Fantasy Baseball Today - Three Hitters Who Will Be Tough to Rank In 2025! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Episode Date: October 5, 2024

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Audacy App and wherever else podcasts are found. Kyle Schwarber is one of four elite DH-only hitters in 2025. Royce Lewis managed to stay healthy in the second half but was quite bad. What do we make of Jurickson Profar for next year? Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's take a look at three hitters who will be tough to rank in 2025. Up next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FeeCN5 on Saturday, October 5th. I am Frank Stamble, joined by Scott White. Let's take a look at three hitters who will be tough to rank for 2025, very early on in the process here, Scott. First up is Kyle Schwabber, who is coming off a fantastic season. Completely changed up the skill set.

You change the launch angle, not as much power, but hit for much more batting average. And he will be, along with many other names, utility only on CBS here in 2025. Yeah, and that's really the reason why Kyle Schwerber is so difficult to rank those DH-only types get downgraded because of the lack of versatility. And I think it might happen even more because there are going to be so many. In addition to Kyle Schwery, have Shoah, O'Tani, of course, likely the first round pig. He's not being downgraded at all. But then you got Marcelo Zuna, you have Brent Rooker, you have some.

several others. And I think people are going to delay taking them just because they don't want to fill up that spot too soon. By the pure numbers, actual production, I do think Schwerber landed in a more palatable place, an additional 40 points of batting average in exchange for 10 fewer home runs, basically, but still 38 home runs, still one of the best sluggers. I think that's an easier fit for most lineups. but only DH and unlikely to gain, regain outfield in 2025. Scott, it feels like the jury is still out on Royce Lewis. We have had these small sample bursts where he looks like one of the best hitters in baseball. He obviously has dealt with many injuries.

He returned in the second half where he was a shell of who we thought he was supposed to be, maybe still playing through some injuries. We don't know for sure. But yeah, Royce Lewis looks like a pretty tough one for 2025. Yeah, because the story, with him is if only he could stay healthy because for those short stretches he was healthy he looked like

he was basically magical he would he would he was the the boy who only hit homers that's that's who he was but he did finally stay healthy for an extended stretch in the the second half 58 games only hit 207 with a

620 OPS and so for the year he ended up with a 233 batting average of 747 OPS and this was the most significant sample again that we've gotten from Royce Lewis in the majors. It wasn't great. And it makes me wonder who he really is if he's even, if we should even treat him like a high-end guy presuming health, you know, and how much can we even presume health.

Third base is losing a lot of multi-eligible players next year, guys like Ellie Dela Cruz and Gunner Henderson, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. So I imagine Royce Lewis is going to be a top 12 third baseman. but I don't know that I want to rank them such that I'd be satisfied with him as my third baseman, you know? Yeah, I think this last one is pretty obvious. Jirkson ProFar coming off a career year at 31 years old where he hit 280 with 24 home runs, 10 steals, and 839 OPS,

pending a free agent, not sure where he's going to play yet. He finished as a top 40 overall player in fantasy this past season. And yeah, lots of questions, I think, heading into 2025. Yeah, 11-year journeyman who last had a season of fantasy consequence in 2018. And when I say season of fantasy consequence, it was pretty fringy. He wasn't the must-star player he was in 2024. So this really came out of nowhere for jerks and pro far. And we didn't get a big explanation, not a sufficient one, I think, for what actually changed with him.

He legitimately hit the ball harder. the underlying numbers back up the forward facing numbers. But without that backstory for what changed for jerks and pro far, without understanding why he hit the ball harder and got those good underlying numbers, I don't know that we can just trust it to carry over to next year. It's not at all uncommon for these one-hit wonder types to recede the following year, even when everything backs up what they did and given jerks and pro-fars uninspiring track record, I would say that applies to him.

All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts, are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today and Five, and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.