A Bit-Too-Early ‘All-Upside’ Fantasy Baseball Roster

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  • By Paul Williamson

    Last Updated on December 9, 2025 2:40 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: December 9, 2025

    Targeting upside is a no-brainer, right?

    Well, not so fast. There are many factors in deciding whether or not to take a risk on a high-risk, high-reward player.

    First, are you drafting multiple ‘safe’ players? If you begin your draft with safe players like Francisco Lindor and Manny Machado, it makes more sense to target the riskier players later in drafts. However, if you draft dudes like Nick Kurtz early, it might behoove you to avoid the riskier picks and get safer/boring production later in case Kurtz suffers the dreaded sophomore slump.

    Second, is it a shallow or deep position? If the position is deep like first base, then you have the luxury of waiting late to fill the 1B spot or CI spot to take on a high-upside/risky pick as managers can find replacement value off the wire. A shallower position like second-base may make taking on a risky pick at that position more dangerous as the replacement value on the wire isn’t as good.

    Third, format and league size. If you are in a deeper league, finding upside throughout the draft is probably more important as the legit high-upside dudes are drafted quicker and the production available dries up real quick. Roto managers can take on the cold streaks some of the these players may go on thanks to their flaws as their hot streaks will even it out over the course of the season. Head-to-head managers may try to stay clear as these cold streaks could mean they  are taking on more losses throughout the season.

    This article will go position-by-position as I select one C, 1B, 2B, 3B and SS, two OF and two SP  Each of these players has early-round potential, but also have massive floors that could wreck you if you have too many such players on your roster.

    NOTE – all ADP data comes from Draft Champion leagues in the NFBC

    Catcher

    Logan O’Hoppe – ADP – C21

    We saw both sides of the coin for O’Hoppe in 2025.

    In his first 257 PA, he hit 17 bombs with 37 RBI and a .224 ISO.

    But his floor came through in the worst way in his final 194 PA. He hit just two homers with six RBI and an absurdly poor .067 ISO.

    The good news? His K% and BB% improved in those final plate appearances as his K% went from 33.1% to 27.8% and the BB% improved from 3.1% to 7.8%.

    O’Hoppe’s poor hit-tool is thought to be his main problem. However, in the second half, we saw him improve his swinging strike rate, contact% and in-zone contact%. He did this while being more aggressive at the plate as his swing% jumped from a 50.6% to 54.3%.

    Unfortunately, he made way less impactful contact as his barrel rate dropped from 16.2% to 9.6% and the hard-hit rate dropped from 54.7% to 36.8%.

    His current cost, which would be one of the final catchers taken in 12-team, two catcher setups, is a great price.

    We saw O’Hoppe make more contact inside the zone and more contact overall in the second half. And that is a wonderful thing.

    Yes, the swinging strike rate and chase were poor, but we can trade those poor metrics for more contact, especially more contact in the zone. He has already shown he can hit the ball with tons of authority. Now, we just need to see him put it all together for a full campaign.

    First base

    Triston Casas – ADP – 1B30

    This might be the position that you can take a risk late as there are some excellent options available late. Dudes like Andrew Vaughn, Sal Stewart, Willson Contreras, Christian Walker and Alec Burleson could provide top-12 1B value and are going as the 17th first baseman and later (Vaughn is sitting at 1B29…).

    This means, odds are, especially in standard 12-team setups, the waiver wire will provide solid replacement level value.

    Taking a risk on someone like Casas, who is oozing with early-round upside is an incredibly smart play.

    First and foremost, we need to learn that he will be 100% ready for 2026, which has not been announced.

    He was a popular name in fantasy circles in 2025 drafts but he never quite lived up to the hype before being lost to a devastating knee injury.

    He only played about a month with 112 PA and three bombs with a putrid .182 average.

    The good news is, in those limited appearances, he got his K% back down to 24.1%, after seeing it inflate to 31.7% in 2024. The decrease gets him back to mark he showed in his breakout 2023 season that saw him get 24 homers and a .263 average.

    Even more encouraging was he swung at more pitches in the zone with a 71.5% Z-Sw% (up from 65.3% for his career). Unfortunately, he still had trouble making contact in the zone at 70.8% in the Z-con% and his overall contact% was only at 70.8% (down from 2023’s 74.7%).

    Like O’Hoppe, we saw some encouraging signs that didn’t produce results as Casas also didn’t hit the ball quite as hard as we have seen. The avgEV was just 87.6 MPH and the barrel rate was down to 9.7%. But in ’23 and ’24 he was 90 MPH+ and the barrel was 13%+.

    After a drop in launch angle in 2024, it went back to the 15+ degrees we saw in 2023 so he got back to lifting the ball very well.

    Casas has shown us before he has immense power potential. If he hit 40 homers next year, no one in baseball should be shocked.

    That is the kind of power potential we are talking about with him. And to get him so late in drafts, he has the chance to be THE steal of the draft.

    But his injury history and legit plate discipline concerns do make his floor rather massive.

    Second base

    Colt Keith – ADP – 2B26

    Why do I feel like people are forgetting the kind of potential Keith had coming up with 70-grade raw power?

    Last year, he had a mini breakout campaign with all kinds of encouraging metrics to show me that a major breakout is imminent with Keith.

    After needing 556 plate appearances in 2024 to get to 13 homers, he needed only 468 PA to get to 13 in 2025.

    He continued to keep the K% under control at 19.8% as he is a potential slugger that has a great hit tool. A solid 27.0% O-Sw% 88.8% Z-con%, 79.5% contact% and 9.3% SwStr% from 2025 are pretty much aligned with the numbers we saw from him in the minors, so the confidence in his plate discipline is high.

    He also isn’t a slugger that has problem with grounders as he got the GB% down to 38% this year, also aligning with the GB% we saw in the minors (more on his lift ability later).

    The biggest improvement we saw from him came from the quality of his contact as the avgEV got to 90.0 MPH, the barrel got to above-average to 9.2% and the hard-hit got to a very respectable 43.7%.

    While he doesn’t have a ground-ball problem, is it weird to say he has a line-drive ‘problem’?

    That’s great for his average but if he is going to tap into the 70-grade raw power, he will need turn some of the line drives into fly balls.

    He also is at risk of being just a strong-side platoon as he struggled mightily vs. lefties in 2025 with a .187 batting average. A .356 BABIP vs. lefties is buoying his current ..256 career average against these lefties.

    The career ISO is only 048 and the OPS is .610.

    So Keith could plateau, and that’s still a decent fantasy asset as he is one of the more safer names on this ‘team’ with around 15-20 homers to go with a good average hitting in a decent Tigers lineup, but the ceiling is 30+ homers to go with the average in the heart of the order.

    Third base

    Mark Vientos – ADP – 3B19

    He is much like Logan O’Hoppe from above, except the inverse.

    Vientos had a tremendous second-half (242 PA, 11 homers, .214 ISO, 92.5 MPH avgEV, 15.8% BRL) but his plate discipline got slightly worse with an O-Sw% that jumped to 39.5% as his contact% stayed too-low at 68.4% and the SwStr% sat at 16.8%.

    The big number in this second half that helped ease the impact of those numbers is the 81.1% Z-con%. That number had been sub-80% for his career.

    The good news is that 81.1% Z-con% mark is just part of a steady improvement. These are his Z-con% marks over his four MLB seasons

    • 2022 – 75.0%
    • 2023 – 77.6%
    • 2024 – 78.2%
    • 2025 – 79.4% (81.1% in second half).

    That looks like a very reasonable improvement from a young slugger slowly figuring things out at the major league level.

    He is going to be just 26 when 2026 begins and he has shown excellent quality of contact numbers through his career with a 12.2% barrel rate and 49.0% career hard-hit rate.

    He probably will always swing and miss too much, but as long as he continues make enough contact in the zone, he should be plenty productive with 30-40 homer potential.

    But that plate discipline is undoubtedly scary and gives him a major floor.


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    December 9, 2025, 2:40 pm