2025 Fantasy Baseball ADP: Best Underrated Steals (Part 5)

Finding value is always the goal in fantasy baseball, as those who can win within the margins are the ones who will have the most success in a given season.

Leagues can be won and lost on draft day, and finding those hidden value players could be essential to creating a fantasy lineup to be reckoned with.

After ranking the top players at each position earlier in the offseason, I decided to switch my focus to ADP. And when it comes to ADP, value is the single most important thing you should be looking for. 

If you are new to fantasy baseball, you may be asking yourself, “What is ADP and how does it impact my strategy when it comes to drafting my team?”

ADP stands for Average Draft Position and is a reflection of where players are typically selected in drafts. It will allow you to compare two players at the same position and find out which one is being drafted sooner in most leagues, which could spotlight hidden ADP value in later rounds.

I’ll be the first to say it: This isn’t a sleepers list, nor a busts list. This is about identifying which guys are lower than they should be according to the National Fantasy Baseball Championship rankings.

We have already published four parts to this six-part series, in which we are looking at the top 300 in terms of ADP, and finding a few names in each sub-set of 50 that should be added to your draft board.

Our last section was Part 4, breaking down the top players to target between an ADP of 150-100. Now we finally make it into the top 100, where you have to decide between some of the top players in the game.   

For this fifth set of players, I will be selecting six players from spots 100-50. Time to take advantage!

Spencer Schwellenbach – #97

How do the Braves keep doing it on the pitching side?

First, it was the emergence of Spencer Strider. Then a Cy Young performance by Chris Sale, and an otherworldly 1.99 ERA from Reynaldo López. Now it’s Spencer Schwellenbach’s turn. 

Schwellenbach’s rookie season went about as well as it could’ve. He racked up experience at a relatively large volume with effective results.

And in the 123.2 innings he threw, the underlying numbers back up his accomplishments: 96th percentile in chase rate, 95th percentile in walk rate, and 90th percentile in barrel rate. That’ll play! 

Tanner Bibee is going about a round earlier, but why would you do such a thing?

Bibee has shown to have mixed results with shaky stuff under the hood. Wait and take Schwellenbach instead – his ratios and win totals will do so much more for your squad.

Anthony Santander – #90

Santander is one of the final free agent prizes currently left on the table this offseason. Toronto fans are begging for a big bat, while Detroit wants to add veteran experience to their young core.

Personally, I’d love Pittsburgh to be a sneaky landing spot. Regardless, I’m confident in one thing: He’ll crush wherever.

The switch-hitting power bat has launched 105 long balls combined in his last three seasons. Even better than his ability to mash is his ability to play. In each of those three years, Santander played in at least 152 games, which is more valuable than many statistics in my eyes. 

Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki is being selected a bit before Santander. That’s fine if you want your outfielder to have regular off days with mediocre power. For me, I’m taking the Tony Taters discount.

Marcus Semien – #86

The odd thing about Semien’s 2024 is even though some of the counting stats were down from previous years, the fundamentals were still present.

A 91st-percentile finish in K percentage is encouraging, since he was still making a lot of contact and putting the ball in play. And if only Bruce Bochy was more confident in sending Semien on the base paths because he is still quietly in the 81st percentile of sprint speed.

Even now at 34, Semien still enters the season as one of the most reliable options at a dry second base position. In fact, there’s an argument to be made for putting him at the top of the consistency list.

In 2019, 162 games played. In 2021, 162 games played. In 2023, 162 games played. This past season? 159 games played.

Semien batting at the top of a now even deeper Texas lineup is more than enough reason for you to cash in on him within the top 100. 

Luis Robert Jr. – #83

Boy oh boy, what a year it was for those Chicago White Sox. Let’s just put that one in the rearview mirror, eh?

The good news is simple: There’s nowhere to go but up for this young squad. It might be a rough year once again record-wise, but at least their star can get back to the potential we all once saw in him.

It’s a big season coming up for Robert, and the Sox would love to create value in order to exchange him for top prospects at the deadline. 

Let’s be real, fantasy managers tend to overreact a bit when a player completely crashes out in one season. There’s a reason that Robert is being taken all the way down at #83 while he is still 27 years old with 30/30 potential.

Just look at one year ago when he was coming off a 38/20 performance. The ability is there, it’s now a question of fundamental execution.

By no means am I saying to draft this guy as your #1 outfielder. However, he has the upside and cheap cost to be a solid second or third on your depth chart.

The solid bat speed is a positive sign, while his sprint speed is still elite. He needs to clean up the poor swing decisions since the chasing was out of control last season.

I believe this new coaching staff under manager Will Venable will be able to help Robert do so. They believe he will get back on track, and you should too.

Bailey Ober – #82

Ober is one of the more unique pitchers in the game. To be honest, everything was elite in 2024 with the exception of his ground ball rate and velocity. This led to very healthy ratios even though he gave up 27 home runs. 

Ober has one of the best changeups in the game. Hitters are more than unbalanced when facing the 6’9” hurler, a key to tremendous extension on every offering.

And to be honest, I’ve seen enough of him to know that this is who he is: A guy who might sacrifice some long balls for mostly weak fly balls and whiffs.

That’s fine with me. His stuff is trustworthy and the command is even better. 

Additionally, I love where he currently sits in terms of ADP. Guys like Aaron Nola and Luis Castillo are being taken over Ober. Those two are the sexier options based off of their past. Fine by me, I like the vanilla-type selections that solidify my pitching ratios.

Cal Raleigh – #80

Like Ober, there are few weaknesses in Raleigh’s game. Even though his swing and miss is a bit much at times, it can also be a blessing in disguise for power data.

I see many of the same characteristics in Raleigh and Salvador Perez. They both play almost every day, have a lot of power, and chase a lot. It’s worked out pretty well so far for the both of them.

So much so that Raleigh in particular owns the most home runs amongst all catchers over the last three seasons.

So how is he doing this? A lot of those same whiffs from Raleigh are probably leading to walks for guys like Adley Rutschman. Yet, a more passive OBP guy like Rutschman will never achieve the power numbers Raleigh can produce by the sheer amount of swings and chances he’s taking.

And because home runs are the single most valuable statistic when it comes to evaluating and building around, Raleigh is the easy choice here.

The Big Dumper is wildly underrated to me. It’s silly that people still trust Rutschman more for fantasy purposes, but let them keep making such mistakes. They’ll see once again who the better offensive backstop is in 2025.