1. OF Roman Anthony | 19 | AA | 2025
Anthony charged to the top of this group with a superb season in 2023. A left-handed hitter at 6’2” 200 lbs, Anthony slashed .272/.406/.466 with 14 home runs and 16 stolen bases in 106 games across three levels, finishing with ten dominant games in Double-A (.343/.477/.543) after slugging .569 in 54 games at High-A. I include the full-season line here along with the particulars because the full season tells the story of a player improving in a hurry. He slashed just .228/.376/.317 with 38 walks and 38 strikeouts in 42 games at Low-A but started driving the ball in Boston’s friendly High-A setting, where he drew 40 walks with 70 strikeouts (30.6 percent) in 54 games. He then struck out just six times in the ten Triple-A games. Man that’s a lotta stat salad. I’m just trying to say he’s a player in flux and reminds me a little of Ronald Acuna at this stage in the sense that he’s got more than one path ahead of him as a hitter and could become a total-package type who slashes .300/.400/.500 on the regular. He’s also quick enough to swipe some bags in the go-go era. Snagged 16 in 23 attempts this season but got caught just once in six tries between High-A and Double-A. I’ve got his ETA as 2025 here, but that can change in a hurry if Boston is competitive and Anthony is on his game.
There's going to be guys who are sleepers for friends and family leagues and there will be sleepers for deep leagues, and there might be sleepers for both. Imagine Nelson Velazquez won't fall into the Both category. He feels to me like a guy who will get a lot of helium in those "We're Smart" leagues. They're not actually "Smart" leagues, but if you play in a deep league, you think you're smart. I've said many times that I think shallow leagues are just as hard. Or just a shard if glass is reading. In shallow leagues, it's a nonstop debate if a guy is producing enough, even if they're supposed to be great down the road. In "smart" leagues, you usually can't do anything after your draft that makes much of a difference. That doesn't make things smarter. With that said, I think Nelson Velazquez will be appreciated readily in "smart" leagues but shouldn't only be in "smart" leagues. This guy is a dumb league guy too! Wait until you hear what he did last year (at the age of 24!), you're gonna blow your freakin' lid, smarties and dummies alike! In Triple-A and the majors combined, he hit 33 homers, stole seven bags and, holy schnike balls, I see why those smarties are in on this guy. Let's see if we can convince the dummies! So, what can we expect from Nelson Velazquez for 2024 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Wrote an Anthony Santander sleeper last year, and he's still kinda asleep. I wrote a Cedric Mullins sleeper a few years ago, and he woke, then went back to sleep for his draft season. Wrote a Taylor Ward sleeper last year and loved him so freakin' much, and he's a sleeper still, because he disappointed. That is a few outfielders who come to mind that I saw being drafted late: Noted they were sleepers, but chose to ignore them because I had been there before. I don't want to go over the same guys again. Think that gets as stale to read as it is to write. With that said (HA!), here's what Itch said about Sal Frelick previously
1. SS Jackson Holliday | 20 | AAA | 2024
While building out this list, I found myself wondering if Baltimore’s tanktastic strategy would work these days. The draft lottery changes the math a lot. If you take Adley Rutschman and Jackson Holiday away from the Orioles, not to mention some of the high-upside, overslot chances they took with their draft budget surplus over the years, they’re probably nowhere close to the ALDS, where their season ended in 2023. Yay for the draft lottery, is what I realized. I already felt that way, of course, and the Orioles would still be on the uptick with this front office even with a penny pinching nepo baby in the ownership suite, but it’s nice to think the wins-are-bad loophole that helped build the Astros, Cubs and Orioles title contenders has been closed even a little bit. Baltimore’s final big prize for super-quitting, Holliday traversed four levels in 2023, climbing all the way to Triple-A for a few weeks and posting a 109 wRC+ there with 16 walks and 17 strikeouts in 18 games. He’ll begin 2024 with a chance to claim the opening day shortstop job.
It's the most intimidating and scariest time of the year in a dynasty offseason: free agency. Am I overvaluing guys? Am I missing out by being too cheap? How do I even bid?
This year MLB is taking a different approach. Rather than having different teams, it’s the Dodgers and everyone else. That group of misfits over there sharing a glove? That’s the non-Dodgers. Over here, the boat with everyone else you might remember from All-Star Games and similar fanfare? Please, blog, may I have some more?
In our twenty-second episode, Mike Couillard and Jeremy Brewer open by reviewing Ohtani signing an unusual contract with the Dodgers plus all of the other MLB moves over the last week. Then we discuss the release of 2023 Bowman Draft along with four other Topps release dropping this week (51:43). Please, blog, may I have some more?
As we count down the days to Christmas, so too do we count down the days toward the end of the 2024 Top Keepers series. This is the second-to-last entry as the focus falls on the center fielders...
1. SS Marco Luciano | 22 | MLB | 2023
Luciano was rushed to the majors despite struggling at most stops along the way, and Farhan Zaidi has said he’ll have a chance to open 2024 as the starting shortstop despite hitting .209 with a 35.9 percent strikeout rate in 18 Triple-A games and .231 with a 37.8 percent strikeout rate in his 14-game September stint. If he does get that job, he’s going to have some rough patches. Like a lot of players who signed just before 2020, he hasn’t really played all that much and retains some hidden topside as he settles in at the highest level.
Here's what I think happened with Jordan Walker. Everyone told you Killers of the Flower Moon was the best Scorsese film, and you were like, "I'm going to watch Killers of the Flower Moon, then go into the parking lot and divorce my wife, leaving her for Killers of the Flower Moon, but first I'm going to watch it," then you watched it, and, afterwards, you were like, "Well, it was good, but my wife is like Goodfellas. She's even Raging Bull on occasion. Honestly, she's The Departed, and Killers of the Flower Moon is barely Casino." So, you ended up not divorcing your wife to marry a movie you just met and you went home, back to the uze. Expectations are a helluva drug. It's not just like that with movies, TV, music or what-have-you. Expectations for Jordan Walker last year were ridiculous. I played a role in that, naturally. But let's prorate out his rookie year: 65/22/65/.275/10. That's not taking a three-homer week and extrapolating out to 70 homers either. He had a 16/7/.276 year in 420 ABs. That's just giving him an extra 100 at-bats from the 7-hole. That's really not bad for a rookie! Your expectations were that he was going to be Aaron Judge in his rookie year, and that's fair, but he was not bad. He doesn't even turn 22 years old until next May. This is a 21-year-old's numbers in the majors his rookie year? Yeah, I regret to inform you, I'm going to be raising expectations one more year. So, what can we expect from Jordan Walker for 2024 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
After the passing of Adam West, there’s one great man left in the world, his name is Shohei Ohtani. He comes from the island nation of Japan, and he accepts MVP awards with his puppy.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
