It’s tricky business reacting to spring training outcomes. Veterans are working on their game, treating reps like practice, while youngsters and journeymen are striving to make a good impression. That doesn’t negate all the outcomes, of course, but I feel a little silly reading sentences about how a player looks based on a week of half-games, and I feel even sillier writing them. Nonetheless, playing time is up for grabs, and small samples or not, guys are proving themselves worthy (or unworthy) of season-opening opportunities, so we can’t just play ostrich and ignore the new realities revealing themselves.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
Prospect News: CBS NL Only Auction Roster Review
March 3, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 27 Commentsby: The Itch
For four hours twice a year, I clear the calendar and settle in at the computer screen to click along with fantasy baseball luminaries like Scott White, Mike Gianella, and a handful of Razzball’s finest, including the master lothario himself. I love it. The niche math in motion appeals directly to some lizard-brain survivalist inside me. Here’s how the night played out for me:
Please, blog, may I have some more? Prospect News: CBS AL Only Auction Roster Review
February 28, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 29 Commentsby: The Itch
I know auctions (I guess we’re calling ’em salary cap drafts, now?) take too long, but so do most movies these days. The culture serves us escapism in heaping gobs of minutes and hours, and for four hours twice a year, I clear the calendar and settle in at the computer screen to click along with fantasy baseball luminaries like Scott White, Mike Gianella, and a handful of Razzball’s finest. I love it. The niche math in motion appeals directly to some lizard-brain survivalist inside me. Thanks as always to Scott for running these leagues and for inviting Razz-folks like Laura, B_Don, Grey and me to the party. Here’s how the night played out for me:
Please, blog, may I have some more? Prospect News: FYPD Blues
February 25, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 30 Commentsby: The Itch
It’s 2:58 on Friday afternoon. Should be primetime real estate for escapism, but here I am staring at Dennis Franz’s naked ass.
That’s not true, but it might as well be because I’m actually looking at a 15-team dynasty draft room. There’s six hours left on what was an eight-hour draft clock. The team that has the power to move us forward timed out last time and feels likely to time out again. Another serial offender timed out earlier today after carrying over the first two of eight-hour clock from last night, so the league has seen two picks in the last 20 hours. We’re close to the end, but it’s never felt further away.
Games were not designed to be played this way, but there’s no easy fix to this flaw in the design of dynasty leagues. Even in redraft leagues with fairly high entry fees, people fart around and people time out. The problem feels magnified in dynasty partly because it tends to be the usual suspects year over year.
It wasn’t all bad though. First-Year-Player Draft season is mostly great. Or at least it should be. Here’s how it’s gone for me.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 100 Prospects For 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball
February 21, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 25 Commentsby: The Itch
76. Reds RHP Chase Petty | 20 | AA | 2024
The 26th overall pick in 2021, Petty enjoyed a breakout season in 2023, recording a 1.73 ERA in 68 innings across two levels where he was younger than his competitors by 3.1 years and 4.3 years on average. At 6 ‘1” 190 lbs, Petty features a wipeout slider and demonstrates an aptitude for spin that portends well for his year-over-year development.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 75 Prospects For 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball
February 18, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 36 Commentsby: The Itch
Please clap for Busch’s slash line of .323/.431/.618 with 27 home runs across 98 Triple-A games in 2023. Now that he’s out of Los Angeles and being all but handed the first base gig in Chicago, he can finally stop faking second base and fully flower as a hitter. Or so goes the thinking that led the Cubs to acquire him, anyway.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 50 Prospects For 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball
February 14, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 24 Commentsby: The Itch
26. Padres C Ethan Salas | 17 | AA | 2025
I’ll never have Salas on a roster. Nothing against him, really, just a matter of public-facing, real-baseball lists running him so high up the rankings that there’s no road back to dynasty baseball value. He’s already a top ten prospect in most places, and he’s just nowhere near that for our purposes. He’s in Double-A at 17, but he hit just .200 for nine games in High-A, so that’s an artificial placement to say the least. He’ll likely open back in High-A and should have to hit his way out. There’s absolutely no rush. At 6’2” 185 lbs, Salas moves smoothly behind the dish and receives and frames with a deft touch that’s a decade beyond his years. With a bat in his hands, he’s a dangerous lefty power hitter with a discerning eye. An elite prospect to be sure. Just not an ideal building block for our game.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Top 25 Prospects For 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Baseball
February 11, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 18 Commentsby: The Itch
1. Orioles SS Jackson Holliday | 20 | AAA | 2024
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.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Texas Rangers Top 10 Prospects For 2024 Fantasy Baseball
February 7, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 28 Commentsby: The Itch
1. OF Wyatt Langford | 22 | AAA | 2024
A Texas-sized gift at the fourth pick in a loaded draft class, Langford laid waste to the minor leagues one level at a time, stopping at the complex league for three games before moving along to High-A for 24 games, Double-A for 12 games, and Triple-A for five games. He dominated at every level and might force an opening day debut with a good showing in spring training. He’s listed at 6’1” 225 lbs and doesn’t have much (if any) physical projection remaining, but that’s mostly irrelevant for a guy who has plus power and speed generate elite outcomes as is.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Seattle Mariners Top 10 Prospects For 2024 Fantasy Baseball
February 4, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 18 Commentsby: The Itch
1. OF Lazaro Montes | 19 | A | 2026
At 6’4” 256 lbs with a picturesque swing from the left side, Montes invites visual comps to Yordan Alvarez and embraces them, incorporating regular video study and modeling his own game after the Houston slugger’s. He cut his strikeout rate by eight percent between the Dominican Summer League (33.2%) and the Complex League (25.3%) then maintained the gain with a 25 percent strikeout rate in 33 Low-A games. He slashed .321/.429/.565 with seven home runs and a 165 wRC+ in that month-plus of full-season ball. There’s plenty of reasons to rank other guys higher than him on this list, especially on the probability or speed fronts, but I just kept moving Montes up this totem pole and couldn’t really convince myself that I’d take any of these guys over him in a dynasty league I thought would last a long time.
Please, blog, may I have some more? Oakland Athletics Top 10 Prospects For 2024 Fantasy Baseball
January 31, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 18 Commentsby: The Itch
Format = Position Player | Age on 4/1/2024 | Highest Level Played | Estimated Time of Arrival 1. RHP Mason Miller | 25 | MLB | 2023 Miller will move to the bullpen after starting six games in 2023. He’ll have the best stuff in that relief corps by a fair margin and could quickly […]
Please, blog, may I have some more? Los Angeles Angels Top 10 Prospects For 2024 Fantasy Baseball
January 28, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 12 Commentsby: The Itch
1. 1B Nolan Schanuel | 22 | MLB | 2023
The 11th overall pick, Schanuel dominated his competition at Florida Atlantic, especially in a preposterous junior season that saw him slash .447/.615/.868 with 19 home runs and 14 stolen bases in 59 games. The team sent him to the complex for three games then to Low-A for two games. What he showed at those levels with a smattering of singles and walks is probably what he’d shown before they drafted him. Bit of travel for puzzling reasons, is all I’m saying. Then he went to Double-A for 17 games and slashed .333/.474/.467 with twice as many walks as strikeouts. That’ll probably be that for his minor league career: 22 games across three levels. There’s just not much argument for him to spend any time in Triple-A this season after he posted a 112 wRC+ and .402 OBP in 29 major league games. Sure, he didn’t get to his extra base power, and he might benefit from some low-stakes opportunities to focus on that, but spring training should offer that. In a loaded first-year dynasty class, Schanuel is a steal in the middle of the first.
Please, blog, may I have some more?