Whoa, we’re half way there
Whoa oh, livin’ on a prayer
Take my hand, we’ll make it, I swear
Whoa oh, livin’ on a prayer
Little known factoid; Jon Bon Jovi is a huge Fantasy baseball player and he wrote “Living on a Prayer” about one of his teams as it hit the halfway point of the season.
OK, it’s possible, arguably highly likely, that I just made that up. But we have officially hit the halfway point of the 2025 season. What better time than now to look back at how well our collective pre-season picks have held up? For this exercise, I am going to compare the NFBC Average Auction Values from this March (62 total auctions) to our Razzball Player Rater 15 team league earned auction values. For those not familiar with NFBC auctions, here’s a quick primer. Each player gets $260 total to use to fill a 23 man starting roster that consists of 9 pitchers, 2 Catchers, 1 of each IF position, 1 MI, 1 CI, 5 OF’s, and 1 Util. They then snake draft 7 subs.
Auction prices vs. earned values are not apples and oranges, especially halfway through the season. A guy who went for $30 that has “only” earned $20 was probably still a good purchase. It makes for interesting comps between the players, though. At least I thought it did!
I only included players who went in the auction section of at least half of those 62 leagues. I also kept in our $/Game column so you can see how injured guys are tracking. Stats and Earned Auction Values are through Saturday
Top 1-20
If you splurged on the top 5, they’ve all basically worked out fine thus far. That is about to end, of course, as Corbin Carroll stands to miss at least a month with a chipped wrist, plus who knows if that saps his power when he returns.
As for the rest of the top 20? Major ouch for the most part. James Wood, however, has absolutely exploded. His career now conveniently encompasses 162 games as of Saturday, and he’s hit .273 with 31 homers and 24 steals. Encouragingly, he has 95 runs and 105 RBI’s on a pretty lousy Nats team, so he’s putting up the counting stats in spite of his surroundings. And his metrics back it all up.
You can absolutely live with the Whiffs and K’s when you pair it with a 98th percentile EV and 97th percentile Barrel%. Ideally, he would raise his 5.9 LA and tap into even more power, though that would cost him some Avg and steals. He’s almost certainly headed to a mid to late 1st round draft slot next year.
As far as the others go, most are not complete busts. Jackson Chourio, Julio Rodriguez, Mookie Betts, Jaren Duran, and Lawrence Butler have all stayed on the field and given various degrees of decent production. Jackson Merrill, as we noted recently, has underwhelmed between IL stints and makes an interesting draft case for next year. He will absolutely drop a round or two. He profiles as a solid 5 category guy, but not a standout in any one of them. Ronald Acuna Jr. has rewarded everyone who rostered and stashed him.
Then we have the unmitigated team-busting disaster buys here. Yordan Alvarez got off to a miserable start, then went on the shelf with an endless hand injury. At least he’s not actively hurting you now. Michael Harris II, though? My goodness, it’s bad. He’s batting .212 with just 18 runs despite playing all season until a very recent benching.
Here’s a good example of why I remain wary of projecting much of anything based on bat speed.
Top 21-40
We’ve talked enough about Pete Crow-Armstrong, but yeah, he’s still a league winner.
Riley Greene stands out among the rest of this group. He looked like a solid but kind of bland OF bat on a similarly solid but bland team. Instead, he’s an 18.2% Barrel% guy on the best team in the league (by record at least) with 18 homers, 62 RBI’s, and a .297 Avg. There are still some serious warts here, though. His 30.2% K% (6th percentile) and 31.2% Whiff% (10th percentile) are not ideal, and he has just 1 steal, so he gives you no speed as an outfielder. His xBA of .266 suggests there’s some good fortune in his batting average thus far. If you drafted him or got him in auction, you’ve booked a terrific 1st half, but I suspect he drifts more to somewhere between his $14 auction cost and $27.9 EAV.
Christian Yelich is another success story in this group, though I would suggest it’s more a function of his auction price anticipating that he would miss time. Thus far, he has remained on the field. He has already topped his plate appearances from 2024. He had a terrific season then as well as now, though in a very different way
2024 Yelich: 315 PA, 11 HR, 44 runs, 42 RBI, 21 steals, .315 Avg
2025 Yelich 333 PA, 15 HR, 40 runs, 59 RBI, 12 steals, .263 Avg.
He went from a huge steals and Avg. asset to a super solid 5 category stud. He only has 16 barrels and a 1.9 LA, so that power could evaporate in the 2nd half.
I hate writing about Brenton Doyle’s Fantasy outlook after the personal tragedy he suffered in the first half of the season. But his metrics have not changed much from last year’s breakout. His 24.7 K% and 6.9% are essentially the same, and his 12.6% Barrel% and 90.8 EV actually mark upticks. He has just 6 homers on 25 barrels. He could definitely see some 2nd half mean reversion to the upside.
Top 41-60
Byron Buxton clearly stands out as the auction steal in this group. There’s really not much to state here besides the obvious; he remains a superstar-level talent that never manages to stay on the field. His career high of 511 PA’s happened all the way back in 2017. He’s at 284 now, let’s hope he takes out that personal best. If he can, 30-30 remains in play as he has 19 homers and 15 steals. His only occasional weak spot when he plays is Avg., but he’s at .286 after hitting .279 last year. Statcast gives him just a .258 xBA as he doesn’t tend to square up the ball (21st percentile) while carrying an 18th percentile Whiff%. But hey, if he stays healthy, we’ll take a .250 average in a heartbeat!
Heliot Ramos, another standout bargain in this group, has given you solid all around production at .280, 13 homers, 5 steals, 48 runs, and 44 RBI’s. And the counting stats could get better in the 2nd half now that Rafael Devers has taken his talents to the Bay Area. He’s a boring accumulator type in the Bryan Reynolds mode, but hey, that works! He hits it pretty hard, with a 90.9 EV, and his K’s have trended down each year and are now at just 23.4%.
Tyler O’Neill has clearly not worked out unless you’re in an all Opening Day Stats league. He homered in his first game this year as he does literally every season, but only has one since then. He’s only suited up for 24 games, and that is a good thing since he hit just .188 with a .266 wOBA. O’Neill might return this week, hopefully with the 17.4% Barrel% he flashed last season in Boston.
Oh, and Spencer Steer. Some clown last week said ‘His production has just cratered this year. In nearly half a season, he has just 6 homers, 25 RBI’s, and 4 steals while putting up a .230 average. His Statcast page suggests this is simply who he is now, as it’s a depressing sea of dark blue.”
OK, that was me. He hit 3 homers this week (all on Friday night) to go with 2 steals, 6 RBI’s, and 6 runs. You’re all welcome! In all fairness, I also did say “It’s extremely likely that the Reds rushed him back. The optimistic case here is that he gets healthier and picks it up in the 2nd half of the season.” Maybe that’s what we’re seeing. I still don’t believe he’s a great actual hitter, but he does provide excellent Fantasy Category Juice when he’s playing well.
Top 61-92
Hunter Goodman ranks 2nd in the C pool, behind only the super human Cal Raleigh. He’s OF eligible, but if you can afford to slot him there, you have an amazing team!
Behold Jo Adell, the breakout has finally arrived! The steals have oddly evaporated, though that is the case for the Angels as a whole. But the power, oh the power! 11 June homers and a 15.3% Barrel% on the season! The 24.2% K% marks a career best. His .238 Avg isn’t great, but it’s playable when you mash, and his .275 xBA suggests it could get better
TJ Friedl remains an affordable Fantasy asset year after year. He has 48 career homers on 40 barrels (8 on 8 this season). Advanced metrics consistently dislike him as he has just an 86.7 career EV and .237 xBA, but his career AVG is .267, and this year he’s hitting .287. He has 47 runs and 9 steals, and as long as he stays on the field, he can easily stay on that pace over a full season.
It’s tough to ding anyone on the list as a big disappointment, as these are the end of auction guys. Easy cuts for the most part.
