2025 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Luis Castillo is listed among the 12 players Scott White is avoiding

Fernando Tatis has fallen short of expectations in back-to-back seasons since losing all of 2022 to wrist surgery, shoulder surgery, and a PED suspension. That sentence alone kind of sums it up, doesn’t it? Sure, we know better these days. We have our fancy Statcast data that tells us he should have had a .298 batting average and .538 slugging percentage last year rather than his actual .276 and .492 marks. And maybe, like for Vladimir Guerrero in 2024, the performance will catch up to the data this year. But maybe not. Factor in the injury risk and the fact that Tatis seemed less motivated than ever to steal bases last year, and it just seems like too speculative of a way to use a first-round pick. The upside is undeniable, but I’d rather know what I’m getting from a Francisco Lindor or Yordan Alvarez type.

It’s kind of the same story for Julio Rodriguez as for Tatis: We’re trusting that the skills will resonate better than they did last year, and it’s a reasonable enough bet given their track record and the underlying data. And maybe leading with those two isn’t in the full spirit of this article given that there obviously is a point early in Round 2 when I’d hold my breath and take Rodriguez. But I’m never excited about it. It feels like my season is already off on the wrong foot. And I acknowledge that’s unfair since we were drafting Rodriguez third overall just last year, but I guess I’m to the point where I’m pricing in another slow start from him, thereby limiting his batting average potential and putting his entire line in jeopardy if he misses some of the time when he’d normally be heating up, as we saw last year. Again, I’m of the mind that Francisco Lindor will more reliably provide comparable numbers, even if his ultimate ceiling is lower.

Michael Harris flashed five-category potential as a rookie in 2022, but have you noticed that his numbers have gotten worse with each subsequent season, his OPS dropping from .853 to .808 to .722? Sure, you could say that last year’s hamstring injury came at a bad time and that his strong finish hints at him righting those numbers if the calendar hadn’t run out, but I don’t know. Suddenly, he doesn’t seem like a surefire batting average standout. And without that, does he hit enough home runs? He continues to undermine his power potential with a high ground-ball rate. Does he steal enough bases? He had only five after April last season, and his sprint speed declined for a second straight year. Moving up the lineup should improve his RBI numbers, but his runs will continue to lag due to his poor on-base skills. Apart from the batting average, everything looks kind of blah, yet Harris retains an early-round price tag.

I’m not really sure why Pablo Lopez is getting so much benefit of the doubt after a year in which his strikeout rate took a tumble and he finished with a 4.08 ERA. Sure, we viewed him as an ace at this time a year ago because of the massive uptick in strikeouts in 2023, but the sweeper that was such a weapon for him then became more hittable in 2024. Meanwhile, his changeup isn’t what it once was either. His performance this spring hasn’t offered much assurance that his arsenal is back to top form, and looking at his track record, it’s really just the 2023 season that stands out from all the others. He’s been a solid enough pitcher for a while now, mostly because of his ability to eat innings, but only once has he posted an ERA below 3.60. Honestly, I’m not sure we should be expecting much more from Lopez than from Seth Lugo, who goes over 100 picks later.

I’ve always been leery of Luis Robert due to his injury risk and poor plate discipline, but I’d go along at times in years past because the upside was so palpable. His failure last year was so complete, though, that it’s hard for me to see past the downside right now. A 33 percent strikeout rate is untenable, and it almost seemed like he was just going through the motions on a bad White Sox team. I have no way to gauge what I’ll be getting from him, nor for how long, and I can’t help but feel like it’ll be a wasted pick again. I’m willing to wait him out and grab a more bankable (but lower-upside) Seiya Suzuki or Bryan Reynolds type instead.

When it became clear last year that Mike Trout’s twice-torn meniscus would end his season after just 29 games, I figured I would savor the discount that would surely follow. But here he is going multiple rounds later than ever before, and I just … can’t. I still think he’s capable of stud numbers at age 33 and could be a total league-winner in Round 8, but when the time comes to pull the trigger, I can’t do it. It just feels like I’m throwing a pick away. He has, after all, played in just 41 percent of his team’s games over the past four seasons, which doesn’t mean it’ll always be so, but Round 8 still puts me at risk of losing too much if it were to happen again. Maybe in a shallow 10-team, three-outfielder league, I’d be willing to gamble on the upside — because I’d be willing to gamble on almost any upside play in such a format — but otherwise, I’m avoiding Trout.

I was willing to overlook Luis Castillo losing nearly a mile per hour off his four-seamer last season because the numbers were still pretty strong and we’ve seen him lose and gain small amounts of velocity in previous years as well. But another drop of nearly 2 mph, as has been the case this spring, ratchets up my concern level and has me fearful that his high-powered arsenal is slipping at age 32. It could simply be that he’s a veteran putting in his work in spring training, lacking in adrenaline, and not really going full blast, but since he already had velocity concerns coming in, I find that I don’t want him when the time comes. Starting pitcher is so deep in upside cases this year that a high-priced downside case seems like a poor use of a pick.

What do we really know about Matt McLain, huh? He looked great as a rookie in 2023, batting .290 with 16 homers, 14 steals, and an .864 OPS to continue his big breakthrough at Triple-A Louisville that same year, but so far, that season stands in isolation. There’s no great track record of success otherwise, at least not at the professional level. You may say that’s unfair given that McLain missed all of his follow-up season due to injury, but that’s precisely the point. He needed a strong follow-up for me to buy in completely, particularly since his exit velocities as a rookie were middling (exactly 50th percentile) and his strikeout rate a bloated 28.5 percent. His ADP is even less palatable to me given he hasn’t exactly come roaring back this spring.

As someone who bought in hard on Triston Casas both as a prospect and, just one short year ago, a breakout candidate, it pains me to admit I don’t have confidence in him anymore. Sure, the upside hasn’t changed following an injury-plagued season, but what concerns me more than the torn rib cartilage and the circumstances surrounding it was his 31.7 percent strikeout rate for the year. The contact issues were present even before the injury, and they’ve continued into spring training. He’s still the player who slashed .317/.417/.617 in the second half of 2023, but with no recent reminders of that ability, drafting Casas as my first baseman around Pick 100 feels like a big leap of faith.

Longtime readers will know I’ve never been the biggest believer in Randy Arozarena, whose production during his best years far exceeded what Statcast suggested he was capable of. So was last year Revenge of the Nerds, with his .219 batting average and .388 slugging percentage matching his .219 xBA and .381 xSLG almost exactly? There’s a case to be made, but the more optimistic and seemingly prevailing one is that his first two months were too bad to believe and that his .254 batting average,12 homers, 13 steals, and .805 OPS from June 1 on are closer to his true form. And to be fair, they’re certainly more in line with his track record. Still, I can’t help but take the full-season numbers as a warning of imminent decline for a 30-year-old whose skill set figures not to age so well.

It would be an overstatement (and rather stupid of me) to say that Kodai Senga’s latest spring start, in which he registered just one swinging strike on 53 pitches, is the reason I don’t want him, but what that outing did was crystallize what was already in my subconscious. I have no idea what to expect from this year. I have no idea if his body will hold up. I have no idea if he’s even good. He looked good as a rookie two years ago, but it was almost entirely built on him missing bats, his control being as much of an issue as it was in Japan. We then got just four looks at him in his sophomore season, and they were a mixed bag. The one during the regular season was great. The three during the postseason were not so great. Now, at age 32, it feels like he needs to prove himself all over again. Even in a best-case scenario, he’s liable to sink my team’s WHIP, and there are a whole lot of bad scenarios otherwise.

Maybe the going rate seems like a steep enough discount to you for a former Cy Young winner, and I do think Sandy Alcantara’s ERA and WHIP will be solid if nothing else. But even at his best, he was never a big bat-misser. What made him so valuable was the workload he took on, and that’s not happening fresh off Tommy John surgery. There have been reports suggesting he has no innings limit this year, and it may be true in the sense that the Marlins haven’t identified a particular number. But it’s ridiculous to think a team with nothing to play for would jeopardize its greatest trade asset by pushing the limits of what his surgically repaired elbow can handle. If Alcantara is nothing special in terms of workload and averages less than a strikeout per inning while struggling to win any given start because, well, he pitches for the Marlins, that sounds like a limited Fantasy asset regardless of the ERA. With as deep as this year’s pitching pool is, I’m setting my sights higher.