Fantasy Baseball: 5 sleepers who could help you win the scarcest category of 2025

Alas, poor batting average.

For over a century, it was the unrivaled gold standard among baseball statistics. Batting champions were revered. Everyone basically agreed that a .300 hitter was, in fact, a great hitter.

Today, if batting average is even referenced on a major league broadcast, it’s packaged with apologies and caveats. It is now widely understood that team batting average is not as highly correlated with winning as on-base percentage, OPS and various other stats are. Batting average is more of a curiosity, a party trick. A relic from a distant time.

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And yet, in our fantasy lives, batting average remains a big deal.

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It’s one of the foundational stats in fantasy baseball, still among the five standard hitting categories, as important as ever. You can’t very well ignore batting average on draft day simply because you — an enlightened MLB fan — have trained yourself to care more about OPS+ or ISO or xwOBA.

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Whether you like it or not, we need high-average hitters in our standard 5x5 leagues. Not surprisingly, in the current era, such batters are becoming more difficult to find.

Here’s a quick look at the number of qualified hitters per season who have delivered an average of .300 or better over the past decade:

• 2024 - 7

• 2023 - 9

• 2022 - 11

• 2021 - 14

• 2020 - 23

• 2019 - 19

• 2018 - 16

• 2017 - 25

• 2016 - 25

• 2015 - 20

League-wide batting average has not topped .250 in any of the past five seasons. It is truly no longer a priority at either the team or individual level.

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But, again, it remains one-tenth of the puzzle in traditional fantasy baseball leagues. We need to care about it, even if MLB does not.

With this fact in mind, today’s mission is to highlight five potential sneaky sources for average, beyond the well-established batting title contenders. We assume you are well aware of the bat-to-ball talents of players like Freddie Freeman, Luis Arráez and José Altuve. Each of the hitters below can be found well outside the top 100 in terms of average draft position, and all offer batting average upside.

Xavier Edwards, SS, Miami Marlins (Yahoo ADP 120.4)

Edwards is a career .313 hitter in the minors who slashed .328/.397/.423 over 303 major league plate appearances last season. He’ll bat at the top of the order for the Fish, where his exceptional speed and contact skills should make him a serious asset in batting average, runs and steals. Edwards swiped 31 bags in 70 games for Miami last season and he’s aiming much higher in 2025.

Jung Hoo Lee, OF, San Francisco Giants (243.3)

It’s possible you may have forgotten the buzz that surrounded Lee last spring, when he hit .343 in exhibition play with more walks (5) than Ks (4). His first MLB season was derailed by a shoulder injury, but he’s entering his second spring training with no limitations and expected to bat third for the Giants. Lee was a .340/.407/.491 hitter over his seven seasons in Korea and he’s still just 26 years old. For what it’s worth, projection systems kinda love him. He won’t deliver significant power in all likelihood, but his average and run production should still be plenty useful.

Dylan Crews, OF, Washington Nationals (142.0)

Crews managed to tread water late last year, given his first taste of major league competition. He’s a blue-chip prospect and former Golden Spikes Award winner who’s demonstrated an ability to adapt and master every level he’s visited. If you caught any part of his outrageous 2023 collegiate season — he hit .426 for LSU with an OPS of 1.280 — then you should have no problem imagining him as a future winner of batting crowns. Crews should offer double-digit power and 20-steal potential while batting near the top of Washington’s lineup, making him an obvious fantasy contributor.

Luis Rengifo, 2B/3B, Los Angeles Angels (222.1)

Rengifo managed to slash .300/.347/.417 last season over 304 plate appearances, making significant gains at the plate after refining his approach (for which he credits Altuve, a WBC teammate). His line-drive and ground-ball rates spiked last season and, not surprisingly, his average came along for the ride. There isn’t much swing-and-miss in his game (14.5 K%) and he managed to swipe 24 bases last season in just 78 games. He’s entering his age-28 season as a multi-category contributor who offers positional versatility, which makes him a player of interest for deep leaguers.

Jacob Wilson, SS, Athletics (NA)

Wilson is gifted with truly mutant-level contact ability, which allowed him to hit an absurd .433/.474/.668 across 53 games in the minors last season, spending most of his time at Double-A and Triple-A. He was the sixth overall pick in the 2023 draft and he’s looking like the probable Opening Day shortstop for the A’s. Wilson’s power is primarily of the doubles variety, although he did clear the fence seven times in the minors last year. It’s not at all clear that Wilson will be a serious contributor in any area other than average at this stage in his development, but he already seems like a lock in his core category. He could be helpful in the deepest formats.