MLB HObby Top 50: All-Star UPdate
I love lists. One list I revisit frequently is the top 50 MLB players in terms of their place in the hobby. I can spend way too much time happily shuffling players around the list. The All-Star break is a great opportunity to check in on my rankings and move some folks around after that stellar first half of the 2025 season.
The full top 50 is listed at the bottom of the article, but I'd like to highlight some of the notable movers in the hobby from the last time I updated this list at the start of Spring Training. There were five new players in the top 20, and several players who shot up the rankings after being unranked previously. Alas, there were also a few that dropped precipitously. The list is a harsh mistress.
Moving on Up
Ronald Acuna Jr. (up 3 spots to 8th overall)- The Braves have been a disappointment. Blech. I hated writing that. The crazy thing is that Acuna was the hitter I was most worried about in the Braves lineup after a pedestrian 2024 that ended in missing most of the year with injury. Silly me. He’s been amazing and has a good chance to grab a coveted top 5 spot when I redo this at the end of the year. It’s the other Braves that aren’t producing and are in danger of dropping off the hobby radar. Again, blech I say, blech.
James Wood (not ranked to 12th overall)- I’ve put Wood ahead of all of the 2024 darlings with the exception of Skenes. Wood is crushing the ball, and his quality of contact metrics suggests he’ll be doing that for a long time to come. He won’t catch up to the hobby appeal of Judge and Ohtani this year. Those are probably the only two players he can’t catch realistically.
Corbin Carroll (up 12 spots to 14th overall)- One could make a case for him being in the top 10 even. Still, something is keeping him just out of the mainstream spotlight. He’s popular, but he’s not quite “the” guy yet. Maybe it’s playing for the D-Backs, but they’ve got a strong following now. I think a lot of collectors are still skittish due to his injury last year.
He was bulldozing through those concerns until he got hit by a pitch and missed some time with a hand injury. Questions were swirling around his hand, but they were settled by his massive homer in the All-Star Game.
Cal Raleigh (not ranked to 19th overall)- Raleigh. Wowzers. He was at least on my Top 40 Rookies of the Last 5 Years list to start the season, clocking in at 27th. Now, he’s cracked the overall top 20 in the hobby. I thought we were due for a breakout catcher in the hobby. I just thought it was William Contreras. To be fair, no one saw this coming. There was initial reluctance in the hobby to anoint Raleigh as a true hobby darling, but that time is over. The question now is, how high is his hobby ceiling? Pretty dang high.
I do think it will take cracking 60 or continuing this pace next year to move him much higher in the rankings. I think that many keep waiting for the clock to strike midnight, and until collectors aren’t worried about that, Raleigh’s place in the hobby is capped.
Tarik Skubal (up 18 spots to 20th overall)- Skubal is moving up the ranks as he should due to his awesome play. I also think that some of Skubal’s hobby success can be attributed to Skenes shattering the dogma of pitchers having no hobby value. A couple of years ago, I thought Spencer Strider was the only under-30 pitcher capable of making this list. It’s nice to see that assumption proven false.
Pete Crow-Armstrong (not ranked to 27th overall)- I keep thinking his hobby upside is at most even with Torii Hunter, Jim Edmonds, or Andruw Jones. He keeps proving me wrong. I still can’t put him in my top 25. He’ll probably finish the year on a heater and wind up with 60 homers and make me look even doofier.
Riley Greene (up 8 spots to 32nd overall)- Greene is doing his best to provide runs for the strong Tigers' pitching brigade. While he’s striking out a bit more than some collectors like, the production is strong enough to bring him back to the hobby forefront. He’s got a good opportunity to garner more attention as the Tigers make a run at the postseason.
It will be fun to watch him battle Wood, PCA, and Caminero for the under-25 homer lead. They all have an outside shot at getting to 50 homers. The list of players who have done that is pretty stunning. Wood would become the youngest player to hit that milestone, pipping Prince Fielder.
Wrong Way
Mookie Betts (down 4 spots to 9th overall) is looking human for the first time in a long time. Along with Bryce Harper, he appears to be moving to a new part of his career. Both are positioned to be first-ballot HOFers, but they might have both peaked in terms of their hobby heights.
When players hit this stage of their career, there is often a softening of their market unless milestones are being achieved. Both are still super talented, so I shouldn’t go writing them out of the top 10 yet. They’ll need to start performing at elite levels again to keep their spot at the top of the hobby hierarchy. The collectorate is fickle indeed.
The 2024 Class- Wyatt Langford, Jackson Chourio, Jackson Holliday, and Elly De La Cruz are all trending the wrong way, even if that’s not fair for a couple of them. They are all victims of overly high expectations. Elly De La Cruz is on pace to finish with a 7+ WAR season along with a 30/40 or 30/50 year. That’s not 100 steals, so he’s viewed as a disappointment somehow.
With all four of these guys, anything less than being in the MVP conversation is going to put a damper on their hobby prospects. The expectations are just that high. Not fair. Still true.
Off the List
It’s worth noting who has dropped off the list. Ozzie Albies, William Contreras, Carlos Correa, Jasson Dominguez, Michael Harris, Jackson Holliday, J.T. Realmuto, Adley Rutschman, Ezequiel Tovar, and Anthony Volpe have all dropped off the list over the last year or two. Lots of catchers and shortstops there. I’m not sure what that means, but it is interesting.
The List
Shohei Ohtani
Aaron Judge
Paul Skenes
Bobby Witt Jr.
Juan Soto
Freddie Freeman
Mike Trout
Ronald Acuna Jr.
Mookie Betts
Bryce Harper
Gunnar Henderson
James Wood
Clayton Kershaw
Corbin Carroll
Justin Verlander
Francisco Lindor
Jose Ramirez
Elly De La Cruz
Cal Raleigh
Tarik Skubal
Julio Rodriguez
Raphael Devers
Jose Altuve
Chis Sale
Jacob deGrom
Max Scherzer
Pete Crow-Armstrong
Jackson Chourio
Jackson Merrill
Wyatt Langford
Yordan Alvarez
Riley Greene
Pete Alonso
Jacob Wilson
Kyle Tucker
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Manny Machado
Paul Goldschmidt
Nolan Arenado
Max Fried
Yoshinobu Yamamoto
C.J. Abrams
Gerrit Cole
Spencer Strider
Austin Riley
Corey Seager
Fernando Tatis Jr.
Matt Olson
Trea Turner
Matt Chapman