Fantasy Baseball Overvalued and Undervalued – Signs of Freeman Decline?

The All-Star Break is a great time to take stock of how we did when we drafted our fantasy baseball teams and how our in-season moves have worked or not worked so far. Just because a player was selected in the high rounds of a draft does not mean he needs to stay on our squads if we have more than half a season of data to show he is overvalued.

Overvalued or undervalued in fantasy baseball usually means relative to acquisition cost. We don’t care too much if a free pickup off the waiver wire doesn’t live up to expectations. But if our early-round picks aren’t working out, those are the hard decisions we have to make.

This weekly piece will look at the past week to two weeks 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.

(Stats are up to date as of July 15)

Undervalued Fantasy Baseball Assets

Christian Yelich (OF – MIL)

Casual fantasy baseball players likely think Christian Yelich peaked a number of years ago and now is an afterthought for our fantasy rosters. That could not be farther from the truth in 2025. Yelich has turned back the clock and is having a season that could match up against his best pre-2020 years.

Yelich already has 19 home runs and 14 stolen bases to go along with 65 RBI through 91 games. He has a 10% walk rate and the only “bad” part of his fantasy profile this season is his .259 batting average (which is actually 14 points above the league average).

Yelich was drafted around pick 80 in spring drafts this season, but he has far outpaced that cost and is a top-50 overall asset in rotisserie formats.

C.J. Abrams (SS – WSH)

After three straight seasons where he hit .246 (Khris Davis, anyone?), C.J. Abrams has taken the leap in his age-24 season, hitting .287/.353/.483 with 12 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 82 games. He is on pace to soar past his career high in home runs and has an outside shot of catching his 47 steals from 2023.

Abrams has taken this step by cutting down his strikeouts to just 16% this year (19% for his career), and he has bumped up his exit velocity to elite levels in 2025. Add in a spike in line drive rate this season, and that’s a recipe for a career year, even at a young age.

Abrams went off the board around pick 50 this year, so it’s not like he was a cheap asset. But he is now one of the elite five-category players in fantasy baseball, and is likely to finish this season well above the price paid to acquire him in drafts.

Matthew Boyd (SP – CHC)

In a season where the Chicago Cubs’ pitching staff has been decimated by injuries and seen several up-and-down performances from young pitchers, it has been Matthew Boyd who often steps up to stabilize the pitching and eat up valuable innings.

In rotisserie formats, Matthew Boyd was taken after pick 200 in drafts ahead of this season, but he is currently a top-25 asset thanks to a 2.34 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 10 wins, and 102 strikeouts in 111 innings. It certainly doesn’t hurt when you have a potent offense behind you, but Boyd’s performance this year has been phenomenal, no matter who is on the other side.

His resurgence is largely due to an increase in velocity and usage of his dominant fastball. He also has cut his walk rate (1.85 BB/9) to the lowest mark of his career, and keeping men off base has helped him to much easier innings.

Overvalued Fantasy Baseball Assets

Freddie Freeman (1B – LAD)

Freddie Freeman is overvalued? What kind of blasphemy is that? It’s true that Freeman has had some of the greatest fantasy seasons of all time (check out his cumulative numbers from 2021-2024), but this season has been different. Freeman still has an elite .297 batting average through the first half of the season, but beyond that, things have been kind of empty.

Freeman has just 10 home runs and is on pace for his fewest since 2015. He does have 49 RBI, but will have to pick it up to make it to 100 again. His walk rate (9.3%) is the lowest since his rookie season in 2011, and his strikeout rate is seven percentage points more than in 2024.

Are we seeing the first signs of age-related decline? It’s certainly possible, as his groundball rate is way up and his flyball rate is down. There is still a great fantasy player lurking here, but right now, Freeman is outside the top 100 fantasy assets.

Michael Harris II (OF – ATL)

When will Michael Harris II ever live up to his potential? When will the Braves ever start to turn their offense around this season? Are these two things tied together? When your team is 19th in baseball in wOBA, there is plenty of blame to go around, and Michael Harris II deserves a large chunk of it.

Harris is a lot like Bo Bichette of the Toronto Blue Jays, where fantasy baseball managers seem to constantly be chasing his first season (.297/.339/.514 with 19 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 114 games), but have come up wanting each time. This year, Harris is on a decent pace with stolen bases (12 steals through 93 games), but everything else has been downright awful.

Harris has a .210/.234/.317 line this year with only six home runs and just a 2.7% walk rate. Both his hard-hit rate and barrel rate have suffered huge losses from his 2024 numbers, and he is hitting almost 53% of his batted balls on the ground. Maybe the Atlanta Braves break out of their offensive funk at some point in the weeks ahead, but Harris has shown no signs of turning his season (or his potential) around.