2025 fantasy baseball busts: Avoid these 10 players in drafts
Nothing hurts more than taking somebody on draft day with utter confidence, only for them to fall apart entirely by the time your season ends. Taking someone ahead of their ADP because you have the utmost confidence in them, only for them to wind up underproducing, can destroy your fantasy season.
Avoiding busts is one of the best traits you can have as a fantasy manager, but it's much easier said than done. That super enticing player projected to go outside the top-50 that you have as a top-20 player could actually land you in your league's toilet bowl.
In order to avoid that, we present you this list. Here is one player at every position that you should avoid in your fantasy drafts this year. You can also check out our top sleeper picks, all breakout team, and riskiest selections for 2025.
Biggest 2025 fantasy baseball busts
The Los Angeles Angels made it clear that they wanted more consistency from their backstops in 2025, signing Travis d'Arnaud to a two-year, $12 million deal. d'Arnaud's presence provides substantial risk for O'Hoppe as O'Hoppe not only had an atrocious second half in 2024, posting a .578 OPS after the All-Star break, but he was also similarly subpar against left-handed pitching.
O'Hoppe recorded just a .592 OPS against southpaws in 2025. d'Arnaud, meanwhile, posted a .922 OPS against them. All this is to say that O'Hoppe could very easily get relegated to a platoon role, which would decimate his value given that he played 136 games last season.
Currently going inside the top-120 picks, Pasquantino has regressed in a few key statistics, making him a rather dangerous selection. Most notably, both Pasquantino's walk rate and strikeout rate have decreased each of the last three seasons.
Now, that would be all right if Pasquantino's power numbers were also increasing, but they aren't. Pasquantino's home run-to-fly ball ratio has decreased each of the last three seasons as well, which is especially concerning considering that his fly ball rate has increased over that three-year stretch. His expected slugging, expected batting average, expected weighted on-base average, nearly every predictive statistic you can find indicates that Pasquantino is getting worse, not better.
While 2024 was his first season playing more than 75 games, it's hard to feel confident in a player who has yet to prove himself long-term. There are plenty of good options at first base. Pasquantino is too risky, too unproven, and trending in the wrong direction to warrant his current ADP.
Rafaela will get consistent playtime because of his defense, but with Alex Bregman joining the Red Sox this year and Kristian Campbell winning Minor League Player of the Year in 2024, there is a lot of competition for middle infield spots in Boston.
At best, Rafaela's defense keeps him in the lineup, but he'd still be hitting near the bottom. With a 49.5% chase rate last season – the worst among qualified hitters in baseball – and a 79.7% zone contact rate – eighth-worst in baseball – Rafaela could very easily get moved to the bench, only ever filling in as a late-game defensive substitute or when someone else needs rest.
Rafaela is not considered a top option in fantasy, but is still going inside the top-200 picks, making him an option in the middle-to-late rounds. He should not be drafted.
Castro's defensive flexibility will earn him consistent playtime, which will help his counting stats, but the numbers themselves are mediocre at best. A .138 ISO? .385 SLG? Average exit velocity at 87.4 mph? Those aren't numbers that scream "top-150 hitter."
CJ Abrams was supposed to break out in 2024. While he did slightly increase his power numbers, the breakout wasn't as substantial as many people had hoped. Now, a year later, with expectations dampened, why on Earth is Abrams still going in the same position? With so many talented options at shortstop, there's no world where Abrams should be drafted ahead of guys like Willy Adames and Bo Bichette, each of whom has proven track records of success, even if they're in new environments or coming off a down season. There's no world where Abrams should be drafted ahead of someone who actually still has a lot of untapped potential like Cincinnati's Matt McLain.
Abrams should be drafted as a depth option if anything, and with the off-field issues that came up a season ago as well, there's very little reason to believe he'll improve so drastically that he will return value within the top-80 picks.
Take one look at Pete Crow-Armstrong's Baseball Savant page and you'll notice a trend. Every metric is blue. He does not do anything well with his bat. He can't hit for average. He can't hit for power. He doesn't hit the ball hard. He strikes out a lot. He doesn't walk much. All he knows how to do is play defense and run. In a categories setting, Crow-Armstrong could be useful as someone who gets steals, but even in that department, 27 steals aren't going to be a game-changer most weeks.
You could very easily grab Jake McCarthy or Victor Scott much later and each of them would provide similar value.
Arozarena's production has steadily declined over the last several years, and the move to Seattle didn't help him much. Sure, he improved his batting average, but still only hit .231 with the Mariners.
T-Mobile Park is a notoriously tough park for hitters as well, ranking dead last in park factor over the past three seasons. Arozarena could still provide value as a power/speed threat, but after joining Seattle, Arozarena only stole four bases on seven attempts, a far cry from his 16 steals and 23 attempts in, albeit, twice as many games in Tampa Bay that year.
Is Ronald Acuña a bad player? No. Is he hurt and likely to miss a good chunk of the season? Yes. Does that mean he's not worth drafting as a top-10 outfielder? Also yes.
The Braves have already made it clear that they want to play it safe with Acuña, not wanting to rush him back before he's ready. Will he be a stud when he returns? Undoubtedly, but given the time he will miss, it would be near impossible for him to produce top-10 OF numbers. That said, if drafted a little bit later, perhaps around the OF 15-20 range, he could be a very valuable trade chip when rumors start to circulate that he's ramping up his activity.
The Great American Ballpark isn't very great for pitchers. In fact, over the last three seasons, no park has a higher home run factor. Yet somehow, despite the insane home run factor, Greene's home run per fly ball rate against his fastball was an inconceivably low 5.3% in 2024. That's unsustainable, and it is evidenced by the fact that his expected ERA was a whole point higher than his actual ERA a season ago. He likely won't produce at a similar level to what we saw last year when he finished as the SP22. Yet somehow, he's only going as SP27, when he should probably be going around SP35-40.
For a closer, Foley lacks putaway stuff. While the velocity of his fastball is good, Foley struggles to miss bats and relies on weak contact to get outs. He finished 2024 in the 14th percentile among pitchers in strikeout rate, 14th percentile in chase rate, and 23rd percentile in whiff rate.
Yes, that tends to be the mark of a sinker ball pitcher, but sinker ballers tend to be streaky. Foley had an expected batting average against of .255 a season ago, which would've placed him in nearly the bottom quartile of MLB pitchers, implying that he got really lucky a season ago. Now, with Tommy Kahnle in the mix, and a myriad of other high-end relief options, Foley's leash will be very short and likely won't be a good option to bring in with runners on base. There are too many instances where Foley's skill set doesn't work, making him a suboptimal option as the Tigers' closer.