77 days until Opening Day …
Nobody wants to think about the worst-case scenarios, but they happen. And when they happen to your first-round pick in Fantasy, it can feel almost impossible to overcome. Just ask anyone who had Acuña, Julio Rodriguez, Corbin Carroll (at least until July), or Spencer Strider as their first-round pick last year and they'll tell you: You have to be prepared.
The old adage that you can lose your league with a bad first-round pick is overblown, certainly – – I did manage a close second-place finish in one league last season despite losing Ronald Acuña – but your first-round pick is your most valuable asset for acquiring talent all season long, so getting it wrong will obviously set you back.
Today, we're talking about how things could go wrong for every first-round pick in 2025 Fantasy Baseball drafts. I know, I know, nobody likes to think about the downside, and the truth of the matter is, for most of these guys, these downside outcomes are fairly unlikely. They are first-round talents for a reason, and things have to go really wrong for them not to work out.
But it happens every year, usually multiple times. So let's look at the top-12 players in ADP right now and see what could go wrong to wreck their seasons in 2025:
Bust-Case Scenarios
Shohei Ohtani, LAD, UT, P -- ADP: 1.34
Ohtani is coming off arguably the greatest Fantasy season in history, what with the 54 homers and the 59 steals (and 264 combined runs and RBI to go along with it). Ohtani is going to be the 1.1 coming off that season in almost every league.
How could it go wrong?
Injuries. I know, injuries can happen to anyone. But we're talking about a guy who is going back to pitching and hitting, so while he doesn't play in the field otherwise, there's still extra injury risk here. We've been lucky that Ohtani's two previous serious elbow injuries haven't hampered his hitting abilities at all, but what if it's a shoulder next time? Oh yeah, that reminds me – in addition to coming back from elbow surgery back in late 2023, Ohtani also had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder from last year's World Series. Yeah, there's some risk here, you guys!
Even if Ohtani stays healthy, though, it's fair to ask what the chances of a repeat performance are. Ohtani ran significantly more in 2024 than he ever had before, and you have to think the fact that he wasn't pitching played at least some part in that. Ohtani can still be worth the No. 1 overall pick if he's just a 20-steal guy – he was just the No. 4 hitter in 2023 – but given the injury risk on top of the potential for stolen base regression, and well, there's a reason he's not my No. 1 overall player in 2025 (at least in leagues where you don't get credit for both his pitching and hitting production).
Bobby Witt Jr., KC, SS -- ADP: 1.79
A top prospect made good, Witt continued his ascendency by taking a huge step forward as a contact hitter in 2024, cutting his already-strong strikeout rate down to 15%. Doing that without sacrificing any power combined with an improved Royals lineup propelled him to true five-category dominance.
How could it go wrong?
I think it's extremely unlikely the bottom falls out for Witt in any real way, despite having arguably the worst plate discipline of any first-rounder – his bat-to-ball skills are so good that it doesn't matter very much that he chases more than you'd like. But … you'd still prefer Witt not chase as much as he does, right?
I don't really have a lot of conviction with that one, honestly. We're talking about a 24-year-old, blue-chip talent who has gotten better at pretty much everything every season in his career, so while a repeat of his .332 average probably isn't realistic, his xBA was .315, so even regression should put him in spitting distance of a batting title. The biggest concern here centers around Witt's flagging steal total – he went from 49 in 2023 to 30 in 2024, and his pace was even lower in the second half – and the supporting cast around him. The Royals were one of the most improved teams in the majors in 2024, improving their win total by 30 in 2024, and anytime you see a big step forward like that, it's not unreasonable to expect a subsequent step back. Even with the addition of Jonathan India, this remains a pretty shallow lineup, and Witt could find himself at a relative deficit in counting stats compared to his peers.
But there's a reason he's my No. 1 pick.
Aaron Judge, NYY, OF -- ADP: 3.37
Here's Aaron Judge's per-162 game averages over the past three seasons: .304 average, 129 runs, 60 homers, 135 RBI, 11 SB. And what the heck, let's throw in a 9.9 bWAR average in there just to highlight how ridiculously dominant he's been. 55-plus homers might just be the baseline for a healthy Aaron Judge at this point, and there aren't more than a couple of players you could ever say that about in MLB history.
How could it go wrong?
Well, there's that "healthy" qualifier that always pops up with Judge. He has played 148 games in three of his past four seasons, so maybe it's an overblown concern. But he has an extensive injury track record, and there just isn't very much of a track record for a player as big as Judge staying healthy into his mid-30s.
Of course, in a very real sense, there isn't any kind of track record for a player as big as Judge, period. He's a one-of-one outlier by merely existing, and at this point, betting against him doesn't make a ton of sense. He's a soon-to-be 33-year-old with eight IL trips in nine MLB seasons, but the profile feels about as safe as it could be for a soon-to-be 33-year-old with eight IL trips in nine MLB seasons.
Elly De La Cruz, CIN, SS -- ADP: 4.16
De La Cruz has his flaws, but it's hard to argue with 25 homers and a league-leading 67 steals, right?
How could it go wrong?
Here's the thing, though: Among this first-round crop of hitters, De La Cruz is the only one who is likely to be a net-neutral contributor at best in two separate categories – in his case, batting average (.259 last season) and RBI (76). He was still the No. 7 hitter in Fantasy despite that last season, but the truth is, despite his youth, I don't think a step forward is necessarily a given for De La Cruz.
He outperformed his underlying metrics as a hitter last season by a decent amount (.240 xBA, .329 xwOBA, compared to a .259 and .349 actual marks), and while his speed and home park could help him outrun those metrics, it feels notable that De La Cruz didn't do that as a rookie. He also still has pretty massive platoon splits, to the point where it's fair to wonder if his struggles from the right side of the plate might continue to hold him back a little bit. The physical tools remain unbelievable, but De La Cruz's ability to consistently put them into play remains a question.
And then there's this: How valuable is that outlier speed at this point? I know what the various valuation formulas say – "De La Cruz was a top-10 hitter in Fantasy last season despite his flaws!" – but there's a difference between a formula and actually building a Fantasy team, and this is where my issues with spending that premium pick on De La Cruz come in. You pretty much know he's going to put you at a deficit in batting average and RBI, and compared to the other first-rounders, homers, too. And the problem I've found with the drafts I've done is, it's just a lot easier to find speed at every point in the draft than it is power or especially batting average. It's not impossible to overcome that, but drafting De La Cruz will almost inevitably lock you into a very specific path through the draft – and could lock you out of some of the best values in the later rounds. It's just not a path I want to walk.
Jose Ramirez, CLE, 3B -- ADP: 4.84
Ramirez is rarely the best player in Fantasy, but he's also rarely not a true difference maker. Coming off a season where he missed a 40-40 season by one homer (and a 40-40-40 season by an additional double), what's not to like?
How could it go wrong?
This is another first-rounder well into his 30s, so there's always some risk of skills-based regression happening. But the bigger concern for Ramirez at this point is the lineup context around him, which might just be pretty awful. The Guardians swapped out Josh Naylor for Carlos Santana and have otherwise held pretty steady this offseason, and that feels like it's putting an awful lot of pressure on a 39-year-old to help carry the middle of the order. Ramirez has such a broad skill set that it's unlikely he'll ever be a true bust for Fantasy, but he was a disappointment in 2023 in large part due to disappointing counting stats. Could that happen again?
Gunnar Henderson, BAL, SS -- ADP: 5.95
Henderson took another step forward in 2024, adding nine homers and 11 steals to his 2023 totals and emerging as a legitimate MVP candidate (in an off year for Aaron Judge, maybe).
How could it go wrong?
Like Witt, it's hard to find much of anything to knock about a 24-year-old, blue-chip prospect who put it all together last season. But Henderson did slow down dramatically in the second half of the season, going from a .957 OPS pre-All-Star break to just a .799 mark after. Was that just a little slump, or did Henderson play over his head in the first half? Given his pedigree and quality-of-contact metrics, I'm willing to take the season-long production at face value here, but even a small amount of regression in his bat-to-ball skills could make Henderson enough of a batting average liability to make you regret the pick.
Juan Soto, NYM, OF -- ADP: 7.89
Besting his previous career highs in runs (by 17) and homers (by six) while falling just one RBI short of his previous career high, Soto had a heck of a contract year, and parlayed it into a record-breaking deal with the Mets this offseason.
How could it go wrong?
The skill set is so strong here that it's hard to imagine things going wrong for Soto, really. Even in 2022, by far the worst of his career, Soto was still a top-55 hitter – not worth a first-round pick, but certainly still playable. And that came in a season where he dealt with trade rumors that ultimately landed him in San Diego, arguably a worst-case scenario for Soto's swing. His struggles, such as they were, are pretty understandable in that context.
Of course, Soto is going to be under considerable pressure in his first season under that new deal, and Citi Field isn't exactly an ideal home park – it has been the fifth-toughest park for left-handed hitters over the past three seasons, including similar power-dampening effects as Petco Park in San Diego. It's definitely a tougher park than Yankee Stadium for Soto's swing, which tends to generate power more to right-center and left-center than down the lines, at least. A repeat of his San Diego struggles isn't the likeliest outcome, but it's not exactly impossible to see coming.
Kyle Tucker, CHC, OF -- ADP: 8.05
Sandwiched around a frustratingly extended IL stint, Tucker put together the best performance of his career in 2024, and a move to the Cubs might actually lead to a better supporting cast than the one Tucker would have had in Houston.
How could it go wrong?
I suppose it depends where you're setting your expectations. Given his multi-year track record, something like a .280-.290 batting average, 30 homers, and 25-30 steals seems like a very safe expectation for Tucker at this point. He hasn't always been worth a first-round pick, but Tucker hasn't been worse than a top-30 hitter on a per-game basis since 2019. It's hard to beat that kind of track record.
But if you're taking him as high as No. 8 overall, you're expecting more than what Tucker did from 2020 through 2023. You're expecting something closer to his 2024 production when he put together a 156-game pace of 112 runs, 46 homers, 98 RBI, and 22 steals while hitting .289 and showing the best plate discipline of his career. If Tucker can replicate that, he's going to be a steal at this price, but it's a 78-game sample size and likely a park downgrade to contend with, so I'm not expecting quite a repeat of 2024 here.
Fernando Tatis Jr., SD, OF -- ADP: 9.66
A return to his 42-homer heyday of 2021 feels like asking a bit too much at this point, but Tatis' underlying metrics took a big step forward in 2024 – and a multi-month absence due to a stress fracture in his leg might be the only thing that held him back from living up to it, as his truly bonkers postseason (four homers, 11 hits in seven games) hinted at.
How could it go wrong?
I mean, isn't the better question, "How could it go right?" at this point? Tatis hasn't been bad the past couple of seasons, but he hasn't been a first-round caliber Fantasy option since 2021, as his quality of contact metrics have gone from "otherworldly" to "merely good" since all those injuries wrecked his 2022 campaign. The talent is still there, I think, but Tatis is being given the benefit of the doubt in a way few players tend to receive. Can Tatis still be a 35-homer, .290-hitting superstar? Yeah, but I'd feel a lot better about making him a top-10 pick if we had seen some sign of it in the past three years.
Corbin Carroll, ARI, OF -- ADP: 10.34
It wasn't a smooth ride – at all – but at the end of the season, most of Carroll's numbers ended up where they should have been – 121 runs, 22 homers, 74 RBI, and 35 steals, finishing as a top-20 hitter despite an ugly .231 batting average.
How could it go wrong?
We'll start here: What if the batting average issues aren't just a fluke? Carroll has a well-rounded skill set and plays in a great lineup, but if he's going to hit below .250, he just isn't going to be worth this price. And there are reasons to believe it wasn't just a fluke, as he had just a .241 xBA – and his .268 xBA in 2023 wasn't exactly anything to write home about, either. Add in the drop in steals from 54 to 35, and Carroll doesn't exactly look like a difference-maker anymore.
And then there's the other question: What if he had never pulled out of his slump? Carroll tweaked his swing to try to generate more power, and it just totally tanked the first half of his season, leading to a .212/.301/.334 line in the first half of the season that had many Fantasy players wondering if he was even worth hanging on to. He hit .258/.351/.568 after the All-Star break, but that kind of basement-level floor isn't something we typically see over a multi-month stretch from a first-round pick. Was that just a fluke? Or is the range of possible outcomes actually as wide as Carroll showed in 2024?
Mookie Betts, LAD, SS, OF -- ADP: 11.58
A June hand injury kept Betts' counting stats low, but he put together another typically excellent all-around campaign around that, and his lineup certainly doesn't hurt.
How could it go wrong?
I'm surprised there isn't more concern about Betts' regression in 2024, to be honest. You might think the hand injury explains why his power production was down, but that actually happened before the injury – after homering five times in his first eight games, Betts had just five more in his next 64 games before the injury. Betts still has a nearly unparalleled approach at the plate and made up for some of what he lost in homers with 16 steals, his highest total since 2018 despite missing 46 games.
Still, after a spike in 2023, Betts' quality of contact metrics took a step back across the board, as he put up an 89.9 mph average exit velocity, his first season below 90 mph since 2017. The all-around skill set remains strong enough to justify a late-first pick, but any further slide – or even just some run-of-the-mill bad BABIP luck – could push him back to his 2021 levels, when he wasn't even a top-50 player.
Paul Skenes, PIT, P -- ADP: 11.79
The most hyped pitching prospect since Stephen Strasburg more than lived up to expectations, finishing third in Cy Young voting in just 133 innings. What's it going to look like when he's unleashed?
How could it go wrong?
He's a pitcher.
He's a pitcher who has never thrown more than 160.1 innings in a season.
He's a pitcher who routinely tops triple digits with his fastball velocity at a time when seemingly every pitcher – especially young ones – who routinely top triple digits gets hurt.
I know, I know, we said we weren't focusing on injuries. But it's a different story when we're talking about a first-round pitcher. First-round pitchers are exceedingly rare in Fantasy, and the ones who do break that ceiling tend to be multi-year aces, not guys with 23 MLB starts to their name. Skenes might be the best pitcher in baseball, but is the risk of taking a young pitcher in the first round outweighed by the upside? Given how good Tarik Skubal just was, I'm not at all convinced of that.