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Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 6: Meaner Than A Junkyard DogGavin Williams, Jordan Westburg, Henry Davis, David Hamilton.

 

1. Reds 1B Christian Encarnacion-Strand | 23 | AAA

81 games into the season, Cincinnati is tied with Milwaukee for first in the National League Central.Joey Votto returned with a few home runs in his first week but is 0-for-13 in his last three games. Makes me sad to think he might be blocking a better hitter from helping his team win the division.

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Gavin Williams looked incredible against the Royals on Tuesday night, firing seven shutout innings and allowing just one hit. Kansas City is missing Vinnie P, and Sal P is out of the lineup right now, but I got to see every pitch Williams threw on this night, and he was in rhythm from the first inning, particularly with his fastball atop the zone. He’s got some room for growth with his off-speed command, but Cleveland is a great place to hone that. 

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The Pirates recalled 2B Nick Gonzales, who was slashing .257/.370/.450 with six home runs and one stolen base in 57 Triple-A games and striking out 28.6 percent of the time. He’s been better in June, slashing .270/.440/.460 with one home run and a 21.4 percent strikeout rate. He has to be on his game in the pitch selection department because his swing doesn’t have a ton of variability, and he’s no threat on the bases. Took him four attempts to score that one steal, and that’s no longer just a fantasy baseball problem. The 2023 version of baseball all but requires a team populated by functional baserunners. 

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Today is the day Cleveland will finally deploy one of its best pitchers, almost three months into the season. Gavin Williams earned this opportunity more than a month ago and hasn’t dominated to quite the same extent since he was left to linger. His 2.93 ERA and 1.09 WHIP with 61 strikeouts in 46 Triple-A innings still look good enough for us to glimpse his mountainous upside. Just anecdotal, but it feels like there’s a real reward for the teams who don’t drag their feet on promotions this year. The Reds have ripped off ten straight wins, and even they’ve been on the conservative side of aggressive, if that makes even a Strand of sense. 

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Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 5: Our New Number OneLuis Matos, Emmet Sheehan, Bo Naylor, Dairon Blanco.

 

1. Guardians RHP Gavin Williams | 23 | AAA 

Touki Toussaint tooky the first start in place of the injured Triston McKenzie. I suspect Williams will cover the next one, but Cleveland has shown uncanny resilience to fielding their best players. The release of Mike Zunino and promotion of Bo Naylor could signal a temporary sea change, which just so happens to coincide with the certain passing of the floating super two date.

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Dynasty baseball is always complicated. The winners tend to allocate their roster spots most effectively, and this time of year especially, each spot is gold. With short-season leagues underway in Florida and Arizona, new names are popping into the newsfeed all the time. These two remaining short-season “leagues” have inherited the levels left behind by the recent minor league purge, so one could argue they matter more than they ever have. On the other hand, the pitching and defense is perhaps too haphazard to help us sort the hitters. Same goes double for the Dominican Summer Leagues. Also, it’s only been a week, and everyone is telling everyone else to hold their horses while filling their own FAAB runs with DSL hitters like Atlanta OF Luis Guanipa and Guardians SS Welbyn Francisca. And that’s where we’ll close this post: circling some names making waves in the dynasty-verse. 

Let’s take it from the top first though. Big news of the night has to be Giants OF Luis Matos, who homered in his first at bat and got pulled from the game after his second. He’s hitting .398 with seven home runs and six steals in 24 games at Triple-A Sacramento. This might be a drill but does not feel like a drill. San Francisco is 35-and-32: good enough to make the playoffs if they started today. Hard to make a strong case against promoting Matos. I added him in two leagues yesterday: a ten-teamer and a twelve. Both redraft leagues. Chasing that lightning.

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Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume: All-Inclusive Cruz: Elly De La Cruz, Royce Lewis, Andrew Abbott, Bryan Woo

1. Guardians RHP Gavin Williams | 23 | AAA 

Another week = another handful of wasted frames from baseball’s best minor league pitcher, but this time he actually got hit around a bit, allowing three runs in four innings against the Elly-free Triple-A Reds.

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When was your last sitcom-style spit-take? 

I’m not sure I’ve ever done the full expulsion. It’s more like gagging on the liquid as I try to keep it in, which is what happened last night when Tony Gonsolin tried to throw a fastball higher-than-high against Reds SS Elly De La Cruz, who simply smoked a 112 mph line drive into right center on a pitch about ten inches above the strike zone. I’ve seen him do stuff like that before, but the reason it surprised me here was the previous pitch. Gonsolin features one of the game’s best splitters, and he made Elly look bad on it in this at bat. De La Cruz had every right to be flummoxed by the ultra-high heater, but it didn’t bother him at all. Even way up out of the strike zone, it was the only real pitch to hit he saw all night from a Dodgers staff that wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. 

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Mariners RHP Bryan Woo made his debut Saturday in Texas against one of baseball’s best teams, and it did not go well. A lot of rookie pitchers struggle in their first start, so we should avoid Tom Smykowski’s Jump to Conclusions Mat here, especially on the road against a good offense. 

SS Royce Lewis looks like a mid-lineup mainstay in Minnesota. Don’t say that five times fast. 2B Edouard Julien is the odd man out for now but appears to be settling into his skill set at the highest level, even if he’ll spend the foreseeable future a level below that. 

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Despite the Internet’s best efforts, Reds SS Elly De La Cruz did not make his major league debut Tuesday night. He did, however, hit another long home run in Triple-A while the Reds won their fourth straight game. The NL Central is there for the taking. Cincinnati has a legitimate case for having the most talented roster. TJ Friedl might be headed right back to the injured list after leaving last night’s game with a tight hamstring. Friedl’s fate isn’t directly tied to Elly’s timeline by any means, but every window can be a door, right? If you’re sprightly enough? Would have to be a huge window for a guy his size. Anyway, might be today, might be tomorrow, but soon, and for a very long time, Elly De La Cruz and his cohort will make the Reds appointment viewing. 

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Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 3: Red Letter DaysMatt McLain

Just a refresher or if it’s your first season with us: Players like Jordan Walker are ineligible for the stash list because anyone who has already been promoted in-season is ineligible. Guys like Royce Lewis are a bit of a gray-area. 

1. Reds SS Elly De La Cruz | 21 | AAA 

Unless half this list gets promoted and I write a new one next Sunday, this should be Elly’s last stash. The Reds are on the verge of dancing around a weak division, and they’ve been dragging their feet on it long enough. They’re five games out of first but tied with the Cardinals, half a game behind the Cubs. De La Cruz is slashing .341/.452/.765 with a 20.2 percent strikeout rate in 21 May games along with nine home runs and seven stolen bases.

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The guidelines that built this team are pretty fluid, but in a general sense, a player must have significantly enhanced his dynasty profile to qualify. 

Catcher

Orioles C Samuel Basallo has slowed down some since a steamy start but is still slashing .299/.340/.489 with four home runs and two steals as an 18-year-old in Low-A. He looks solid behind the plate, too, especially for a 6’3” teenager. 

Honorable Mentions: Dodgers C Thayron Liranzo. One way to identify a player like this is the ratio of relevance to league-size is changing in a hurry on the fly. Though I’ve added him elsewhere, I’ve mostly ignored Liranzo in my 15-teamer with 20 milb spots per team. This week, I saw his name in some tweets. On May 21, he hit his 10th and 11th home runs on the season. He’s slashing .310/.444/.690 in the month of May with 14 walks and 18 strikeouts in 16 games. Still just a catching prospect in Low-A, but he’ll be off the board in most leagues before long. 

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