My Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep Mess
So, draft night was coming up fast for our 2025 keeper league, and honestly? I felt kinda lost. Rookies are pure gold in this setup, but figuring out who’s even worth a look? Forget it. Flipped through some weird rankings last year, picked a dude who bombed totally. Wasn’t making that mistake again.
First thing Monday morning, way too early with coffee barely kicking in, I plopped down at my kitchen table. Laptop open, fired up the browser. Thought it’d be easy: just type “2025 fantasy baseball rookies” and grab a list. Boy, was I wrong. Every site had totally different names, different orders. Stats were all over the damn place. One guy was top 5 everywhere, others bounced around like crazy. Got a headache fast.
Realized I needed a better plan, something simple. I remembered last year’s train wreck. This time, focus only on the stats that actually matter right now for fantasy – stuff like hitting for average, getting hits that matter (RBIs, runs), and stealing bases. For pitchers, forget wins, look at guys who miss bats (strikeouts) and don’t walk everybody.
Here’s basically what I did next:
- Started a stupidly basic spreadsheet. Just three columns: Player Name, Hitting Stuff (my gut feel), Pitching Stuff (again, gut feel).
- Went back to those messy lists. Ignored the fancy projections for a sec. Just looked for names popping up over and over again near the top. Those had to be the real deals.
- For any name I kinda recognized but couldn’t place, I dug deeper. Found some YouTube clips – mostly grainy high school or minor league stuff. Watched how they swung the bat. Did it look smooth? Or awkward? Pitchers – did they throw hard? Easy motion?
- Checked super quick news blurbs. Any mention of injuries? Or did they just crush it in spring training? Didn’t dive deep, just surface stuff.
After like an hour, maybe two, staring at the screen, my list finally started making sense. Still messy, but my messy. Suddenly it hit me – trying to predict exact steals or homeruns this early is nuts. Better to focus: Is this guy gonna play? Is he talented? The simple stuff. Crossed out a bunch of complicated notes I’d scribbled.
By lunchtime, I had maybe 15-20 names grouped kinda rough. Top tier – slam dunks if you can get them. Second tier – solid, maybe need a bit more time but good upside. Third tier – total gambles, but maybe someone gets hot. Felt way better than last year’s disaster.
Printed out my ugly little ranking sheet right before draft night. Even spilled coffee on it – classic. But guess what? Actually used it! Snagged two guys from my top tier because others were chasing old names. Felt like a win already.