LOGIN
Hobbs

Author: Hobbs

Read some of Hobbs's 86 posts

Hobbs

Collegiate Corner: The Big Zaborowski

April 3, 2025 | 2025 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 5 Comments

by:

College baseball is in full swing. Conference play is underway, games are hitting ESPN’s family of networks, and I can be found perusing ballpark exteriors sampling various hot dogs and sausages until my stomach turns into a hodgepodge of partially-cooked Southern meats. There’s almost too much baseball to take in this time of year, when the heart of the college slate meets the excitement of the start of the MLB season. But look no further than the Houston Astros’ Opening Day roster, which features 2024 draftee Cam Smith starting in the outfield on a regular basis. Smith played just two seasons at Florida State before becoming a first-round draft choice by Houston last summer, and is now positioned to be a regular fantasy contributor throughout the remainder of the campaign. We’ll see the same in 2026, 2027 and 2028. There is no question. College baseball is developing elite prospects faster and better than ever before and for this reason, a plethora of top-level players are making it to campus and getting their names called in their early twenties. We’ll dive into a handful of players that could fit that bill in this week’s collegiate corner.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Top 10 College Prospects To Target In Dynasty Leagues – 2025 Edition

February 20, 2025 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 4 Comments

by:

Hello, dear Razzball readers! Although it has been many moons since we last checked in on the college game, my crack staff has been busy analyzing and organizing reports on countless prospects across the sport’s lanscape. My crack staff consists of two dogs with ADHD, an eight-month-old infant, my retired neighbor named Bill, and a cardinal that has been endlessly pecking on my window. His name is Jean Claude. 

Suffice to say, I have had my work cut out for me. Bill has spent significantly more time woodworking and making homemade canes in his garage than scouting this offseason. Not to mention, he sometimes takes the “crack” in crack staff a bit too literally. As for Jean Claude, well, he still thinks the love of his life is on the other side of the glass windows. He has been relegated to a new social role, Tweeting. The change has been quite unproductive.

As for myself, the top-10 prospects for the beginning of the 2025 college baseball season have been completed. It is not a dazzling class, but it isn’t shallow, either. Still, as I wrote these breakdowns, I couldn’t help but feel that it was one of the weaker top-10s since I started covering college prospects at Razzball in 2020. Sure, Jace LaViolette, Jamie Arnold and Cam Cannarella are awesome, but none of them scream slam-dunk, 1-1 overall to me. And the 8-10 spots could be beefier. Like a Runza.

As always, this list is a lot different than the industry consensus and what you’ll see elsewhere. These rankings take future fantasy contributions into account, especially a player’s ability to assist across multiple statistical categories. So, who is at No. 1 this year, and are there any major surprises? Here’s the list:

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Collegiate Corner: Condon Vs. Caglianone

May 9, 2024 | 2024 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 5 Comments

by:

With the reported promotion of Paul Skenes to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday afternoon, it’s fair to wonder who could be primed to follow the fireballer as the No. 1 overall selection in the MLB Draft this July. Last year’s college trio at the top of the draft class was a historically strong group, led by Skenes and followed by outfielders Dylan Crews and Wyatt Langford. This summer is poised to have an equally-as-lethal top three, headlined by Georgia’s Charlie Condon and Florida’s Jac Caglianone, who are primed for an all-time great Golden Spikes race down the stretch. Arkansas southpaw Hagen Smith is right there with them as this year’s top collegiate arm, but what Condon and Caglianone are doing is truly historic and both players should be positioned firmly at the top of your first-year player draft boards. But who should go first overall and who should you have at No. 1 for your FYPD?

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Collegiate Corner: Five Surging SEC Stars

March 14, 2024 | 2024 Fantasy Baseball | 3 Comments

by:

We are officially four weeks into the 2024 college baseball season, with SEC Opening Weekend finally upon us. You will no longer turn on your television to find top-ranked Arkansas battling Northwest Southeastern Central New Mexico State Tech. It’s SEC-on-SEC now. It will be fierce. Tigers. Bulldogs. Wildcats. Gators. Razorbacks. Commodores. More Tigers. More Bulldogs. And then you have the Gamecocks of the world. We won’t touch that one. At least not publicly. 

Through the first four weeks, SEC stars have been stockpiling statistics against varying qualities of competition. Now, it gets real. But even though the competition has been questionable to this point, a handful of SEC draft hopefuls have begun separating themselves from the pack or significantly enhancing their stock. We’ll get into five such players this week, with more Collegiate Corner updates in store for the weeks ahead.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Wake Forest’s Three-Headed Mound Monster

February 15, 2024 | 2024 Fantasy Baseball |

by:

In my last post two weeks back, we broke down six preseason collegiate risers for the 2024 MLB Draft. That list included prospects who are firmly in the discussion for the first round or two of this July’s draft but were not initially included in my way-too-early rankings back in late August. That list included LHP Josh Hartle of Wake Forest, but in fact, all three members of the Demon Deacon weekend rotation are top-35 draft prospects per MLB Pipeline: Hartle (No. 13), RHP Chase Burns (No. 16) and RHP Michael Massey (No. 31). This leaves us with a series of questions. What exactly is a Demon Deacon? Why does the Wake Forest mascot have buttcheeks for a chin? Why does he ride a motorcycle? Isn’t the term “Demon Deacon” an oxymoron? Am I a moron? And how does a rising albeit non-blue blood program like Wake Forest come to possess three weekend starters all with the potential to go in the first round?

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Six Collegiate Risers For The 2024 MLB Draft

February 1, 2024 | 2024 Fantasy Baseball, Featured | 2 Comments

by:

There are 300 NCAA Division I baseball programs. Assume an average of 35 players per roster and you’ve got 10,500 collegiate baseball players. Now, many of those are not on the MLB Draft radar, but it still speaks to the sheer volume of prospects to cover — many of which are far more polished than the extensive crop of prepsters. With those numbers, there will always be talented players who fall through the cracks. But here at Razzball, we do our very best to cover every fantasy-relevant college star. We already went over 20 players in the fall, but that left a lot to be desired. There are far more than 20 college prospects to have on your first-year player draft radar ALREADY. And things have already shifted since August with the coming and going of fall practice schedules as well as the unveiling of MLB Pipeline’s top-100 draft prospects. So who did we miss in the fall that you need to know NOW, before the upcoming college campaign kicks off on February 16? Here are six collegiate names to plug into your dynasty strategy and FYPD prep.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Way Too Early Top-25 College Prospects For The 2024 MLB Draft

August 31, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 2 Comments

by:

There isn’t much of a consensus opinion surrounding the 2024 MLB Draft, particularly with this year’s grouping of collegiate talent. I’ve seen North Carolina’s Vance Honeycutt, West Virginia’s JJ Weatherholt, Tennessee’s Chase Burns, and Florida’s Jac Caglianone, among other players, all ranked as the No. 1 prospect by various publications. I have to agree because there are a lot of standout tools at the top of this draft but also a lot of high-ceiling players with unrefined aspects of their game or question marks in one or more areas. The fall practice season is going to go a long way in determining the 2024 preseason draft board, with the campaign to follow undoubtedly shaking the trees clean. Who knows, a bald-headed Jonathan Mayo even might come tumbling out of the timber after all of the information we uncover in this year’s crop. Anywho, here are my way-too-early rankings for the 2024 college draft class, with thorough insight to be provided on each player throughout the months ahead.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Dynasty Dive: Make Sal Your Pal

August 17, 2023 | 2023 Fantasy Baseball | 4 Comments

by:

Sal Frelick is going to be a star, to be quite Frank. More Frank than a Barrone waiting for linguini alfredo the dinner table. The Milwaukee Brewers rookie has quickly made an impact at the big league level, but there’s planty of reason to believe the best is yet to come, as is often the case with young players. Here at Razzball, we’ve given you plenty of opportunities for free licks at Frelick, which you can read more about below. So if you don’t have an shares yet, it’s time to self-reflect, or Salf-refleckt. Here’s why you need to be holding your shares or scrambling for additional ownership of my pal, Sal, in dynasty leagues moving forward.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

Five FYPD College Sleeper Sticks

August 3, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 8 Comments

by:

The draft has come and gone and as many suspected, LSU’s Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews went off the board with the first two overall selections. For many, those two prospects instantly became the most sought-after in dynasty leagues and first-year player drafts alike. Alas! How could thee thinketh otherwise? After all, generational prospects, as they’ve been labeled, are likely to cause such a reaction. And perhaps it’s for good reason. Sure, Skenes is a great choice at No. 1 in a first-year player draft. But I get up on my rooftop at this time every summer (it takes me roughly that long to tear down the holiday lights), and remind our readers that draft position should not dictate FYPD board position. There are many, many places to find and steal value along the way. Maybe there’s a bat that went outside the first 18 picks that you should consider in your top five players overall. Or a mid-second-round diamond in the rough that fell 20 spots past where he probably should have. It’s all about being creative and better informed than those around you. In this week’s column, we’ll break down five FYPD sleeper sticks from the 2023 college draft class, followed by another five to keep your eye on.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Hobbs

5 Players To Watch In NCAA Super Regionals

June 8, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 1 Comment

by:

We’ve reached the NCAA Super Regional round in college baseball, as just 16 of the nation’s best teams are left standing. All the others are either sitting patiently for next season or lying down quietly for a millenial power nap. The 16 remaining teams all face off this upcoming weekend in a best-of-three series to determine which eight programs are headed to the 2023 College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, the land where hopes, dreams, and corn all come to fruition. The juggernauts that are Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Auburn, Miami, Oklahaoma State and Coastal Carolina have all been eliminated, meaning countless MLB Draft prospects are now focusing their attention on the events of July. That or they’re one of several thousand players in the transfer portal. That being said, a group of highly talented players remains in the field, including LSU’s Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews, Florida’s Wyatt Langford and Hurston Waldrep, Tennessee’s Chase Dollander, Wake Forest’s Rhett Lowder, Virginia’s Kyle Teel and Stanford’s Tommy Troy, among numerous others. For today’s exercise, we won’t be focusing on those premier names, rather we will be taking a deep dive into five Super Regional prospects you may not yet know — but should.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Copyright 2007-2025 Razzball LLC. All rights reserved.
Razzball.com and the Razzball logo units are copyright Razzball LLC.