Fantasy Baseball Review: 2025 January Best Ball -

When do you switch back into baseball mode? For some – I’m looking at Bat Flips & Nerds’ Russell Eassom and Darius Austin – it’s a 52-week-a-year pastime. For ‘normal people,’ the switch might not flip until halfway through Spring Training. For me, it’s mid-January. For me, it’s now.

After the World Series, I need a good couple of baseball-free months to recharge, though it is never completely baseball free. I know that Alex Bregman and Pete Alonso have new homes, but I couldn’t tell you where Willi Castro or Pete Fairbanks will play this year. Give me a few days and I’ll be back on top of it all.

For the last few years, the end of January has signalled the first fantasy baseball draft. It serves as the catalyst to kickstart fantasy baseball prep, setting the groundwork for other, more important leagues.

Drafting so early creates numerous problems: With whom will free agents sign? Which starter will need TJ surgery? Which hitter will get crocked during spring training? Who will break camp? And this year, which superstar will get injured at the WBC?

DRAFT & HOLD FORMAT

No one really wants another time-consuming league, so this is a draft and hold format. Well, it’s draft & hold with a twist.

Injuries can destroy your campaign in draft & hold leagues, so instead of drafting an extra 10 reserve players of which we know very little, we allow 10 roster moves per season.

SCORING

It is a Best Ball format, with a points system specifically devised to be close to 5×5 roto.

BEST BALL BASICS

The active roster consists of nine hitters and seven pitchers, but you do not make any roster moves; the Fantrax system will determine your highest scorers each day.

So, if you have two first basemen, the highest one will count that day. If both of your second basemen are injured, you won’t score for the 2B slot that day. And if all three of your third basemen have epic days, one will count at 3B, another at UT, but the third won’t score, leaving you to rue your draft day indiscipline.

LEAGUE HISTORY

The UK’s favourite sabermetrician, Russell Eassom, won the league in 2022, holding off significant challenges from James Holden and Adam Nicholson. That is an immense trio of fantasy baseball experts – some of the best in the UK.

Talking of fantasy baseball experts, Nick Wright took the 2023 title, ahead of Nick Wilson-Smith and Josh Edwards. Nick (Wright not Wilson-Smith) finished 15th in 2024 and 14th in 2025, so perhaps the 2023 championship was an anomaly. I guess we’ll see in 2026.

David Runciman was the 2024 champ, holding off Baseball Brit Joey Mellows and me (yay, I got a mention).

The 2025 champion was James Holden (he of the Behind Home Plate Show with Jonny Gould fame) who accumulated a decent 300-point margin over second place David Runciman and third place Mark Blakemore.

2025 REVIEW

The strategy is simple, really. Draft really good players who will play all of the time. James (Holden) did not have a single gap in his hitting lineup, although, that said, the second base trio of Thairo Estrada, Andres Gimenez, and Luke Keaschall combined for fewer points than either of his catchers. Despite this weakness in the infield, James had everyday contributors in every slot.

The hitting guru last year was Brent Bentley – the only player to exceed 10,000 points – unfortunately, Brent’s pitching wasn’t up to the same level.

My pitching-heavy strategy – six starters in my first 12 picks – failed miserably. Sometimes, when everyone is zigging, you should zag. This wasn’t one of those times.

TOP 12 HITTERS & PITCHERS

Nick Wilson-Smith drafting Geraldo Perdomo with the 12th pick of Round 34 was either a stroke of genius or luck. I’m edging towards genius. A couple of weeks after our draft, the Diamondbacks agreed a lucrative four-year extension with Perdomo, securing his future in Arizona and signalling the start of his career year.

DRAFT REVIEW

The first six rounds showed that, as you would expect, no one made any glaring errors, so it was the roster construction over the rest of the draft that separated the superstars like Holden, Runciman, and Blakemore from mortals like me.

AND SO TO 2026

Want to get involved? Let me know – message me on Insta or contact me by email. It looks like we will run two leagues this season,

DRAFT

The slow draft starts on Saturday 31 January (11:00am), with a maximum of one hour per pick. The system sleeps between 11pm-7am, but you can still pick during that time, you just don’t time out.

DRAFT ETIQUETTE: If you know that you will be unavailable for your next pick, set your system to autodraft. It is frustrating for the rest of the league to watch the clock run out. Obviously, we know that this is not always possible – we all have lives.

DRAFT TIP: Ranking players and setting a queue is essential. You never know when circumstances will conspire to prevent you from picking. You don’t want to be the person that drafts a pitcher who is out for the season.

WHAT WE’VE LEARNT FROM PREVIOUS YEARS

(1) Players only have one position and they do not gain multi-position eligibility. You have to watch out for anomalies – last year Shohei Ohtani was the second-highest scoring outfielder.

(2) The points system is designed to be close to 5×5 roto, but that doesn’t mean you need to draft a balanced roster; you can punt stolen bases or saves, if you want.

(3) Plate appearances and innings pitched are vital. The key is to have as many players appearing each day.

(4) And as Brent and I proved in 2025, you cannot win the championship unless you score well in both hitting and pitching.