It’s tough to call any fantasy baseball players overvalued or undervalued this early in the season. No team has played more than five percent of their games, and sample sizes are absolutely tiny compared to what we normally need to make long-term judgments on players.
However, based on early performance, team usage, and changes to a player’s approach or mechanics, it’s already clear some players were undervalued in fantasy baseball draft rooms while others may have been overvalued.
This weekly piece will look at the past seven days of fantasy baseball performances to see who should be considered overvalued and undervalued going forward. When necessary, I will reference the Fantrax top 500 rotisserie rankings for the 2025 fantasy baseball season.
Undervalued Players
Victor Scott II (OF – STL)
By the end of draft season, Victor Scott II ended up on a lot of fantasy baseball sleeper lists because of the news he was likely to win the Cardinals’ centerfield job out of Spring Training. There were also rumors of him leading off in St. Louis, which caused his draft stock to shoot up even farther. Only one of those two things happened, however. Scott did win the centerfield job, but he has hit in the eighth spot every game this season.
Victor Scott II recorded an 82.8 MPH bat speed on this double, a new career high for him. He previously topped out at 79.9 MPH. pic.twitter.com/TEG4w5xjOt
— Kareem Haq (@KareemSSN) April 1, 2025
That has not mattered for his production, as he is already hitting .350/.364/.550 with a home run and four stolen bases. Scott is a player who could put up Elly De La Cruz numbers in steals if given the right opportunity, and it appears the Cardinals are going to give him the green light all season. Scott was normally ranked after pick 400 in many drafts, so there is a good chance he is still on your league’s waiver wire this week.
This is a drop everything and go put in a waiver bid situation for Victor Scott II. He could single-handedly win your league’s steals category, and the Cardinals are going to give him a long leash.
Casey Mize (SP – DET)
Post-hype sleeper Casey Mize threw an absolute gem on Tuesday night against the Seattle Mariners. Across 5.2 innings, he allowed just one hit, three walks, and struck out six batters in his first start of the season. The walks are a bit of a concern, but it’s now clear the Tigers were right to trust Mize in the rotation, and he is a waiver wire priority this week.
Mize, a former number one overall pick back in 2018, generated 15 swings and misses on Tuesday night and looked completely unhittable. Is it possible in his age 28 season that Mize has finally found the formula that made him such a good prospect more than seven years ago? Mize threw four pitches at least 13% of the time in his start against Seattle, and three of those pitches (including his sinker and splitter) topped 90 miles per hour.
Mike was mostly an afterthought in drafts this year, and is likely available for free in any 10- and 12-team leagues right now.
Eugenio Suarez (3B – ARI)
It’s pretty wild to look at Eugenio Suarez, who has five home runs (leading MLB) and also has a .000 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). You read that right. Since home runs do not count as balls in play, and since Suarez has no other hits, he has a .000 BABIP despite five home runs and 11 RBI. His overall slash line sits at .278/.381/1.111 through five games, and he has even added a stolen base for good measure.
Eugenio Suárez IS GRAND 😤
He belts his league-leading 5th home run to give the @Dbacks the lead! pic.twitter.com/SvWX1feOdH
— MLB (@MLB) April 2, 2025
Even though he is 33 years old, it’s clear we all underrated the move out of T-Mobile Field in Seattle and into Chase Field in Arizona. In the three years from 2022 to 2024, Chase Field was fifth in overall offensive park factor for right-handers, according to Statcast data. T-Mobile Park was dead last, 30th in MLB. Suarez has moved from a park that was eight percent below league average in offense to one that is consistently 3-5% above the league average.
Will Suarez hit 162 home runs this season? Obviously not, but it’s already painfully clear that his power potential was underdrafted when he was ranked as the 176th player in spring drafts.
Overvalued Players
Masyn Winn (SS – STL)
Much like Victor Scott, Masyn Winn had some offseason buzz, and it was speculated that perhaps me might also be a candidate for leadoff in St. Louis. He served in that role last season, and did quite well in his rookie season (.267/.314/.416 with 15 homers and 11 steals). In 2025, however, he has hit ninth in every game so far, and the move down in the order has not treated him nearly as kindly as it has for Victor Scott.
Winn has one of the five worst OPS numbers to start the season (.143) because his slash line is just .000/.143/.000. That’s right, he does not have a hit yet, and has struck out eight times to just three walks. Winn is not moving back up in the order with Lars Nootbaar, Victor Scott, and Alec Burleson playing so well. For managers who stashed him, hoping for some progression and evolution in his second full year, it might be time to bench Winn and start searching for a better solution.
Rafael Devers (3B – BOS)
This will not be the first place you see or hear about Rafael Devers’ historically bad start to the season. He is still looking for his first hit as April 2 rolls around, and he has 15 strikeouts in 19 at-bats. Going back to last season, Devers has 26 strikeouts in his last 34 official at-bats. At this point, it’s clear something is wrong, and all signs point to the shoulder trouble he had in 2024.
In 1995, Tony Gwynn had 15 strikeouts in 585 AB. In 2025, Rafael Devers has 15 strikeouts in 19 AB. pic.twitter.com/8DgDFE4dWZ
— BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) March 31, 2025
Devers hoped that rest and recovery would take care of two problematic shoulders last season, but he looks completely lost. He showed up to camp overweight and now his quick bat speed seems to be quickly diminishing. In 2023-2024, Devers’ average bat speed was around 73 miles per hour. So far in 2025 it’s down to 70.6 miles per hour, a clear sign he can’t get the speed he wants there.
As a player taken in the first three rounds of most drafts, Devers is the player most frustrating to fantasy managers right now. But the biggest problem might just be that there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.
David Bednar (RP – PIT)
Getting sent down to AAA after just two games is a pretty good sign that everyone (including his own team) overvalued David Bednar heading into 2025. It was easy to understand why. Bednar had 81 saves over the last three seasons and never struck out fewer than a batter per inning. While his ERA ballooned to 5.77 in 2024, his xERA was just 4.37 because he had a reasonable .274 BABIP.
After two straight losses and a 27.00 ERA to start the season, Bednar’s time in the ninth inning for Pittsburgh is over. Now, it will be time for Dennis Santana or Colin Holderman. Santana has a 50% strikeout rate in the early part of this season while Holderman is at just 19%. That doesn’t mean one of them is guaranteed the job, and both will likely get chances down the road.
Perhaps the signs were on the wall after regression in 2024, but Bednar’s demotion is more evidence for fantasy baseball drafters who preach drafting closers early.
