsewhere, Dingler is five-for-11 to start the year with the Tigers, with a home run and a barrel so far for the American League Central club. Again, we’re dealing with a tiny sample size, but the 26-year-old is also sporting a 23.1% chase rate and a 17.6% whiff rate so far.
Both have intriguing long-term upside, though Baldwin likely has the higher ceiling. The Tigers also have Josue Briceno and Thayron Liranzo coming in the next few years. Still, it wouldn’t be a total shock if Dingler ends up seeing, say 60% of the starts behind the plate if he can keep producing at an above-average rate at the dish.
With Baldwin, if he can carve out a similar role in Atlanta, he’d be a top-10 fantasy option at his position moving forward.
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.
Also a quick note on prospects:
Proximity matters. Upside is obviously king here, but proximity to the Majors matters here as well with prospects, at least from a fantasy standpoint. It can be a bit of a tie-breaker with prospects with similar upside but at different minor league levels. Furthermore, the farther away a prospect is from the Majors, the more it impacts their fantasy trade value.
Of course, that’s not going to have much of a difference with elite prospects in the low minors like Ethan Salas or Max Clark, but it’s why some prospects who aren’t necessarily in the upper echelon of fantasy prospects, may have a lower trade value number in dynasty formats than a lower ceiling player already in the Majors who is guaranteed to provide MLB (and fantasy) production at least in the coming years.
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League Winners Week 1: Three Potential (Future) Aces
Welcome to League Winners! A new weekly, in-season column that I’m really excited to debut.
