Baseball is changing in ways that not even Nostradamus could've foreseen.
If you had told me, four years ago, that today we'd have "openers," seven-inning doubleheaders, the runner-on-second rule in extra innings, or even a dual-threat All-Star, I'd have scoffed at such suggestions. With the current labor deal set to expire after the season, that's probably not all the significant change we'll see this decade.
The universal designated hitter, yes, I foresaw - and still foresee, since the National League reverted to pitchers hitting for 2021 - that coming. The same goes for decreasing starting-pitching pitch counts and increasing bullpen specialization. Still, those are dramatic changes in their own right, and things that absolutely influence player valuation in fantasy baseball. We've had to keep pace, and in fact grow, as fantasy managers, and there's no doubt the demand for that will continue through the '20s.
Change, though, presents some of the fun of fantasy baseball. We are, after all, a group with a goal of predicting the future. That's where this column comes in: It's designed to predict said future, specifically the best players in the game four seasons from now. It's where I predict -- OK, guess -- at the highest ceilings in baseball's (somewhat) distant future. Presenting: My "All-2025 Team."
The "All-2025 Team," as with past editions, follows these guidelines:
A full, 23-man, old-school Rotisserie roster: Two catchers; one apiece at first base, second base, third base and shortstop; one corner infielder and one middle infielder (listed at their primary positions); five outfielders; a designated hitter (for this team, the DH is an actual DH); and nine pitchers, in this case broken down as seven starters and two closers.
Players are listed only at the position I believe they'll play in 2025. For example, Austin Martin was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays as a shortstop in 2020 and has played 22 games there for Double-A New Hampshire this season, but for 2025, I'm projecting him as an outfielder, where he has played 20 games this year.
Players are picked based only upon how much fantasy value I believe they will have in the 2025 season and the 2025 season alone. In other words, this team projects the positional leaders on the 2025 ESPN Player Rater. This is by design, as it distinguishes players with the highest distant-future, single-year ceilings. For those seeking players projected to have the greatest overall value for the next four seasons combined, my midseason Dynasty 300 rankings will be published on Wednesday.
Only fantasy potential is considered. Defense is irrelevant, outside of how it impacts teams' decisions regarding roles and playing time.
Picks are in ranked order at each individual position, meaning that the two catchers are Nos. 1 and 2, and the "Best of the rest" picks, which are essentially the "B" team, begin with No. 3 and so on. Use this list however you wish: Improving your dynasty teams, debating with your friends or, if you wish, to clip and save so you can remind me in 2025 which ones I got terribly, terribly wrong. I know some will be! That's baseball.
Catchers: Adley Rutschman (27) and Keibert Ruiz (26).
We'll start with the fun picks, a pair of catchers with a combined 15 major league plate appearances and both of whom are younger than all but five catcher-eligibles who have played a big-league game in 2021. Rutschman, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2019 MLB Draft and one of the best all-around catcher prospects in a generation, is the slam-dunk pick to top this position four years from now, showing his elite skills with .283/.413/.507 rates and 12 home runs in 56 games for Double-A Bowie, after entering the year with just 37 games' professional experience. Ruiz, meanwhile, is the unexpected No. 2 pick, acknowledging the turnaround he has shown in Triple-A Oklahoma City this season, hitting 12 home runs with .327 isolated power and a 53.5% fly-ball rate. He has one of the keenest eyes at the plate of any catching prospect in professional baseball, and another team is sure to pry him away and hand him a starting job in the next year or two, having noticed his improvements.
Best of the rest: Will Smith (30) and Joey Bart (28).
First baseman: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (26)
This would've been a much less obvious pick before he turned in a monstrous first half, blowing away his entire 2019-20 home run total (24), but the improvements he has made in 2021 do lock him in as the class of this position for the next four-and-a-half seasons (and beyond). Guerrero has slashed nearly four full percentage points off his ground-ball rate, an area where he might yet have more growth, and he hasn't sacrificed any contact quality in doing so. He's truly on a Hall of Fame-caliber trajectory.
Best of the rest: Spencer Torkelson (25).
Second baseman: Vidal Brujan (27).
No other position was as close a call as second base, between Brujan, who enjoyed a brilliant big-league debut as a 27th man in the Tampa Bay Rays' July 7 doubleheader, and "Best of the rest" pick Ozzie Albies. They're similar types, contact hitters with a bit of pop and great speed, but in the end, Brujan got the edge thanks to what I perceive to be slightly better raw speed and better strike-zone judgment, driving up his on-base percentage and thereby strengthening his chances for stolen bases. Considering the direction in which league-wide stolen bases have headed in the past half-decade, Brujan's 30-steal potential come 2025 could prove to be huge.
Best of the rest: Albies (28).
Third basemen: Rafael Devers (28) and Wander Franco (24).
Speaking of strike-zone judgment, you won't find a youngster with better than Franco's, and the main question surrounding him in this space is what will be his position come 2025? Third base is a logical destination, considering the team's prospect depth at shortstop, including the aforementioned Brujan, Taylor Walls, Xavier Edwards, Greg Jones and Carlos Colmenarez, but at either position, this budding, five-category Rotisserie superstar -- not to mention a player primed for excellent things in points-based leagues -- borders on obvious. Devers is a personal favorite, a hitter I see managing 95th-or-better-percentile average exit velocities and hard-contact rates for at least the next half-decade and one who might be a small step away from an MVP award. In 2019, he became only the fourth player in history to register a 200-hit, 50-double, 30-homer season played entirely before reaching his 25th birthday, joining Lou Gehrig (1927), Alex Rodriguez (1996) and Albert Pujols (2003).
Best of the rest: Ke'Bryan Hayes (28).
Shortstops: Fernando Tatis Jr. (26) and Bobby Witt Jr. (24).
This position is outrageously deep, and it pains me to have to leave off as many as a half-dozen names (even after accounting for the "Best of the rest" picks). It says a lot about Tatis' future that he's the clear top pick at this talent-rich position, as he's on a Hall of Fame trajectory of his own: : Through 216 career games, his 67 home runs are the most in history, and he has a career 164 OPS-plus, which currently ranks fifth in the modern era through any player's age-22 season, behind Josh Gibson, Ted Williams, Mike Trout and Stan Musial. Witt, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft, has that "next big thing" look, having batted .289 with three home runs in 14 Cactus League games this spring, then .295/.375/.553 with 13 home runs and 14 stolen bases in 54 games for Northwest Arkansas as one of the youngest players in Double-A ball. He needs to improve his base-stealing efficiency -- he's just 14-for-22 on his attempts -- but has a chance at No. 1 overall status come 2025.
Best of the rest: Bo Bichette (27) and Marco Luciano (23).
Outfielders: Juan Soto (26), Ronald Acuna Jr. (27), Jasson Dominguez (22), Luis Robert (27) and Jarred Kelenic (25).
He might be in the midst of a disappointing season, but there still might not be a player I'd rather roster to my teams for the next decade than Soto. There's a pretty good chance that he'll conclude 2021 with more than 90 home runs, 450 hits and 300 walks, making him only the third player in history with at least as many of each through his age-22 season (Mel Ott, Ted Williams), so Williams comps aren't completely outrageous. Acuna is the other slam dunk. I have no long-term concerns about his ACL. He'll be back, joining Tatis as by far the game's best annual 30/30 candidates through at least the 2025 campaign.
It's the rest of the outfield that'll surely surprise: Dominguez has only five games' professional action, in the Florida Complex League at that; Robert has a 30.6% strikeout rate in his first 81 big-league games; and Kelenic's most recent big-league exposure ended in his going hitless in his final 44 trips to the plate, 19 of them resulting in strikeouts, before a demotion to Triple-A Tacoma on June 7. Dominguez, however, has drawn Mickey Mantle comps since signing with the Yankees, aggressive, yes, but teasing the massive power upside he has. Robert has a well-rounded set of tools, elite defense to drive his playing time and he'll be a huge asset in fantasy as a 30/30 candidate himself. And as for Kelenic, put aside the initial struggles, as he still possesses one of the best hit tools of any prospect, best evidenced by his batting .306/.386/.622 with seven home runs in 24 games for Tacoma since his demotion.
Best of the rest: Cody Bellinger (29), Julio Rodriguez (24), Mike Trout (33), Zac Veen (23) and Mookie Betts (32).
Designated hitter: Shohei Ohtani (30).
It might be a safer choice to go with the prime-age-of-27 Yordan Alvarez instead of the inconsistent-from-a-career-perspective Ohtani, especially with the chance that his career curve begins to level off around his age-30 season, but what the heck, it's a "fun" column. Ohtani assuredly won't be done generating great big-league years after 2021. I think there's a very real chance he can get better, and in fact, while I'll be impressed if he adds a 50-homers-hit, 200-pitching-strikeouts campaign to his résumé between now and 2025, I won't say I'll be shocked. There might be a lot of year-over-year fluctuation, extending the entirety of his career, but I'll take the chance that 2025 will again be one of his awesome campaigns.
Best of the rest: Alvarez (27).
Starting pitchers: Walker Buehler (30), Shane Bieber (29), Kumar Rocker (25), Ian Anderson (26), Jacob deGrom (36), Casey Mize (27) and Luis Patino (25).
Pitching is notoriously difficult to project on a one-year, distant-future basis, the difference between my No. 3 name above and the first beneath the "Best of the rest" cutoff is razor-thin, and I'd anticipate that any of these names might be just as likely to finish in the spots I have them in 2024 or 2026 than 2025 specifically. deGrom's inclusion, as a 36-year-old who will be four years removed from this 2021 which began to raise the injury question, is probably the biggest surprise of the bunch, but he also serves the reminder that near-30 aces are more reliable year over year than you might think. Here were the top four starting pitchers on the 2017 Player Rater: Corey Kluber (then 31), Max Scherzer (32, the same age deGrom was to begin 2021), Chris Sale (28), Clayton Kershaw (29). It's a list that would look a lot prettier had Sale not succumbed to 2020 Tommy John surgery, but three months from now, we might look a lot more positively at three-quarters of that top four than we do today.
Young arms still dominate the first team, with established aces Buehler and Bieber joining a pair of future ace hopefuls in Anderson (who is already on the verge of that status), Mize and Patino. For some contrast, my favorite high-ceiling pitching prospect from the 2021 MLB Draft, Rocker, made the team along with the 11-years-his-senior deGrom. I'm the most bullish on Mize, among the team's more unexpected choices, as he has already shown how filthy his splitter and slider can be at times this season, and his command is much more polished than you'd typically see from a second-year, 24-year-old. One of these next two seasons, he'll take a huge leap forward.
Best of the rest: Jack Leiter (24), Brandon Woodruff (32), MacKenzie Gore (26), Gerrit Cole (34), Corbin Burnes (30), Michael Kopech (28) and Jack Flaherty (29).
Relief pitchers: James Karinchak (29) and Hunter Greene (25).
Don't build around closers in dynasty leagues. I repeat: Don't build around closers. Just four seasons ago, the top six save-getters were Alex Colome, Kenley Jansen, Greg Holland, Corey Knebel, Roberto Osuna and Fernando Rodney, a group that has a combined 30 saves (and a 30-of-40 success rate) this season, or nine fewer than any of them individually had in all of 2017. This is a position of constant change, shifting managerial priorities (see: the rising number of partnerships and committees) and happenstance with prospects who can't shoulder the workloads of full-time starters. Your best bet is to take younger pitchers, especially those with high-velocity fastballs and filthy out pitches (slider/curveball), which is why Karinchak and Greene are the picks here. Greene might feel like the most out-of-place pick on the team, a prospect the Cincinnati Reds surely will want to first test as a starter, but while his 100-plus-mph fastball is appealing in that role, I ultimately see his shaky control and past durability questions limiting him to that of a future closer. He'd be a fun fantasy player somewhat in the Ohtani mold, with the ability to hit and play the field, but also there to nail down Reds victories no later than 2023.
Best of the rest: Josh Hader (30) and Nate Pearson (28).