Life is a thankless slog made occasionally bearable for humans by moments of surprising joy and glimpses of baby Yoda.
Those aren’t my words. Werner Herzog’s family and mine get together for Mandalorian Fridays, and these were Werner’s thoughts on the Dave Dombrowski firing when I told him I was writing up the Red Sox.
I’m confident Chaim Bloom will be just fine in the top job. Will he be as successful as Dombrowski? Tough to say. Pretty high bar. What we can say is Bloom will be less handsy with ownership’s purse strings, which will grant him an extra level of job security. As might his ability to thread the needle between going for the win year over year and building up and protecting the minor league system.
See all of today’s starting lineups
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ATH | ATL | BAL | CHW | CIN | HOU | LAD | MIN | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | ARI | BOS | CHC | CLE | COL | DET | KC | LAA | MIA | MIL | NYM | NYY | OAK | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL |
Just over a year and 89 minor league games after he was drafted, Nico Hoerner made his debut with the Chicago Cubs, going 3/5 with 4 RBI in his debut, as the Cubs starting SS on September 7th. While the rest of his first month in the majors wasn't quite as spectacular, Hoerner's debut was a bit of a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing season for the Cubs. His .282/.305/.436 grades out as below average overall, but it displayed his plus hit tool, as well as surprising power. Hoerner has been somewhat of a hot commodity this offseason, so my goal here is to help you realistically guide your expectations for Nico Hoerner, both for 2020 and moving forward.
When Hoerner was drafted, he was seen as a safe, but unexciting pick, yet here he is getting people excited about his fantasy potential. Hoerner's hit tool has always been his best tool, as he was a .300 hitter through both his last two years of college, and the two summers he spent in wood bat collegiate summer leagues. While he's shown to be a competent fielder, and can run pretty well, Hoerner didn't seem to have anything outside of his hit tool that could help him contribute in fantasy, yet here we are. Nico Hoerner's AA stats seem pretty in line with how he fared in his major league debut. He walked a bit more, and didn't show as much power, but the overall slash line was very similar.
Lucky I just bought hyphens in bulk from Costco. I'm gonna need them for this sleeper. Here goes, Ian Happ is a post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-POST-post-P-O-S-T-p-to-the-ost-postpostpostpost-post-hype sleeper! Ian Happ has burned you in the past. I get that. He's burned me. Is he a whatcha-talkin-bout-Willis, you-can't-be-serious, how-deep-is-this-league-where-he's-even-drafted, you've-lost-your-mind, seriously-are-you-ill-in-the-head sleeper? Last year in a Manfred-sticking-Capri-Sun-straws-into-baseballs season, Happ played in 58 games and only hit 11 homers. Good news is he was out of single digits so I didn't have to spell out his home run number. The bad news, Tommy La Stella out-homered him in three games. For calling Ian Happ a sleeper again, there's a giant melon sitting on my lady-like shoulders and it's unclear if there's anything inside the cantaloupe. Oh, and he hit .264 with only two steals so there's nothing coming from other categories. Only remarkable thing here is how bleh Happ was. I'm really selling this sleeper hard, huh? Worst sleeper in the history of sleepers. "Or," Mr. Reversal Question pokes his head in, "...is it?!" So, what can we expect from Ian Happ for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Has anyone wondered before if Josh Rojas was simply the Latin Josh Reddick or is Josh Rojaspinga an entirely different player who hates that you confused him with Josh Rojas? These are the questions that keep me up at night. That and do pandas shorten their names to P&A's in texts because they are lazy? Imagine my head is a spaghetti squash that's totally baked and now you're scraping out faux noodles that are curly-Q's and the Q's stand for questions. Last year, Josh Rojas just exceeded his rookie eligibility, gathering 17/2/16/.217/4 in 138 ABs, which is about six weeks of juiced ball as The Ghost of Abner Doubleday once called it, and that's about a quarter of the season, so Rojas is an 8-homer, 16-steal guy? Oh, Mr. Prorater is ashen with embarrassment. Please say there's more. Of course there's more! It's why I've trekked you up the side of Sleeper Mountain with nothing but a can of beans and one undersized sleeping bag! So, what can we expect from Josh Rojas for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Carlos Collazo of Baseball America started a Twitter thread last month with a poll meant to determine who fans thought was the team of the decade. The San Francisco Giants, winners of three World Series championships in the decade, were left off the four-team survey. Twitter did not like this and demanded an explanation, but we already know what happened. Nobody really cares about the Giants.
That’s not fair.
You care about the Giants.
That’s why you’re reading this: you’ve got at least some level of interest in Giants prospects. Still, it fascinated me that the Astros won the poll despite having won the one World Series and having lost almost as many games as they won over the decade. The Astros have become the image of success and a preferred model for how to win at baseball, while the Giants ended the aughts in the shadows, scraping up castoffs as they transitioned to a forward-thinking front office after a dynastic run of success under Brian Sabean. Farhan Zaidi and company are in this for the long haul, and their system looks better every day. So grab some flowers for your hair and let’s go to San Francisco.
There's some legit pitfalls to avoid this year. Maybe it's like that every year, but this year feels more so than other years. With the juiced ball, how do judge people's power? As I've said before, there's one angle here where we just don't worry about it, because if the ball is not juiced in 2020, it will not be juiced for everyone, so the very high plateau for power will just readjust for everyone. The one issue with that is the guys who we're targeting who might've only looked good last year because of the juiced ball. For unstints, if Marcell Ozuna hit 29 homers last year, and, guess what, he did, he could hit 29 homers again in 2020 with a dry ball because the supposed ten feet extra on fly balls provided by juice is irrelevant for Ozuna. So, when you look at Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and his 20 homers in only 84 games, and start commiserating with Mr. Prorater about how Lourdes Gurriel Jr. could now hit 40 homers, you have to wonder if Gurriel only hit 20 homers because of a juiced ball and is really a 20-homer hitter across 162 games, as well. So, what can we expect from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Jon Berti isn't young. He will be 30 years old in January. So, the first thing I did for my Jon Berti sleeper was look up how many guys stole 25 or more bases at the age of 29 or older last year. Four players. That's out of a total of 11. Yes, MLB turned the players with 25 or more steals to 11. Those four were Tommy Pham, Starling Marte, Jarrod Dyson and Elvis Andrus. What do these players make you think? Okay, I mean, I love ya, but let's be real, this is just a way for me to get out what I think. These four players are speed-forward players. At 30 years of age, Lorenzo Cain, Marte and Dee Gordon stole thirty bags in 2018. The year before there was another four players at 30 years of age. 31-year-olds get a little less frequent, but there's guys there in the last few years too. Players who primarily steal bases still steal (almost stutterer!) in their early 30s. Without a ton of evidence (because I'm too lazy to figure it out), the players who stop stealing at the ages of 29-31 are the ones who are not speed-forward players. Think of Paul Goldschmidt's 15-20 steal years vs. Rajai Davis's. Think of Ryan Braun's 20+ steal years vs. Jarrod Dyson's. Players who are not speedsters can scrap and eek out 15+ steals until the age of 29. Players who are fast don't stop being fast until around the age of 32. Therefore, ergo, vis-a-vie, Jon Berti isn't young, but it doesn't matter for 2020. So, what can we expect from Jon Berti for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
As fate intended, the Padres dominated baseball news throughout their week as Razzball’s featured organization, trading SS Luis Urias and LHP Eric Lauer for OF Trent Grisham and RHP Zach Davies before signing LHP Drew Pomeranz. I think it was a pretty great few days for them, cashing out a hyped asset like Urias for a less beloved piece with better floor and topside in Grisham. In doing so, they’ve brought some balance to a righty-heavy lineup and secured an everyday outfielder to lead their island of misfit fly-chasers. They achieved something similar with Pomeranz, adding a burgeoning lefty to a bullpen loaded with the opposite. The move also opens a spot for Ty France, who hit .400 with power and limited strikeouts all season at AAA and has more than earned this opportunity. I even think Davies has sneaky upside in a better park for him. As a bonus, anytime you can move on from a guy named Lauer . . . right?
Anyway, these are not your father’s Padres. Or your older brother’s Padres. Or even last December’s Padres. It’s hard to imagine how last winter’s San Diego fans would have reacted if you showed them today’s depth chart, but I’m guessing they’d be excited. Stay frosty! And stay tuned: there’s likely more moves where these came from!
