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Most every week, Scott White will highlight some of the more notable changes to his rest-of-season rankings. You'll find said rankings here and are urged to bookmark them if you haven't already. There's no better resource for gauging player value throughout the long season.

The top minor league hitter was just called up over the weekend, and wouldn't you know it, given the way this season has gone, he's a catcher. As if the position wasn't convoluted enough.

Normally, a bat so high-end at a position so lacking would be greeted with fainting and fanfare, but in this year of the catcher, I couldn't help but grimace at Samuel Basallo's arrival because I knew there were already more than enough quality catchers for a one-catcher league. How could I rank him in a way that didn't shortchange his incredible upside but also didn't lead people to discard their already excellent catcher?

To make matters worse, Ben Rice is becoming a thing again. The Statcast darling, who began this year as the Yankees' primary DH while spelling Paul Goldschmidt at first base, began losing playing time during a midseason slump but has now started 12 straight games, most of them at catcher. I call him a Statcast darling because his readings make him out to be a true stud at the plate, with his .292 xBA and his .571 xSLG both ranking in the top 7 percent of the league. Of course, his actual production has fallen well short of those numbers, but a recent surge at the plate combined with a return to everyday duty paints a promising picture indeed.

In the end, I found a way to get both Rice and Basallo in my top 12, which may sound like no great endorsement, but again, the catcher position is loaded this year. It was only possible because Drake Baldwin is back to splitting at-bats with Sean Murphy with Marcell Ozuna reclaiming the DH role full-time. Rice places ninth, ahead of Augustin Ramirez and Ivan Herrera, two additional breakouts who I still believe in long term but who've fallen on hard times lately. Basallo is 12th, directly behind those two, but with the upside to move into the top five if all goes right. He's really more of a hitter than a catcher, but he may well keep his catcher eligibility next season if Adley Rutschman's abdominal injury forces him to the IL now.

That's next season's concern, though. Leaving the catcher position aside, let's recap some of the biggest changes to my rankings.

The 12 biggest rankings moves for this week

  1. The top hitter in Fantasy since July 25 is Michael Harris, who's batting .419 (44 for 105) with nine home runs during that time. It's taken his OPS from .559 to .708, which is still below preseason expectations but at least in the ballpark now. A mechanical change, namely the way he positions his hands, is largely to credit for the improvement, but one way or another, it seemed inevitable that he'd figure things out. He was too good for his first three seasons to suddenly fall off the map at age 24. I haven't moved him all the way to where I ranked him initially, but he's up to 28th in Rotisserie leagues, climbing more than 15 spots in the span of two weeks. He's a little lower, 34th, in Head-to-Head points, where his poor plate discipline doesn't play as well.
  2. The third-best hitter in Fantasy during that same stretch (dating back to July 25) is Harris' teammate, Jurickson Profar, who has seven home runs in those 25 games but has mostly stood out for his on-base skills. In fact, he's the one who finally convinced Braves manager Brian Snitker that it was OK to move Ronald Acuna out of the leadoff spot, and no doubt, that prominent lineup placement adds to Profar's Fantasy appeal. There were fears that his 2024 breakout was all a mirage after he was busted for PEDs earlier this year, but those fears would appear to be unfounded. I'd prefer if his exit velocities were measuring a little higher, but he's back in the start-him-everywhere range of my rankings, meaning 36th in Rotisserie leagues and 32nd in Head-to-Head points.
  3. For all the headlines that the Braves' outfield duo has been grabbing, Jakob Marsee is the position's biggest curiosity right now. The 24-year-old got no love as a prospect even though he had pretty good minor league numbers, and all he's done since arriving is pile up extra-base hits (home runs included) while reaching base at an elite clip and running with reckless abandon. I wrote a couple weeks ago that he might be the most impactful of all the recent call-ups if we had more assurances of his legitimacy, so while he's obviously must-roster now, I'm ranking him fairly conservatively so that no one makes the mistake of putting all of their eggs in that basket. He's 42nd in Rotisserie, which actually puts him just one spot behind Roman Anthony.
  4. Spencer Strider is coming off three straight dreadful starts and has clearly struggled to regain the optimal fastball shape that made it such a dominant pitch prior to last year's elbow surgery. You might think, then, that I'd treat him as radioactive in my rankings, pushing him well outside of the rosterable range. I can't do it, though. He's down to 35th, which doesn't mean I'd be starting him over Luis Castillo and Merrill Kelly, two pitchers who rank close behind, but it does mean there's more danger to cutting Strider loose than those two. He still has a wicked slider and excellent swing-and-miss numbers. He also had a nine-start stretch with a 2.91 ERA prior to his last three starts. It's not unthinkable he could get it back to form with season still to spare, and if that happens for someone else's team, it may be the reason you lose the league. I'd just plant him on my bench for now.
  5. Third base could use an influx of talent with Max Muncy and Matt Chapman recently being lost to injury, and it's getting it with Noelvi Marte and Matt Shaw. Both are names you've heard before, seeing as they were once top prospects, but both are showing their clearest signs yet of living up to their potential. Marte looks like a true five-category threat and maintains a low enough strikeout rate for points league use as well. He's up to 11th in my third base rankings, between Jordan Westburg and Addison Barger. Meanwhile, Shaw's second-half power surge (eight home runs in 29 games) coincides with a jump in average exit velocity and pull-air rate. He's up to 13th, ahead of Colson Montgomery and Alec Bohm.
  6. In case you haven't heard, Shane Bieber is scheduled to make his season (and Blue Jays) debut Friday, completing the long road back from Tommy John surgery. In case you also haven't heard, he was excellent on his rehab assignment, putting together a 1.86 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 11.5 K/9 across seven starts. Perhaps even more notably, he averaged 92.8 mph on his fastball in the three starts at Triple-A (which are all we have that data for), retaining the velocity jump from early last year that had him looking like a true ace again. I'm so convinced it'll go well that I'm slotting Bieber 40th right away, which is ahead of notables like Quinn Priester and David Peterson. Meanwhile, Kyle Bradish, who's also working his way back from Tommy John surgery and struck out nine in his latest rehab start, is up to 51st in my starting pitcher rankings. He's far less rostered than Bieber, so you'll want to remedy that.
  7. It's getting harder to dismiss Jacob Lopez's out-of-nowhere breakthrough as a fluke -- so hard, in fact, that he's up to 45th in my starting pitcher rankings. It's not so shocking when you consider the pitchers who rank close behind him, most of whom are either boring innings-eater types (Seth Lugo, Ryan Pepiot) or bat-missers with even more pronounced concerns (Jacob Misiorowski, Gavin Williams). Lopez is a 27-year-old rookie who succeeds more on deception than pure stuff, which could signal it's a gimmick. But just when it looked like the pixie dust had worn off with a four-start rough patch in late June and early July, he's come back even stronger, striking out eight or more in three straight starts while allowing a combined two earned runs in his past five.
  8. Q: Who leads all pitchers in bWAR? A: Cristopher Sanchez, who just padded his total with a 12-strikeout effort Tuesday. He ranks in the top 15 in walk rate, the top 10 in swinging strike rate, and the top five in ground ball rate, all while averaging nearly 6 1/3 innings per start, so he's emerged an ace's ace. I've moved him all the way up to fourth in my starting pitcher rankings -- behind only the big three of Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet and Paul Skenes -- and may even consider him the favorite for NL Cy Young with teammate Zack Wheeler being down for the count.
  9. Chris Sale is one rehab start away from returning from the ribcage fracture that's sidelined him since mid-June and has shown no ill effects through the two rehab starts he's made so far. I'm comfortable slotting him back into my top 15 right away, behind Joe Ryan and Bryan Woo, with plenty of room to rise from there. He was in my top five before the injury, and few starting pitchers are true contenders for that spot right now, which is part of the reason why Cristopher Sanchez was able to climb so high.
  10. It seems impossible that a 31-year-old journeyman with bad on-base skills could suddenly emerge as a Fantasy standout, but Ramon Laureano has carried his success in Baltimore over to his new team in San Diego, giving him a .294 batting average and .903 OPS on the year. And really, it's more than just a 2025 phenomenon. Over the past calendar year, which includes a productive stint with the Braves last season, Laureano has a .297 batting average and .879 OPS. I'll admit that I haven't been taking him seriously enough and have now moved him from 61st to 45th in my outfield rankings.
  11. The relief pitcher position has begun to settle in again after the madness that immediately followed the trade deadline, but there are two significant developments from the past week. The first is that Josh Hader has been ruled out for the season with a shoulder injury, paving the way for Bryan Abreu, an elite setup man over the past four years, to close. Abreu joins Cade Smith and Randy Rodriguez, two other dominant setup men recently anointed to the closer role, in my top 10. The second big development is that David Bednar has clearly usurped Devin Williams as the Yankees closer, an outcome that wasn't so clear when he first came over in a trade with the Pirates. I've pushed him up to 14th, ahead of Kenley Jansen and Pete Fairbanks, which may still be undervaluing him given his 1.79 ERA, 0.79 WHIP and 12.7 K/9 over his past 46 appearances.
  12. Overshadowed by the Samuel Basallo call-up is that Dylan Beavers, a breakout prospect in the Orioles system this year, has arrived as well and has actually started four consecutive games. I only have him 68th in my outfield rankings for now, but given the amount of runway he has, we'll find out real quick how legitimate his .304 batting average, 18 homers, 23 steals and .934 OPS in 94 Triple-A games were.