Let’s give one last preseason look at fantasy baseball, notebook style.

There’s a lot of talk that you have to come out of the first couple of rounds of the draft with speed and, as a result, we’re downgrading the power hitters who aren’t expected to contribute in the SB category like Junior Caminero (already probably a Hall of Famer given his age 21 production; argue with me in the comments).

In high-stakes leagues with no trading, I’m not going to argue the point. It’s reasonable. And if your league has little trading, steals are more valuable. We know steals are less frequent than homers — there were about 1.5 homers for every steal in 2025. So a steal should be worth about 50% more than a homer. However, steals are one-category events and homers impact three categories. So, advantage homers. But that’s not the main point, which is …

Your fantasy baseball league is a closed market.

The value of something is worth the demand for it in the marketplace. One-category assets like steals are rarely sought by more than one of the teams in your league at any time. Homers are frequently sought by more than one team in your league at any time. A closed market means you can only trade in your league. If you could trade your steals in an open market, they would be worth far more. But in the closed market of just 11 other teams, for example, and given the difficulty in finding multiple teams willing to pay for steals at any time, they simply are not an expected commodity. You have to take pennies on the dollar to trade surplus steals. Surplus homers go for full-blown retail nine times out of 10.

Two elite closers > one elite ace

I assume you’re convinced, because how couldn’t you be. And I can hear you saying, “So, Mike, you must hate paying for closers since saves are one category events.” False. And the last thing I think about with closers is saves. I want a chance for 100 Ks, a sub-2.25 ERA and sub-1.000 WHIP. So I pay up for, say, Mason Miller and Edwin Díaz. Or if that’s too unlikely, let’s say one of Miller or Díaz and then a closer I really like, Devin Williams. So I’m up 60 Ks at least on most of the other teams with two closers. And I project them both for a 2.25 ERA and 0.90 WHIP in 130 innings. Assuming 900 innings from the rest of my staff, that turns a 3.80 team ERA into a 3.60 team ERA, and a 1.25 WHIP into 1.205.

Tarik Skubal, in his projected 177 innings of 2.70/0.93, cuts his team’s ERA to 3.60 (the same as it was with the elite closers) and the WHIP from 1.25 to 1.198 (basically the same as with our closers). Maybe your cheap closers will help somewhat in ERA and WHIP, but it’s likely going to be a very marginal boost. Now let’s look at the Ks. Skubal is projected for 205. Let’s call that 40 surplus Ks compared to an average healthy mixed-league starter. Think of what you are paying for this versus the closers. I’m getting greater team impact with my third- and fifth-round picks than the Skubal manager gets with his first rounder. Plus, I get a far greater impact in saves with my closers than the Skubal manager is getting in wins. If you would still rather draft Skubal and cheap closers rather than a top hitter and two premium closers way later, I could not disagree more. While my structure spends one other top-60 pick on a pitcher, I’m out of the closer business in the middle rounds and I don’t think the difference between a top-100 hitter and top-50 hitter is likely to be nearly as vast as the difference between Williams and, say, Carlos Estévez.

Ks in moderation

While we know all about the value of limiting batter strikeouts in category and point leagues, they also need to be considered in straight Roto leagues that don’t have a batter Ks category. Batters who fanned 20% of the time or less in 2025 combined to hit .267. But if it was 25% or more, the average fell .239. That’s a massive difference. Here are the hitters who can reasonably be projected for 30 or more homers with an expected K rate of 20% or less (making them targets at ADP):

Cody Bellinger, NYY
Junior Caminero, TB
Vladimir Guerrero, TOR
Shea Langeliers, ATH
Francisco Lindor, NYM
Manny Machado, SD
Ketel Marte, ARI
Vinnie Pasquantino, KC
José Ramírez, CLE
Ben Rice, NYY
Juan Soto, NYM
Fernando Tatis, SD
Kyle Tucker, LAD
Bobby Witt, KC (Kansas City’s fences are moved in)
Not-so-terminal velocity

We’re velocity obsessed in pitcher analysis. But it’s spring training. Why would pitchers be maxing out in velocity in practice? Plus, late in spring training, dead-arm syndrome is very common and never permanent. Many pitchers with no injury issues will just suddenly drop 3-to-5 mph in velocity late in spring while this resolves. If there’s pain, that’s another matter entirely. But just a loss of velocity as spring training concludes is nothing to react to with ADP. So if you liked Emmet Sheehan, for example, you should just ignore the pearl clutchers and draft him anyway. Take the discount. To be clear, a documented loss of velocity demands further investigation; but if injury is ruled out/the player remains active, my advice is to ignore velocity dips in March/April.

Spring flings

What do we do with spring training stats? This is the Matt McLain question. My rule of thumb is they are strictly a tie breaker under normal circumstances. I’m not significantly changing my January view of the veteran player off of some good spring stats against Double-A-caliber competition.

I do not ignore it. I filtered spring training stats for at least 40 PAs, at least an .875 OPS and a K% under 20%. This is a long list, but I’m only giving the faintest of checkmarks on my checklist to this group. Translation: I am definitely in at ADP and maybe will reach slightly if the ADP of the player is before my next pick. In addition to the OPS threshold, this list includes a relatively low K-rate and at least a 7.5 opponent quality rating — that is solid Double-A-level opposition according to Baseball-Reference:

Luisangel Acuña, CHW
Carson Benge, NYM
Alec Bohm, PHI
Adolis García, PHI
Nolan Gorman, STL
Luke Keaschall, MIN
Shea Langeliers, ATH
Jake McCarthy, COL
Kevin McGonigle, DET
Matt McLain, CIN
Adley Rutschman, BAL
Matt Shaw, CHC
Josh Smith, TEX
George Springer, TOR
Sal Stewart, CIN
Daulton Varsho, TOR
Andrew Vaughn, MIL
Matt Vierling, DET

These players (above) are also all starting or have a reasonable path to 500 PAs.

Similarly to the hitters, I also looked at spring training pitchers, and all I care about here, given these meager samples, is a K rate of about 30% or greater. Again, I’m only making a slight adjustment for this in my rankings. It’s a minor tiebreaker/checkmark at ADP. The list:

Ryne Nelson, ARI
Mick Abel, MIN
Cole Ragans, KC
Luis Gil, NYY
Robbie Ray, SF
Kyle Leahy STL

Yes, Kyle Leahy (ADP: 434). I’m putting Leahy inside draftable range so that I would take him with my last pick. The lowest K rate for the spring on this list is Leahy’s 28.6%. Ragans is the only one of these pitchers who has not fared well in both ERA and WHIP in the spring, though the Ks are far more important to me. I should note that Ray’s control has been an issue, so that cancels out his Ks.

Some final late notes

I have recommended and drafted Kyle Stowers. I believe the power is elite, but the hamstring is a big problem and I feel I ignored that earlier this spring — that was obviously a mistake.

I don’t care if Gerrit Cole is pitching. I’m not buying a pitcher less than 18 months removed from a career-threatening elbow injury. While the price of roughly pick No. 225 seems cheap, I’d take the later-drafted Braxton Aschcraft every time. But that’s more about Cole than Ashcraft, who is hardly a target.

Finally, hitters being drafted in the top 150 who my modeling does not like (2025 Ks too high with an xwOBA too low):

Hunter Goodman, COL (62)
Randy Arozarena, SEA (86)
Oneil Cruz, PIT (90)
Eugenio Suarez, CIN (99)
Trevor Story, BOS (101)
Willy Adames, SF (126)
Matt McLain, CIN (127)
Taylor Ward, BAL (142)

Sidebar on McLain: He was so bad last year that I can’t overreact to the spring training stats given the MiLB-like level of competition. The spring has taken McLain from an ADP of No. 199 overall in NFBC leagues to No. 126. You have got to be kidding me! This is overweighting spring training data by orders of magnitude. Don’t pay anything near this price for McLain.