FantasyPros Staff | Tue, Mar 25th 2025, 3:55am EDT

6 Fantasy Baseball Draft Picks to Target (2025)

This piece will look at six players after pick 40 in fantasy baseball drafts that are worth reaching for to ensure you get their production. The context of your draft matters, but these hitters have found their way onto most of my teams and are primed for a huge return on investment based on where they are being drafted.

All fantasy baseball ADP information is taken from FantasyPro’s expert consensus ADP for 2025.

Must-Have Hitters for 2025

No two fantasy baseball drafts are alike, which is why it is always a good idea to be adaptable and fluid in your drafts to make sure you can pivot when needed.

Depending on the draft spot, league settings and manager preferences, a fantasy baseball draft can go any number of ways, so declaring a hitter as a “must-have” is often an exercise in futility, especially in the early rounds.

However, after about pick 40 managers can start to make their roster take the shape they want, as opposed to what the consensus average draft position (ADP) says they should do.

Oneil Cruz (SS, OF – PIT) | ADP: 42.6

Oneil Cruz is ready to take off yet again in 2025, and this time he is eyeing a performance that pushes him up to the first round of drafts in 2026.

After missing almost the entire 2023 season with an injury, Cruz burst back onto the scene in 2024, hitting .259/.324/.449 with 21 home runs and 22 stolen bases in 599 plate appearances. Not a bad first step back into game action, but he is primed for even bigger things.

Cruz is a Statcast darling with both his power and his speed. He is at least in the 97th percentile in exit velocity, bat speed, barrel rate and hard-hit rate. He is in the 88th percentile of players in speed score and was only caught stealing one time in 2024.

All of Cruz’s expected statistics (expected batting average, expected slugging percentage, expected weighted on-base average) show he was unlucky in 2024 and should have produced better numbers with his batting profile.

The last big step is his 30% strikeout rate. If he can cross the 70% contact rate he had in 2023 pre-injury, this could be an epic season for Cruz, who can be had in the third or fourth round in many drafts.

Lawrence Butler (OF – ATH) | ADP: 69

The Athletics have left Oakland and now play in a Minor League ballpark in Sacramento. The team hasn’t had a playoff appearance since 2020 and has averaged over 100 losses in the last three seasons. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t talent on their roster. The first player in that conversation is outfielder Lawrence Butler.

After a cup of coffee in 2023, Butler’s rookie season in 2024 was nothing short of spectacular. In 125 games, he hit .262/.317/.490, including 22 home runs and 18 stolen bases. His 23.9% strikeout rate was extremely good for a rookie and he made contact over 75% of the time at the plate. Most projection systems tag him for threatening a 20/20 season with around 600 plate appearances this year.

Butler is a 24-year-old who has power to all fields and sprays the ball all over the yard. Of his 22 home runs in 2024, 11 were to center field or left field.

Jake Burger (1B, 3B – TEX) | ADP: 110.4

If you just happened to pay attention to Jake Burger during the first half of the 2024 season, his production looked completely miserable. He was hitting just .225/.265/.370 with 10 home runs at the halfway point of the season.

Then, he went on an unbelievable tear and hit .279/.339/.562 with 19 home runs the rest of the way. That power now moves out of the cavernous Miami Marlins stadium and to the Texas Rangers, where he should mash in their new stadium. Globe Life Field has been the fourth-friendliest park for right-handed home run hitters over the last three years, according to Statcast. Miami’s loanDepot Park ranked just 25th.

There is some sneaky upside for 40 home runs in 2025. There is no one else after pick 100 that can offer that kind of power potential. At age 28, Burger is right in his prime and this might be the best season of his young career.

Ezequiel Tovar (SS – COL) | ADP: 136.6

Ezequiel Tovar might be my most drafted player so far in 2025. As long as you are playing in batting average leagues instead of on-base percentage (OBP) leagues, Tovar might be the player who sees the biggest jump from his ADP in 2025 to where he is drafted in 2026.

In addition to playing half of his games at Coors Field (and batting third behind Brenton Doyle and Ryan McMahon), Tovar is just 23 years old. He has already shown an uncanny combination of power, speed and batted ball data similar to someone with much more experience.

Tovar is going to strike out almost 30% of the time and hardly ever walks, but that shouldn’t diminish what he will do at the plate. His batting average and slugging percentage have increased each of his seasons. He already has a 26-homer season as a 22-year-old.

Last season, Tovar improved his exit velocity and launch angle, adding another layer of power to his game. He finished sixth among all shortstops in home runs in 2024. He was also in the top 10 in runs, RBI and batting average at the position. For where he is being drafted, you are getting a top-10 shortstop for middle infield prices in drafts.

Andres Gimenez (2B – TOR) | ADP: 175.4

Andres Gimenez is getting dinged way too much for his slide from 17 homers three years ago to just nine last season. In 2022, Gimenez hit .297/.371/.466 with 17 home runs and 20 stolen bases as a 23-year-old and was being hyped along with Ozzie Albies as the next great second basemen of the future.

Gimenez has kept up with his steals (30 in each of his last two seasons), but his power (26 combined home runs) and average (.252) have seen large dips. Still, I think there are encouraging signs outside of the elite speed that show Gimenez could be way undervalued this year.

First, Gimenez is just 26, so he is entering the prime of his career. His strikeout rate has fallen each of the last four seasons and was just 15.3% in 2024. He has gotten unlucky with his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) over the last two seasons, both falling under the league average. His expected batting average and expected slugging percentage, therefore, have both been higher than his actual production.

Gimenez is now likely to be batting fourth or fifth in a top-heavy Toronto lineup, so his potential for run production will be the highest of his career. If you can grab Gimemenz anywhere after pick 160 in drafts, he is almost guaranteed to turn a profit at that ADP.

Austin Wells (C – NYY) | ADP: 204.4

A catcher with a 10% walk rate and a 40% hard-hit rate hitting leadoff for the Yankees and Aaron Judge right behind him? Sign me up as often as possible. There is no way pitchers are going to be careful and pitch around Austin Wells this season with Judge lurking behind him. That works in Wells’ favor because his zone contact rate was 84% last season and he hit 13 home runs in just 115 games.

This season, with Giancarlo Stanton likely to miss a lot of time, Wells should split time at catcher and designated hitter, which is why projections systems are projecting him for around 125 games and close to 20 home runs this year. Wells is developing into one of the Yankees’ best bats on a depleted roster, so they will look for ways to get him in the lineup as often as possible.

There are plenty of early catchers in drafts this season (William Contreras, Yainer Diaz, Salvador Perez, etc.), but Wells can deliver the same number of plate appearances and equal power for about 150 spots lower in ADP.

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