I am doing a series where I offer up three fantasy baseball thoughts for every MLB team. I’ll take a look at under-the-radar stats, playing time projections, projected roles, and offseason news to try and highlight the nuggets that might help you in your 2025 fantasy baseball drafts. We’ll do this thing in alphabetical order and kick things off with three thoughts for the 2025 Arizona Diamondbacks.
3 Fantasy Baseball Thoughts for the Arizona Diamondbacks
Let’s Try This Again with Jake McCarthy
I’ve previously been on Jake McCarthy and the young outfielder has failed to consistently deliver. The good news is that Arizona hasn’t given up on McCarthy, and you shouldn’t either. The fact that his ADP now sits around pick 235 certainly helps with that. While not your prototypical power hitter, McCarthy is currently slotted in to bat third for the Diamondbacks. Last year was the best season of his career as he appeared in 142 games and hit .285. While his .269 xBA pumps the breaks some, it’s still slightly above average. Of more importance though is the fact that he stole 25 bases. As long as you don’t expect any power from McCarthy, he has a solid profile otherwise. Batting in the middle of the order should get him closer to 70 RBI and 70 runs scored.
Eugenio Suarez Continues to be a Strong Option
What he doesn’t have in upside, excitement or an elite batting average, Eugenio Suarez makes up for with everything else. The dependable veteran continues to find success in the middle of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ order. That should continue this season after he hit 30 home runs last year to go along with 101 RBI. Suarez even took his strikeout rate down a few points to 27.5% and his batting average rose to .256. Don’t bank on all of those gains sticking around, but the power isn’t going anywhere. Suarez had a .214 ISO last year and with an 11.4% barrel rate, he continues to make strong contact. You don’t have to twist my arm around pick 175, if not a round or two earlier, to grab Suarez with a reasonable 30/100 expectation.
Let’s Ignore Eduardo Rodriguez from Last Year
I’d never consider Eduardo Rodriguez an elite pitcher, but the veteran has always been a dependable option. Health didn’t work in his favor last year as he made just 10 starts pitching 50 innings. With a 5.04 ERA and 5.59 xERA, the results weren’t there either. Granted it becomes a matter of just picking which metric to believe, but Rodriguez did have a 4.57 ERA and 4.24 xFIP. All that really means to me is that things weren’t ideal for the left-hander and it was a smaller sample size. Instead, let’s focus on the overall body of work. Rodriguez is a dependable veteran hurler who can strike out more than eight batters per nine innings while generally factoring into the decision. In 2023, Rodriguez had a 3.30 ERA and now he has a 550 ADP. As long as he’s healthy. the innings aren’t going anywhere, so take a chance on the track record.