Here we are again, trying to win the FSGA Champions fantasy baseball league. Here is my draft day diary, kinda, of how my mixed league squad came together for the 2025 season.
RULES
5 x 5 Rotisserie style scoring.
Hitting Categories – BA, HR, RBI, Runs, SB
Pitching Categories – W, ERA, WHIP, K, SV
ROSTER: 2-C, 1-1B, 1-3B, 1-CI, 1-2B, 1-SS, 1-MI, 5-OF, 1-UT, 9-P, 6 reserves
Every team must have a minimum of 3,500 at-bats and 900 innings pitched.
New to LABR this year (at my behest)… we will set our lineups Monday for the entire week for pitchers. For hitters, there are two time periods (1) Monday and (2) Friday. This setup allows you to swap out injured players or to change based on matchups for your hitters.
POSITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
This league is staying old school saying that you need to have participated at a position 20-times times last season in order to qualify at the spot this year (for more on that I discussed qualifications here).
FREE AGENT ACQUISITION BUDGET
This league will indeed be using FAAB. Each team will have $1,000 to spend over the course of the year. You must have $1 to big on a player (no zero bids).
INJURED LIST
There is no limit to the number of players that can be placed on the Injured List. Players must be activated by the scoring period after they are activated.
DRAFT PARTICIPANTS
MY ROSTER
*Round taken in parenthesis.
Catcher: Gabril Moreno (12), Francisco Alvarez (17)
First Base: Nolan Schanuel (22)
Second Base: Maikel Garcia (13)
Third Base: Alex Bregman (7)
Shortstop: CJ Abrams (2)
Middle Infielder: Trevor Story (20)
Corner Infielder: Matt Chapman (10)
Outfield: Kyle Tucker (1), James Wood (3), Cody Bellinger (5), Jung Hoo Lee (18), Nolan Jones (19)
Utility: Gavin Lux (24)
Pitchers: Yoshinobu Yamamoto (4), Bryce Miller (6), Luis Castillo (8), Alexis Diaz (9), Robbie Ray (11), Nick Lodolo (14), Justin Martinez (15), A.J. Puk (16), Mitch Keller (21)
BENCH: Griffin Jax (23), Edwin Uceta (25), Merrill Kelly (26), Bryan Abreu (27) Tommy Pham (28), Coby Mayo (29)
***Comments made in this report are after the fact as I was hosting and drafting at the same time on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. As a result, I was unable to comment on the club while actually drafting which I normally do in these reviews. I also admitted, on air, that post the 22nd round things got a bit dicey in this one. The first two hours of the broadcast we had a three-man booth, but the final hour there were just two of us which basically stopped me from doing any kinda of personal draft analysis. So, rounds 23 on were basically me just grabbing guys that I like who were still on my board, without much thought or strategy. In an ideal scenario, of course, you would never do this. Tis what it was for me though, so you will see a less than ideal bench build with this squad.
DRAFT WRITE UP
INFIELD
I didn’t get an elite catcher, but I really like my duo here and for a reasonable cost. Moreno can really hit, and I’m expecting him to be a C1 in this format. Even with Alvarez likely to miss about a month, I still believe he’s a top-15 option at the catcher spot as well. For more on Alvarez, start listening at the 2:20 mark in this video. Feel really good about this duo.
First base – blah. Schanuel worked on improving his bat speed this offseason and should improve in year two. Ideally, he’s a CI in this setup so he’s a bit stretched at first, though I should note that Bellinger also qualifies at first base to help me out there if I can make a move in the outfield. Bregman at third and Chapman at CI – feel solid about that. Bregman should love Fenway and seems destined to pick up second base eligibility. He’s a floor but not ceiling play. Feel the same about Chapman who should hit cleanup for the Giants.
I rostered a good amount of speed up the middle with Garcia at second and Abrams at shortstop (Garcia is also third base eligible and there has been talk about him playing the outfield too). They could swipe 75 bags. I grabbed Lux late to help up the middle as well and he’s starting to look like a guy on his way to 500 PA with the Reds, though he’s likely to hit down in the order. He seems to have finally found his stroke at the big-league level and he crushed down the stretch last year hitting .304/.390/.508 in the second half. The real wildcard in the infield is Story. As I type out this sentence he’s batting .458 with two homers in 25 PA this spring. Even with massive struggles the last three years he’s still gone .232-21-90-73-29 in 163 games in that time, and his last season of 400 PA, back in 2021, he went .251-24-75-88-20. Stability with guys like Bregman/Chapman helps me to absorb some of the risk with Story, though it is ample as he’s the definition of a dart-throw.
OUTFIELD
Tucker has a real shot at going 30/30 this season, though I will settle for 30/20 and be plenty happy. I think if Woods struggles a bit he can still go 20/20 in his first full season. Has to get the ball in the air more, but it’s not insane to think he goes deep 25 times while batting .275 with a .350 OBP. You never know what game Bellinger will show up with, but he should hit in the heart of the Yankees’ lineup and lefties at Yankees stadium check in with the third best Park Factor in baseball the last three years in the homer category. Working on a Lee Player Profile right now, but let’s say that Lee as a fourth outfielder in a league this deep, I’m totally comfortable with that (he’s set to hit third for the Giants to start the year). Jones is a perfect fifth outfielder here as well. He has Coors, is talented and went 20/20 two years ago. He could go .260-20-75-75-10 and I wouldn’t be shocked at all. Has to stay healthy and make better contact though.
PITCHING
Yamamoto had a better ERA than Logan Gilbert last year and a better WHIP than Cole Ragans. He just needs health this year. Miller, who is ending up on all my teams, was top-5 in baseball in WHIP last year and pitches in the best park in baseball. Castillo also pitches in SEA, and though his stuff has backed up a bit, he still had 175 punchouts in 175 innings last year. Ray has 200 K upside having hit the mark in 5-straight seasons of 160-innings pitched. His issue is often the long ball and Oracle Park suppresses though. Lodolo is a younger clone of Ray. If healthy, 180+ punchouts are incoming. Keller turns 29 in April, and though he’s never quite reached the predicted heights, he’s posted 376 strikeouts over 372.1 innings the last two years and has made 29 straights three straight campaigns.
In the pen, Diaz ain’t great, but he should get 25-30 saves. Behind him I grabbed flamethrower Martinez out of Arizona. I reached on Puk, but I just wrote Should You Handcuff Closers? and I wanted to give the strategy a try (I was sniped in my keeper league when I waited a round too long on Puk last week so I aggressively pursued him in this draft). I see 30 saves from the duo and now it doesn’t matter if it is 15/15 or 20/10 split between the two guys. Puk has been dynamite in the bullpen too (he posted a 35 percent K-rate and 0.75 WHIP over 57 pen innings last year).
BENCH
As noted above, the bench build wasn’t perfect cause I was hosting the draft live for SiriusXM. Don’t try that at home.
I grabbed Kelly as a stable SP who should offer solid work per outing, though questions about durability are growing with age. I went with the closer in waiting strategy three times. Jax was dynamite last year with a 0.87 WHIP and 10 saves behind a more hittable than we thought Duran. Uceta has a huge arm and pitched impressively late (0.82 WHIP over 41.2 innings). He would seem to be the #2 behind P. Fairbanks for TB, and as good as PF is, he’s never recorded 46 innings in the bigs in his six campaigns as he’s always hurt. Abreu is likely the #2 in HOU with Ryan Pressley dealt to the Cubs and Abreu has 62 holds the last two season with 100 punchouts in each campaign.
The two bench bats, and it could have been three if I hadn’t grabbed that third bench RP (thanks hosting) are Pham and Mayo (ideally, I would have had another bench bat with a 450 PA outlook). Pham should play most days for the Pirates, until he is eventually dealt and he could even bat leadoff. He should be usable in the first half. Mayo might have the biggest power bat in all of baseball in the minors. His path to early playing time is seemingly non-existent, and it isn’t always easy to carry a player like that once the bullets start flying.
FINAL THOUGHTS
We shall see.
As noted above, I like the start of my draft. I have a good deal of positional eligibility and a stronger than normal catching duo. If Story is a hit I’m looking good, but do you really ever want to say that? If it is more of the same from Story, I’m a bat short. Embraced some risk with young talent and balanced it out with some veteran stability though, so at least there is that. Overall, it’s a solid group on offense, though it doesn’t appear to be a league winning group at the moment.
Starting pitching is pretty dang good. I have three top-25 starters IMO and I think Ray/Lodolo/Keller are ideal 4/5/6 starters in a 14 team league. I went more aggressively than I have been this spring in the bullpen and clearly have a fantastic sixsome. A break here or there, I star in saves. Even without that, my per inning work from the group should be elite and I have some potential trading chips if need be. As I wrote above, should have had one less RP arm though.
It was a fun draft that could have been better if I wasn’t also talking while drafting, but that’s the gig, so I let ‘er rip and we will see how it plays out in 2025.
Here is a link to the draftboard.
