There were TWO shortstops in 2025 that hit or surpassed 30 home runs, and there were seven total that were 20-20 in terms of home runs and stolen bases. One of the seven that went 20-20 was Dansby Swanson, and I think there’s even room for more. Could Swanson, who’s being drafted in the 140s, greatly outpace his ADP and have similar output to Zach Neto, who’s being drafted in the third round in 12-team leagues? I’ll tell you why it’s possible, and it’s a comfortable roster if you end up with Swanson as the starting shortstop on your fantasy baseball roster.

Fantasy Baseball Player Spotlight: Dansby Swanson

We’ll start with Dansby Swanson since he’s the primary reason this article is being written. Swanson, before 2022, had never stolen more than 10 bases in a year and has now swiped 18 or more in three of the last four years, including a career-high 20 last year and flashed 80th percentile sprint speed to boot.

If you look at Swanson’s numbers in 2025 and then his expected numbers, there was plenty of room for more, and he had a fantastic season, finishing as the 12th-highest scorer at the position. Here are both the finished product and expected numbers;

  • .244 BA / .267 xBA
  • .310 wOBA / .345 xwOBA
  • .417 SLG% / .477 xSLG%

The xSLG ranked fourth amongst all qualified shortstops, and the xwOBA ranked sixth. The average discrepancy would help his ratios tremendously, too.

Swanson was a 20-80-75-20 guy last year. Francisco Lindor, Willy Adames, Trevor Story, Bobby Witt, Elly De La Cruz, and Geraldo Perdomo were the only other players to accomplish those numbers a year ago. Only Story and Swanson are being drafted outside of the top 100 players on this list. 

Those numbers don’t look much different than that of Zach Neto and his third-round ADP in 12-team drafts. Now, granted, Neto didn’t play an entire season, but a lot of stuff under the hood looks similar, and we did it for Swanson earlier, so why don’t we look at some of Neto’s real and expected numbers?

  • .257 BA / .251 xBA
  • .337 wOBA / .344 xwOBA
  • .474 SLG% / .495 xSLG%

Swanson takes the cake in two of those categories, and they’re eerily similar in OBP, stolen base categories, and runs batted in per 162. Do I think Swanson ultimately outscores him in fantasy if they play the same number of games or are in the same ballpark? No, but I don’t think there’s that big of a gap between the sixth shortstop off the board and 15th off the board, and I’m heavily invested in Swanson if I miss out on the top-half of the position.