Fantasy Baseball Dynasty Top 700 Rankings & Trade Value Version 2.19

This week: The next Dodgers prospect you'll want to trade for, plus Hayden Birdsong's encouraging start and a look at Daniel Schneemann's potential breakout upside.

May 28, 2025

New this week: a Los Angeles Dodgers prospect on the rise who might still be under the radar. Spoilers, you’ll want to make a trade for said prospect (who is a hitter), plus a potential breakout starter in San Francisco and an infielder with long-term power upside (and plenty of fantasy potential, particularly if he starts hitting near Jose Ramirez).

All that and more after the Top 700, which features plenty of movement this week.

(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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Mike Sirota (#286, 32 trade value).

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, the Los Angeles Dodgers have an intriguing prospect on their hands.

The Dodgers, seemingly always with an elite farm system, have thrived at player development in recent times, and Mike Sirota could very well be the next example of that.

Drafted by the Cincinnati Reds last season, Sirota didn’t see his first minor-league game action until this year. In 33 games and 151 plate appearances split between Single-A and Advanced-A, the outfielder is hitting .374 with a .457 on-base percentage, nine home runs, a stolen base, a 1.159 OPS and a 206 wRC+.

Now, it’s a tiny sample size to be sure. And you probably shouldn’t analyze a prospect purely based on their stat line. In fact, you shouldn’t. But Sirota is off to a strong start in the lower minors after joining the Dodgers in the Gavin Lux deal this offseason.

And maybe, as a 22-year-old in Single-A and Advanced-A, he might seem old for each level, but that’s not really been the case.

Per Baseball Reference data, Sirota was half a year older than the average competition at Single-A and is a 0.3 years younger than the average competition at Advanced-A.

And oh yeah, in his first 36 plate appearances at Advanced-A, he has a 1.250 OPS and two home runs.

All that is really good, but considering the Dodgers track record with acquiring potentially under the radar players from other organizations (see Zyhir Hope, River Ryan, Trey Sweeney, Jackson Ferris and Nick Frasso) who then see their prospect star and ceiling in general rise upon joining the Los Angeles organization, Sirota is someone to not only watch in dynasty leagues, but target as a secondary or tertiary player in a larger trade.

Hayden Birdsong (#288, 32 trade value).

It’s worth seeing if someone dropped Hayden Birdsong in dynasty leagues after he started the year in the bullpen, working mainly in two-to-three-inning stints as opposed to high-leverage or closing situations.

For the season, the 23-year-old had just three holds in 11 relief appearances and no saves.

But now he’s back in the rotation, and there’s a lot to like upside-wise.

From a bat-missing standpoint, Birdsong has been excellent this year, striking out 25% of the batters he’s faced (which ranks in the 69^th percentile league wide) while generating whiffs (31.0% whiff rate, 85^th percentile) at an elite rate and a solid amount of chase (Birdsong has a 30.0% chase rate, which sits in the 71^st percentile league wide).

Overall, the right-hander has pitched to a 2.48 ERA and a 3.80 FIP in 13 appearances (including two starts) spanning 32.2 innings while adding 35 strikeouts compared to 12 walks and four home runs allowed.

He’s inducing far too few grounders so far, with just a 31.9% ground ball rate. And while that’s not a terrible metric in a vacuum, the pairing of it with the 9.9% barrel rate and 45.1% hard-hit rate that opponents have managed against the Giants hurler isn’t ideal.

In a perfect world, those numbers will improve, but pitching half of his games in San Francisco should help Birdsong limit some of the damage that would have come on that loud contact in a more hitter-friendly park, or even a more middle-of-the-road park, where being pitcher or hitter-friendly is concerned.

Overall, if he keeps missing bats like this, it’s hard to see Birdsong going back to the bullpen. Of course, that’s purely speculative on my part, but with his swing and miss ability and home ballpark, he looks like, at worst, a quality fantasy starter for years to come.

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Daniel Schneemann (#432, 26 trade value).

Since trading Francisco Lindor ahead of the 2021 season, the Cleveland Guardians have tried plenty of infielders up the middle to play in the same infield quartet as Jose Ramirez.

They’ve never really found a long-term solution at either position.

Andres Gimenez was an impact infielder for a time, particularly in 2022, but his production and overall value (in terms of fWAR) had peaks and valleys.

Amed Rosario flashed upside at times but didn’t stick with the club long-term. Cesar Hernandez ended up being a short-term addition. Gabriel Arias could end up as a long-term option, but he’s still establishing himself in the Majors.

Really, Cleveland has given extended looks to a number of infielders. Each of the following has logged at least 290 plate appearances between 2021 and 2025 for the American League club: Brayan Rocchio, Yu Chang, Owen Miller and Ernie Clement.

And while it remains to be seen if Daniel Schneemann will be a long-term solution alongside Ramirez and company, there’s plenty of promise in his data from the start to the 2025 campaign.

Schneemann is hitting .246 on the season with a .328 on-base percentage, six home runs and a stolen base in 129 plate appearances. Numbers that don’t exactly jump off the page. But his quality of contact numbers have been much better and tell a much different story.

The 28-year-old is sporting a .351 xwOBA on the season and has collected 11 barrels on 84 batted ball events, good for a 13.1% barrel rate. He’s also walking 10.9% of the time with .424 xwOBAcon.

Among batters with at least 100 plate appearances this season, only 76 have a higher xwOBAcon than Schneemann. Among those who don’t include Elly De La Cruz, Tommy Edman, Gunnar Henderson, Paul Goldschmidt, Colt Keith, Luis Robert Jr. and Matt McLain. Also Julio Rodriguez and Yordan Alvarez.

Furthermore, Schneemann has started to hit further and further up the lineup. He initially was only batting in the bottom third of manager Stephen Vogt’s lineup. He hit second for a stretch earlier this month and has settled in as the team’s sixth hitter as of late.

If he can continue to work his way up the lineup and eventually hit near Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan long-term, all while making this kind of loud contact, he’s going to be worth a look (and starting in many cases) in most fantasy formats.

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.