MLB Barometer: All-Stars, All-Sleepers and All-Undrafted Teams

To celebrate the All-Star break, this week's MLB Barometer contains six different fantasy All-Star teams. For both the AL and NL, I've crafted teams of the best players of the first half, the top sleepers of the first half, and the top undrafted players of the first half.

In each of the six tables below, you'll find the players listed alongside their rank according to the RotoWire Earned Value calculator as well as their key fantasy stats. I'll highlight one player from each team who deserves a bit more attention. I tried to find a way to end the whole thing with a metaphorical swing-off, but that will unfortunately have to wait for next season. We'll have to settle for ending things with a swing-off participant for now.

2025 Fantasy All-Star Team

These teams feature the best player at each position, regardless of when they were drafted.

Garrett Crochet, SP, Red Sox: Crochet produced elite numbers last season, but his time as a starter was so brief that many drafters were unwilling to push him all the way into the top tier of starting pitchers on their draft boards. The lefty's 3.58 ERA last season came with a 35.1 percent strikeout rate and outstanding ERA estimators (2.38 xFIP, 2.53 SIERA), but it also represented his only six months of starting after beginning his career as a reliever, and it really only represented three months of a genuine starter's workload, as he was handled with extreme care and was never asked to throw more than four innings after the end of June.

While there are still questions about how Crochet will hold up in his fifth and sixth consecutive month of being asked to go deep into games, his performance through the first three and a half months could hardly have been better. He's second among qualified starters in ERA and third in strikeout rate (31.2 percent), and changing his Sox from White to Red has allowed him to pick up 10 wins after finishing last year with six. He also leads all of MLB in innings pitched, so if there were going to be any signs that he needed careful management again this season, those haven't arrived yet.

Elly De La Cruz, SS, Reds: De La Cruz may have merely held own compared to his draft position, rather than improving by hundreds of spots like some players on this list, but his first half is nevertheless one of the more encouraging ones among all the players listed above. That's because the 23-year-old is proving he can be an elite fantasy performer even without outlier speed. 

There's still plenty of speed here, of course, but being merely tied for fourth in steals is a big drop from what we'd previously seen him achieve. From the date of his debut (June 6, 2023) through the end of last season, he stole 102 bases while nobody else stole more than 73. Sprint speed drops off quickly for most players, and De La Cruz has already fallen from the 100th percentile to the 91st in that category, so he was always going to need to step up at the plate to remain an early first-round value. He's achieved that this season by making much more contact, cutting his strikeout rate from 31.3 percent to 24.3 percent to suddenly become an asset in batting average and morph into a true five-category superstar.

All-Sleeper Team

These players were all drafted outside the first 10 rounds (120 picks) and have outperformed expectations by the largest amount to rate as top-120 players thus far.

Maikel Garcia, 2B/3B, Royals: It's somewhat surprising that the Royals haven't taken a step forward despite having four players on the above All-Sleeper team. Garcia has been the best of the bunch, edging out Bubic in earned value. He's taken a step forward in his age-25 season to become a much more well-rounded player after previously helping fantasy teams mostly with his legs.

Garcia's speed is still there, as he ranks 12th in the league in steals, but he's taken steps forward in both contact and power. He'd already cut his strikeout rate to 16.5 percent last season but has trimmed it again to 13.5 percent this year, with his batting average rising all the way from .231 to .297. He's also started to lift the ball, posting a 37.4 percent flyball rate after averaging a career 29.2 percent flyball rate through the end of last season. The result has been eight homers, putting a 15-30 season (accompanied by a very good batting average) within reach.

Michael Busch, 1B, Cubs: Busch lived up to expectations in his first full season last year, but his 21 homers and .248/.335/.440 slash line evidently weren't enough to impress fantasy drafters. You could pick Busch up in the 23rd round of RotoWire Online Championship leagues, and he wasn't on many sleepers lists, as there didn't seem to be all that much upside for a player who was already heading into his age-27 season.

Perhaps we all overlooked a late bloomer, however. Busch has made both more and better contact this season, cutting his strikeout rate from 28.6 percent to 22.6 percent while increasing his barrel rate from 11.2 percent to 16.1 percent. That's allowed him to reach 19 homers at the break — already just two shy of last year's total — while slashing .290/.375/.550. Even despite sitting against most lefties so far this season, he's still managed to be a top-three fantasy first baseman, and he's starting to move into a true everyday role with platoon partner Justin Turner (.592 OPS) looking 40 years old at the plate.

All-Undrafted Team

The best player at each position who was drafted in fewer than 25 percent of RotoWire Online Championship Leagues.

Carlos Narvaez, C, Red Sox: If you didn't give any consideration to Narvaez back in draft season, don't worry. You're not alone. Nobody in the entire RotoWire Online Championship selected him, and the Yankees themselves thought so little of him that they dealt him to the arch-rival Red Sox back in December. The 26-year-old rookie has gone on to steal the starting job from the ineffective Connor Wong (.384 OPS) and shows no signs of giving it back any time soon.

It's hard to find flaws in Narvaez's profile. He makes a roughly average amount of contact, striking out 23.5 percent of the time. That contact is a bit harder than average, as seen in his 10.1 percent barrel rate. The result has been the sixth-best batting average among catchers with at least 200 plate appearances and a respectable eight homers, tied for 17th-best at the position. To top it all off, he's been an excellent defender behind the plate, excelling in blocking, throwing runners out and framing according to Statcast:

Kyle Stowers, OF, Marlins: Stowers has played so well this season, making the All-Star team and even appearing for the National League in the tie-breaking swing-off, that you may have forgotten just how far off the board he was back in draft season. All his former appeal as a prospect in the Orioles' system had dissipated, as he was heading into his age-27 season having managed just six home runs in 117 games split across three seasons while slashing .208/.268/.332 and striking out 33.8 percent of the time. Not a single drafter in the RotoWire Online Championship looked his way.

Stowers still has a strikeout problem, but his 28.0 percent strikeout rate this season is the sort that elite power is able to overcome. And elite power is what he's shown, as he owns a 19.4 percent barrel rate and 53.6 percent hard hit rate. It wasn't even clear that Stowers would have a roster spot until shortly before Opening Day, but he's hit the ball so hard this season that he's become a mainstay in the heart of the Marlins' order.