Shortstop is, pound for pound, the deepest position in Fantasy Baseball entering the 2025 season. It has the star power at the top, of course, but it's also deeper at every point in the draft than any other infield position.
One way to prove this is to look at a multi-eligible player like Matt McLain. He doesn't have 2B eligibility in CBS Fantasy leagues, but he does at the NFBC (he should gain 2B eligibility within the first week of the season, assuming he's the Reds' starter there), so we can look at ADP for this comparison. At shortstop, he's the No. 11 player in ADP since January 1, a lofty ranking, but a potentially justifiable one – keep reading for my thoughts on whether I would actually rank him that high. At second base, McLain is sixth in ADP. Five spots higher!
Let's go a little further down the rankings to keep proving the point. There are 17 players at second base inside of the top 150 in ADP; there are just 13 first basemen. Even third base, which is relatively deep compared to the other positions, can't compare to shortstop. Let's compare the ADP for the top 20 at each position to highlight the point:
- Position Strategies: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Previews: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
- Position Tiers (v. 2.0): C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP
At every point in each position, the shortstop is going to cost you more than the comparable option at third base, and it often isn't all that close. The No. 5 third baseman is a late third-round pick; the No. 5 shortstop is an early second-rounder. The No. 10 shortstop's ADP is 90.4; the No. 10 third baseman is 119.3.
The only position that can really hang in 2025 is the outfield, and comparisons are tougher there because you need more players in your lineup there. But Oneil Cruz is eligible at both spots, and he's OF15 in ADP, compared to SS7; seeing as you need five more OF in your lineup than SS, I think that comparison works out in the shortstop position's favor, too.
You should probably plan on having multiple shortstops in your lineup this season, in other words. If you pick in the first half of the first round, that could be Bobby Witt, Gunnar Henderson, or Elly De La Cruz; in the latter half of the first, it could be Mookie Betts or Francisco Lindor. And you can pair any of them with Corey Seager in the fourth or fifth round and lock in a potential 40-homer bat who hits .300 in your MI spot. And you could follow that up with another potential .300 hitter in Bo Bichette in the double-digit rounds, or a potential 40-steal guy like Xavier Edwards.
Because not only does shortstop have uncommon depth, but it also has every kind of hitter you could want, at pretty much every point in the draft. Power bats can be tougher to find in the middle rounds, though Carlos Correa (an absurdly cheap 236.2 ADP) might have something to say about that.
The point is, shortstop is going to be a big part of how you build your team in 2025. Here's what you need to know:
Witt became a bona fide superstar in 2024, with his batting average jumping nearly 60 points from 2023 in a way that was largely backed up by his underlying stats. Expecting a bit of a step back isn't unreasonable – few hitters can hit .332 every year – but he's a legitimate five-category superstar at 24, and I don't see any reason to think he won't be one of the very best players in Fantasy yet again.
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Continuing the youth movement, we've got De La Cruz, the league's premiere source of speed – and very much a work in progress otherwise. De La Cruz's struggles against lefties (31.8% strikeout rate last season) make it harder to project natural growth, but he's also playing with better tools than almost anyone in baseball. He's far from a finished product, but any step forward as a contact hitter could lead to some explosive growth from De La Cruz. I'm inclined not to draft him in the first round, personally – he's likely to be a drag on your batting average while providing merely okay home run and RBI totals – but there's no question that best-case scenario is about as dominant as anyone's.
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Betts took a step back as a power hitter in 2024, and we have the quality of contact metrics to back it up. We've seen him bounce back from a seemingly declining skill set before, but it's probably not the smartest bet to assume he'll do it again at 32. Of course, Betts still looks like he'll approach 30 homers and 20 steals while hitting for a solid batting average, and we know the counting stats will be excellent in that lineup. I have a hard time seeing a No. 1 overall finish from Betts, but a first-round return seems all but assured.
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Henderson gave back some of his gains in the second half of the season, but that just means he might be "only" a 35-homer guy instead of a 40-homer guy. Ho-hum. He's not quite as strong a five-category contributor as some other first-rounders, but he also doesn't turn 24 until the end of June, so there might still be room for improvement. Can he cut the strikeout rate and challenge for a .300 average? Could he push for 30 steals? I think either (or both!) are realistic, if not especially likely. There's something to be said for buying players on the upswing of their career, and Henderson sure looks like he's still there, with only a mild spring intercostal injury holding his price back.
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If you could count on Lindor to hit .280-plus, he's probably a first-rounder in every league. Instead, he's one of the best picks you can make in the second round, and he could put up some truly bonkers counting stats with Juan Soto as his right-hand man at the top of the lineup. He's probably going to get something close to 30 homers and 30 steals, and 200 runs-plus-RBI is a good bet, too. You'll live with a batting average that maxes out at "fine" rather than "truly helpful" when everything else is so good.
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Before a May hamstring injury, Turner was on a 40-steal pace, and he remains one of the fastest baserunners in the game. Of course, Turner hasn't stolen more than 32 in a season since 2018, so you're right to be skeptical of his chances of actually pulling that off in 2025. But it's within his range of outcomes if he manages to stay healthy. We know he's going to provide an excellent batting average, 20-plus homers, and a ton of runs, so the question is whether he will run his way back into first-round consideration. The nice thing is, at his price, there's plenty of room for profit.
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Seager might just be the best hitter at the position, and he put up a .290 average with a 44-homer, 100-RBI pace from May 1 on after a slow start last season. The problem, as ever, is health. Seager missed time at the end of the season with a hernia, an injury that required surgery both before and after the season. He has played 150 games just twice in his career and has missed at least 39 games in three of the past seasons. He isn't getting any younger, so you have to assume there will be at least one IL stint with Seager. But when he's on the field, he should be a four-category menace nobody at the position can match.
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Early on in 2024, it sure looked like Abrams was emerging as an absolute superstar. He hit .268/.343/.489 with a 25-25 pace, with an overall skill set that didn't look far off a typical Francisco Lindor season. But he fell apart in the second half, ultimately earning a demotion to the minors after staying out until 8 am ahead of a Nationals day game in September. Abrams is fully expected to be on the team's Opening Day roster, but you do have to wonder if he is on relatively thin ice with the organization after the way his season ended. If all goes right, he still has 20-homer, 40-steal upside in a lineup that could take a big step forward. But there's more risk than you'd like here for a guy who is supposed to be ascending.
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Cruz remains a tantalizing collection of almost unmatched tools, but he's still figuring out how to put them into use. Few players are capable of hitting the ball as hard as he does, but he also swings and misses a ton and hasn't quite figured out how to optimize his swing to maximize his power. Similarly, he has near-elite speed but managed just seven steals by last year's All-Star break. He started to tap into a bit more of his potential in both regards in the second half of 2024, especially on the basepaths, where he ran at a 40-steal pace. There's still a 30-40 ceiling here, but Cruz is far from maximizing it – and he's already 26, so it's not like there's an especially long runway here. He could go 20-30 in 2025 without changing much about his game, but the loftier projections are getting harder to buy into.
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The way Fantasy players have abandoned ship on Bichette is puzzling. He was viewed as an early-round pick basically his entire career, and one season where he clearly wasn't healthy is enough to drop him into the double-digit rounds as a 26-year-old? That doesn't make much sense to me. Sure, Bichette was awful in 2024, but over five seasons before that, he hit .299/.340/.487, and players usually don't just fall apart that badly in their mid-20s. He's in a contract year, so I think the potential for a bit more stolen base upside than he's shown in recent years. There's a lot riding on this season for Bichette, and I expect a big bounceback. I'm ranking him about 70 spots ahead of his ADP.
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The key question with Adames is this: How real were last season's 21 steals? He's not an especially fast base runner and had just 30 steals in six seasons prior to 2024, and he's going to a Giants team that had just two double-digit stolen base totals in 2024, so there's plenty of reason to be skeptical. If he goes back to being a single-digit steal guy, Adames is still a solid source of power for a shortstop, but usually with pretty bad batting averages, and he's getting a huge park downgrade with the move to San Francisco. I'm expecting a big step backward in 2025, and won't be targeting him at his ADP. But I've been wrong before.
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McLain showed some mighty-high upside as a rookie, with 16 homers, 14 steals, and a .290 average in 89 games. Once you poke your head under the hood, things aren't quite as impressive – he struck out 29% of the time, had a .256 xBA, and showed pretty average-ish quality-of-contact metrics – but his home park could help keep the power production inflated and Cincinnati should let him keep running. I'm pretty wary of paying a top-100 pick for McLain given the red flags in his profile – and the fact that he missed all of 2024 with a shoulder and then rib injury – but I can certainly see the upside.
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There just aren't many players who can be viable major-league hitters with the kind of power Edwards has – or doesn't have. His is the classic slash-and-burn skill set, where he's just trying to hit the ball on the ground (or a low line) and make the defense pay with his speed. It worked for about half a season last year, and maybe he can keep it up – though, probably with something more like a .260 batting average than a .328 one, in all likelihood. He could steal 40-plus bases and score a decent amount of runs at the top of the lineup, with a best-case scenario that could look a lot like Brice Turang's 2024. Of course, there's a reason nobody really expects Turang to repeat his 2024. Edwards comes at a mild discount relative to Turang, but he also doesn't have 2B eligibility, which means you're taking a bigger hit to the non-speed categories by rostering him.
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Is this all Volpe can be? He was such a hyped prospect, who put up an .881 OPS throughout his minor-league career while showing pop, speed, and a good approach at the plate, and the speed is just about the only thing about the profile that has carried over. He just hasn't figured out how to make consistent contact and hard contact at the same time, and last season's decision to focus more on hitting for contact did little to improve his overall production. He's still just 23, but has also yet to hit a baseball even 109 mph in either of his two seasons, a below-average mark. I don't want to write him off forever, and Volpe could be a decent value in Fantasy drafts if he ends up hitting leadoff for the Yankees. But it's hard to get too excited about anything he's done to this point in his MLB career.
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When he's on the field, Correa is still a really good hitter. Sure, he was only on the field for 86 games last season, but he put up nearly a 30-homer, 90-run, 90-RBI pace while hitting .310 – with the underlying numbers to mostly back it up. I don't think he's a particularly good bet to stay healthy – the recurring nature of his plantar fasciitis injury makes it especially tough – and he probably won't be quite that good on a per-game basis. But he should still be a starting-caliber shortstop, let alone middle infielder, when he is on the field. And he isn't being drafted that way right now.
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Neto probably would have been a top-100 pick this season if not for shoulder surgery right after the season, and honestly, we might have dodged a bullet there. Neto had an awesome second season, but there was plenty of reason to think it wasn't exactly sustainable, as he hit 23 homers despite below-average quality of contact and a pretty messy approach at the plate. He does a good job of pulling the ball for his power, though it's an approach that is probably always going to come with a sacrifice at batting average. Coming off shoulder surgery, Neto's ADP is reasonable enough, but it's still not clear if he's going to be ready for the start of the season, and there could be lingering effects from that surgery. Neto is more of a lottery ticket than anything this season, and I'd prefer if the cost was more around the 200th pick.
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I was fully prepared to call Fitzgerald a "bust" candidate coming into the season, but something funny happened this offseason: Everyone decided they like him even less than I do. Fitzgerald isn't going to repeat last year's .280 average or his 25-homer pace, in all likelihood, but he doesn't have to come close to that to justify a pick outside of the top 220 on Draft Day. If he hits .240 and pops 15-20 homers – doable with his pull-side oriented swing – and steals 20-plus bases, he's going to be a perfectly fine middle infielder. And, for whatever it's worth, Fitzgerald did have 28 homers and 30 steals in 119 career Triple-A games, so I don't think that's his ceiling.
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Let's go with a seemingly boring old guy who might not actually be all that boring. Correa has had trouble staying healthy over the past few years, a problem that isn't likely to get better in his 30s, which is why he's being drafted around 250th overall these days. But when Correa was on the field last season, he was still a force, hitting .310/.388/.517, with a 25-homer, near-100-RBI-and-run pace. You can expect some time on the IL at this point in Correa's career, but he still looks like a must-start option when he's on the field, and you just don't get many of those around 250 in ADP. Take one when he's there.
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The key question for me with Winn is this: Why did he stop running when he got to the leadoff spot? In 42 starts anywhere but the leadoff spot, Winn stole seven bases on 10 attempts, a 25-steal-per-150-game pace; in 102 starts as the leadoff hitter, Winn stole just four on six attempts, a paltry six-steal pace. Otherwise, the move to the leadoff spot was great for Winn, who put up a 20-homer, 102-run pace, with a .247 batting average I would expect him to improve on – his xBA for the season was .256, and I think there's room for him to push close to .280 with his contact skills and speed. But if he's not going to be even a double-digit steals guy, the ceiling looks a lot lower. Seeing as Winn stole 43 bases in 119 games in 2022 and was in the 87th percentile in sprint speed last year, I'm betting there's a lot more untapped potential here. He's a perfect MI target with top-12 upside.
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Contract-year effects are weird and hard to parse, but there's a lot about Adames' 2024 season that looks pretty flukey. Less so the career-high 32 homers – just one more than his previous best – than the 112 RBI, which came in part thanks to an MLB-record-tying 13 three-run homers, something he isn't likely to repeat. And then there's the career-high 21 steals – 13 more than his previous best! – despite declining sprint speed. And then there's the move from Milwaukee to San Francisco as a free agent to consider. Only one team had more steals than the Brewers last season, while only one team had fewer than the Giants, so a repeat of those 21 steals seems especially hard to buy into. And, while American Family Field isn't a significantly better hitter's park for right-handed hitters than Oracle, it is a much better park for right-handed power, ranking seventh in HR park factor over the past three seasons, compared to Oracle, which ranks 28th. There were already a lot of reasons to think Adames wasn't going to replicate his 2024 campaign, and he landed in just about the worst spot to do so.
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Shortstop Top Prospects
1. Jordan Lawlar, SS, Diamondbacks
Age (on opening day): 22
Where he played in 2024: Rookie, Double-A, Triple-A
Minor-league stats: .318 BA (85 AB), 2 HR, 6 SB, .900 OPS, 14 BB, 23 K
The prospect fatigue has begun to set in for Lawlar, who appeared to be on the verge of becoming the Diamondbacks shortstop two years ago and surely would be by now if thumb surgery hadn't cost him most of 2024. He showed his usual plate discipline and base-stealing prowess upon returning, but there's still a question as to how much batting average he'll provide given that his power depends on him elevating consistently to his pull side.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: fighting this spring
2. Marcelo Mayer, SS, Red Sox
Age (on opening day): 22
Where he played in 2024: Double-A
Minor-league stats: .307 BA (300 AB), 8 HR, 13 SB, .850 OPS, 30 BB, 66 K
Between a shoulder impingement in 2023 and a lumbar strain in 2024, Mayer's numbers the past couple years have left Dynasty leaguers wanting. But during that time, he's added exit velocity while reducing strikeouts, continuing to earn high marks from evaluators. He's shaping up to have a hit-over-power profile, which lends itself to Bo Bichette and Xander Bogaerts comps (let's say the pre-2024 version of both).
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: midseason hopeful
3. JJ Wetherholt, SS, Cardinals
Age (on opening day): 22
Where he played in 2024: Low-A
Minor-league stats: .295 BA (105 AB), 2 HR, 2 SB, .805 OPS, 16 BB, 15 K
A couple of hamstring injuries allowed Wetherholt to slip to the Cardinals at Pick 7 last year, but this is a No. 1 overall type of profile with a particularly high floor due to his ability to work the count and deliver on all pitch types. He's a little opposite field-minded and showed hesitance as a base-stealer following his hamstring injuries, calling into question his eventual home run and stolen base output, but he's tooled up enough to deliver plus amounts of both.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: late-season look
4. Colt Emerson, SS, Mariners
Age (on opening day): 19
Where he played in 2024: Rookie, Low-A, High-A
Minor-league stats: .263 BA (274 AB), 4 HR, 15 SB, .769 OPS, 50 BB, 58 K
At this stage of development, Emerson stands out most for his secondary characteristics (i.e., pitch selection, contact quality, and overall baseball instincts), which are the hardest to teach, and that's why evaluators remain so high on him despite the ho-hum production. It's a profile similar to the one Corey Seager presented as a teenager, and the hope is that Emerson has a similar breakthrough in the high minors.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: don't count on it
5. Leo De Vries, SS, Padres
Age (on opening day): 18
Where he played in 2024: Low-A
Minor-league stats: .238 BA (299 AB), 11 HR, 13 SB, .803 OPS, 50 BB, 84 K
No organization promotes their top prospects more aggressively than the Padres, and they didn't make an exception for the top international signee of 2024, having De Vries spend a full year at full-season ball at the ripe old age of 17. And while it was a struggle at first, he went on to slash .285/.407/.599 with 10 homers and seven steals in his final 34 games at Low-A, confirming his five-category potential and beyond-his-years approach.
Scott's 2025 Fantasy impact: don't count on it
