Full truthiness: my deep league posts from 2014 weren’t very deep. I mean, yeah, talking about Yan Gomes was a good call and probably deeper than many were willing to talk about at catcher. But I looked myself in the mirror a few times. Khris Davis? Yeah, he wasn’t a top 100 pick anywhere but that doesn’t make him a deep league shot. So I took a vow to leave the ‘Under The Greydar’ calls for just that and to really refocus these Deep League calls, especially in the outfield where much like Busta Rhymes, I make sure everything remains raw. So welcome to an overhaul of my DLT calls. Really, I just want to get as many ‘who?’ questions in the comments section this year as possible. They’re way easier to answer! The answer to the ‘who’ today is Ryan Rua. But of course, that doesn’t tell you much because now you want to know what he can do for you this year so let’s trudge on. Here’s my dig down deep look at Ryan and how he can help you deep leaguers for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…
Who is Ryan Rua? No, this isn’t Jeopardy, this is an honest question. His minor league stats are, for lack of a better word, ‘diverse’. If this were 2011, we wouldn’t even be talking about him. That was the year he was playing low-A ball and hitting .192 before being sent to the rookie league where he hit .321. Yeah, .321 is great in rookie league…if you’re really rookie league age. He was 21 playing against high schoolers. So how did he go from looking like organizational depth to a player who hit .295 with the Rangers in August/September of 2014? It’s hard to say, really, but something changed between 2012 and 2014 and the progression at the minor league level shows someone who grew up quickly. Rua put on a power show in 2013, hitting 36 HRs across Rookie, A and AA. The downside is he gave up contact for power, hitting well below .250 across those levels and started being given Dan Uggla as his only comp of possibly being MLB worthy. Sure, that’s great and all but, uh, ya ever watched Bull Durham? Yeah, sounds like Crash Davis to me. Minor league superstar who’d never attain big league status. But then came 2014. Rua showed some adjustments at the plate, striking out less than 20% of the time while upping his walk-rate to a healthy 9%+ clip across AA/AAA. The best part? The power didn’t totally dissipate as he still hit 18 HRs over 529 plate appearances in the minors. When he finally reached the majors late in 2014, Ryan kept the low k-rate – 16.5% at the major league level – which, for me, is usually a telling sign that someone can stick for a longer haul than many. Though the walk rate didn’t follow him up, we are also dealing with a level move that didn’t see an increase in strikeouts which I view as a bigger sign of someone not ready to handle major league pitching than I do a diminished walk rate. As it is, Rua is currently in the battle for left field duties with Jake Smolinski who is himself a converted middle infielder but whose minor league track record does not speak of someone who can offensively hang in a corner outfield spot. If I were projecting for Rua giving him a full season of at-bats, I’d put him around 18 HRs, 5 steals and a .270 average; basically Torii Hunter with less average. I heard you just yawn. That’s fine. Hunter was the 33rd best OF last year. Christian Yelich was 31st. Marcell Ozuna was 28th. When you’re deep league stepping, you best step correct. RUA! Has got you all in check.
