Sleepers & Busts for Every Team: NL West Edition
I give out one fantasy baseball sleeper and one bust pick for every team in the league. I take on the NL West in this first piece.
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Diamondbacks
Sleeper: Adrian Del Castillo
I really like Brandon Pfaadt this year for various reasons, but he’s a bit too “on the radar” to call a sleeper.
Del Castillo is a catching prospect who has already had a cup of coffee in the Majors. Most of his time was spent at AAA in 2024, where he did this:
474 PA, .312/.399/.603, 26 HR, 16.9% K%, 11.6% BB%
It’s the Pacific Coast League, so that helps, but the guy is very impressive all over the profile.
Average EV: 90.4mph
90th-Percentile: 105.3mph
Max EV: 111mph
My barrel rate calculations from AAA are inexact, but I show a high 11.4% mark from him. The low GB% (34.6%) is also very nice to see, and when you add on the 78% Contact%, you have an extremely enticing prospect.
I’m not sure where he’ll fit in the lineup with Gabriel Moreno there. He may have to split some time behind the dish and get the rest of his reps at DH, but there’s a very high power ceiling here, and he’s someone I’d keep a close eye on.
Bust: Ketel Marte
It’s a general rule of mine to avoid or at least downgrade older players coming off of career years. We went over this a few times in the team previews. If you look at a player’s career performance, you’ll usually see it jumping up and down from year to year. There’s a lot of variance in the game, and Marte seems to have experienced the positive side of that in every regard last season.
I’m not saying he won’t have another very good season in 2025, but he’s costing you a top-40 pick every time this year. I just don’t want to use one of my first three selections on a guy who has had some pretty mediocre fantasy seasons in recent years.
