Last week, I took a close look at some of my favorite players to draft this spring, so in the interest of equal time, let’s focus on some of the players I least expect to roster on my 2025 fantasy baseball teams.

As always, every player has value, meaning that any player’s price could drop to the point where he’s worth rostering. For instance, I do have a single share of the fifth player on my list, from a draft that began in January. For the most part, however, the nine players below cost too much for my liking.

Before we get started, note that ESPN’s average draft position (ADP) returns thus far reveal a clear favoritism towards rotisserie-minded players, which is a common draft-day gaffe. (Reminder: Always know your league settings!) This group includes Elly De La Cruz, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Oneil Cruz, Ezequiel Tovar and Anthony Volpe, all of whom are going at least 30 picks on average ahead of my ranking for standard points-based leagues. I’m a believer in all five — particularly so for rotisserie-style play — but each is being overvalued in ESPN’s primary format.

The following nine players, meanwhile, are the ones I consider to be universally overpriced and have the biggest potential to make you regret having drafted them where you did.

Ronald Acuna Jr., OF, Atlanta Braves: He’d probably be a top-5 pick if not for the torn ACL in his left knee that cost him the final 112 games of 2024 and threatens to cost him the first month-plus of this year, so his being discounted to No. 37 overall on average in NFBC (National Fantasy Baseball Championship) drafts (since Saturday) might seem like a rational investment. Bear in mind, however, that he didn’t seem quite himself for the near-entirety of 2022, when he returned from his first ACL surgery (that one on his right knee). Now, after reconstructions on both knees, there’s legitimate question about his future level of aggression on the base paths.

Acuna himself amplified this by telling Alden Gonzalez that he’d “rather steal 30 and play the whole season as opposed to trying to steal 70.” Acuna hasn’t even appeared in a game yet this spring, despite positive reports on his health, and the Braves will likely use all of his 20-day rehabilitation window once he’s ready, putting him on a probable May timetable. He’s a player I’d prefer to target via a midseason trade rather than investing on draft day.

Jose Altuve, 2B, Houston Astros: He’ll turn 34 in May and is coming off a 2024 where he posted his worst strikeout, whiff and chase rates in any season of his MLB career, save for his 2011 rookie campaign and 2020’s pandemic-shortened affair. He is also making a challenging transition to left field after seeing his defensive metrics plummet at second base over recent years. Toss in that the Astros lineup isn’t as potent with Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker gone, and Altuve is a tough sell as a top-40 overall pick, which is where he is being taken in numerous ESPN and NFBC leagues thus far.

Willson Contreras, C, St. Louis Cardinals: Normally I love catcher-eligibles who are set to get the entirety of their playing time at another position, but that fantasy baseball mantra – at least judging by Contreras’ price tag – appears to have fully reached the mainstream. Yes, his move to first base seems likely to reduce his level of wear and tear, but let’s not forget that he hasn’t been the healthiest player, with nine trips to the IL in nine seasons, including at least one in each of the last four seasons.

Toss in the fact that the Cardinals are headed in a rebuilding direction and also play in one of the game’s more pitcher-friendly ballparks – since 2023, Contreras has a road wOBA 26 points higher than at Busch Stadium – and his upside simply isn’t as great as his ADP suggests. He’s a player you select for his consistency rather than for any potential growth.

Jacob deGrom, SP, Texas Rangers: He’s going No. 48 overall in NFBC and No. 96 in ESPN standard points formats, ahead of Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the former and Tanner Bibee in the latter, but there is absolutely no chance I’d draft deGrom within even three rounds of either spot. I want to believe that deGrom rebounds to his best level of fantasy production in four years, but there are only so many Chris Sale-caliber, late-career resurgences one can expect in a generation.

One damning stat? Among pitchers from the expansion era who like DeGrom, were at least age 30 with 1,000 career IP, but also no more than 130 combined IP in the three seasons directly preceding a comeback attempt, only Dennis Leonard (1986), Mike Hampton (2009), Carl Pavano (2009) and Sale (2023) threw 100-plus MLB frames in their return season.

And you read that right – it was Sale’s 2023 (rather than last year’s Cy Young effort) that qualified. All four pitchers finished with ERAs at least three-quarters of a run higher than their career ERAs at the time. Pavano and Sale then had significantly better stats the following year, meaning … maybe 2026 is the better year to invest in deGrom?

Rafael Devers, 3B, Boston Red Sox: Shoulder issues bothered him for most of 2024, particularly a left shoulder injury he suffered during a July 23 game in Colorado. Following a three-day rest for those ailments in late August, he hit a ghastly .164/.262/.178 with 24 strikeouts in 73 at-bats the rest of the way. The fact that Devers entered spring training facing similar shoulder soreness, which delayed his Grapefruit League debut until this past Saturday, only heightens worries about the injury’s impact upon his 2025 numbers.

Argue that his move to DH might ease some of the physical strain on him if you wish, but that’s also a significant positional adjustment for a veteran hitter. Devers’ NFBC ADP remains a way-too-generous No. 36 overall since Saturday, which is down only five spots compared to where it was at the dawn of spring training, despite all his injury delays.

Brenton Doyle, OF, Colorado Rockies: Kudos to the improvements he made during his breakthrough 2024, but even with the leap to 23 homer runs and 30 steals, his underlying contact metrics were still league-average or worse. Doyle is an exceptional defender with elite speed, but he’s a decent-pop, high-whiff bat in a park that most inflates contact-hitting, line drive/gap types.

Doyle will probably always be subject to wide home/road splits, best evidenced by his being outscored in his road games by 136 other hitters. Doyle is going nearly three rounds earlier in ESPN leagues than where I have him ranked, as well as ahead of better outfielders like Cody Bellinger and Riley Greene in NFBC formats. If you do draft him, you should probably start him at Coors and stream a bat into your lineup for his road games.

Adolis Garcia, OF, Rangers: A rare repeat appearance on this list, Garcia’s severe regression last season was probably a product of his free-swinging tendencies coupled with a knee injury that he played through for much of the year. While the latter might appear to have subsided, the oblique issue that cost him a chunk of spring training raises additional durability concerns as he enters his age-32 season.

Additionally, his defensive metrics last season give him the look of a future DH — which is a position now aptly filled by Joc Pederson. Garcia badly needs a rebound if he’s to avoid slipping into part-timer status, but I’m not taking the chance at what’s currently an ADP 33 picks ahead of my points-league ranking.

Tanner Houck, SP, Red Sox: He enjoyed a breakthrough fantasy season in 2024 that nearly had him ranked among the top 30 at his position. Still, many of the gains that made him look so good early on, he gave back over the season’s waning weeks. After making his first career All-Star appearance, he won just one game the rest of the way, posting a 4.23 ERA and 8.3% walk and 15.8% strikeout rates across his final 11 starts. Houck hasn’t looked much better during spring training, posting a 6.30 ERA and only a 10.6% K rate through three starts, giving himself more of a back-of-your-staff impression than the burgeoning star he appeared to be in 2024.

Mark Vientos, 3B, New York Mets: He’s going almost six rounds ahead of where I rank him in ESPN leagues. That’s an inexplicably large divide for a player who didn’t steal a single base in 2024 (read: no rotisserie-league bias there). In NFBC leagues, he is somehow going ahead of Bregman, Jake Burger and Matt Chapman.

Vientos’ poor plate discipline makes him ill-suited for points-league play, not to mention subjects him to potentially extreme streakiness. He has tremendous power, with metrics that support annual 25-HR candidacy, and he deserves credit for claiming (and seemingly locking down) a third base job that one year ago appeared to belong to Brett Baty for years to come. Yet, here’s a fun bold prediction for you: Baty is going to end up as the better player when all is said and done – and that might even be true for 2025.