Fantasy Baseball 2025: Who is This Year’s Yelich?

This Year’s Yelich is…

When I started writing, I typed a first and last name, saved the document and shut my laptop. That would have been quite the mic drop, but our chief editor Daniel Kelley would not have been pleased and neither would you. Some only care who this year’s Yelich is – not why he was chosen, the process of uncovering him, or its 2018 origin story. Every year, I get at least two Venmo offers – “Who is it?? My draft is in 2 days.” Fat chance. The name may inevitably get leaked outside these FTN walls, but the joy is in the journey.

Thankfully, thousands of readers can see the forest for the trees. You understand that this now apparently gimmicky annual column isn’t trying to be gimmicky and isn’t about any single must-draft player. The big reveal is fun, but the true purpose of This Year’s Yelich is to remind us to challenge groupthink in our quest to identify fantasy baseball market inefficiencies and draft mispriced players who can provide ROI and position us to win league titles.

No matter what format we play, earning profit is the name of the game. Our goal is to assemble a team of hitters and pitchers who provide it. We earn profit by identifying market (ADP/AAV) inefficiencies throughout the player pool at each position, targeting hitters and pitchers we believe the market undervalues.

Eliminating bias in our player and market valuations is impossible, but reducing bias is not. Fantasy managers burned by a third-round Bo Bichette or Luis Castillo last season could take one of two approaches in 2025 – “never again, they burned me” or “let me dig into this.” The manager with the emotional, closed-door approach is at an immediate disadvantage to the more objective, open-door approach manager. After some research and evaluation, an open-minded person might conclude that Bichette or Castillo are underpriced in the eighth round this year, or they may not. At least they opened the door to this possibility. We lose the games before they even begin if we allow groupthink, helium, emotions and bias to fuel our drafting decisions.

Though this annual Yelich article is more popular, my Late-Round Profitable Hitters from the FTN Draft Guide every December is just as important. The early rounds of fantasy drafts are important, but the late rounds are where the most profit is made.

Post-250 ADP and waiver wire hitters such as Brent Rooker, Jackson Merrill, Jurickson Profar and Brenton Doyle were key players on championship fantasy teams last season. Rooker and Merrill returned first-round value. In 2023, Yandy Díaz and Lane Thomas returned top-20 overall value among hitters with a 250-plus ADP. Marcell Ozuna had a 330 ADP and provided a second-round return.

Here are the hitters from the last three seasons who provided top 30 overall value from the ADP 50-100 and 100-250 ranges:

What stands out most from the profit-earners of the last few seasons is the little helium and attention that surrounded them during those big fantasy draft months. Most were well-known hitters coming off injuries, drop-offs in production, or playing for new teams. Marcell Ozuna’s 140-150 ADP last winter after a 40-HR, 100-RBI campaign may have been the most baffling, likely influenced by his off-the-field issues and UT-only designation. Corbin Carroll was an original 2023 Yelich candidate, but helium whisked him away in the height of draft season from the ADP 75-80 range up to the third round in live Vegas NFBC Main Events. Paul Goldschmidt’s 2022 roto value was second only to Aaron Judge.

Whether the player was a first-time breakout or a veteran, they all had the perfect confluence of factors that led to fantasy profits – skills improvement, good health, underappreciated, positive team context and general market (ADP) oversight. The 2025 fantasy baseball season will yield dozens of profitable bats. In this article, I explore a few of the hitters likely to provide the most significant profit, as well as the player most likely to earn borderline first-round value – This Year’s Yelich.

The Yelich Origin Story

When Christian Yelich was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in January of 2018, I had an overwhelming sense of intuition I couldn’t shake – that Yelich was going to mash. Much of the fantasy community was hung up on his strong groundball tendencies in Miami. Many did not believe that Yelich was capable of a notably higher statistical performance level. At that point in his career, Yelich was a light five-category roto contributor with phenomenal plate discipline and a .290 average. He was moving to a better hitters’ park in Milwaukee with a significantly improved team context. I moved into steadfast acquisition mode, drafting him everywhere I could. First, in the 70-90 ADP range, then into the 60s and 50s, as slight helium began to take hold. One day that March, I hit send on a tweet: