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The Itch

Author: The Itch

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The Itch

San Francisco Giants Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

December 7, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 15 Comments

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They might be Giants again in 2023, but 2022 was a weird year by the bay. Buster Posey is the best defensive catcher I’ve ever seen. Easy to underrate his value on a day to day basis. His absence was felt in the win/loss column. Still, they’ve got a smart front office with plenty of money to spend, so it shouldn’t be long before they’re pushing the Padres and Dodgers again. 

 

1. SS Marco Luciano  | 21 | A+ | 2023

Luciano has lost some of that new-car shine over the years as people settled into the reality that he was unlikely to steal many bases, but I think 2022 was his most encouraging season as a pro. Nothing was particularly loud (.263/.339/.459), but his plate skills looked okay (9.6% BB, 22.2% K) and he was 20 percent better than league average against older players during something of a grind-it-out season with a two-month injury slicing it down the middle.

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The Itch

Off-season Deals Shuffle the Deck in Dynasty Fantasy Baseball

December 4, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 13 Comments

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With the signings of Jose Abreu and Jacob deGrom, the off-season feels officially underway, and I feel like I’m falling behind on some general moves and shakes around the game.

We’ll get back to the lists and cover the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday. 

The Abreu signing is unique for our purposes in that it creates value for the team he leaves behind and the team he’s joining. If the team lets Eloy Jimenez DH and installs Andrew Vaughn at first base, both youngsters get a glowing arrow up. No longer condemned to wander the outfield, they can finally settle into everyday roles. The club has been batting Tim Anderson at the top for a long time, but his high-contact, low-walk approach would be better employed in an RBI spot. Trouble is that’s true for several White Sox. A healthy Yoan Moncada could lead off, but he was awful last season, posting a .273 on base percentage in 104 games. But let’s just pretend he can bounce back to something like the .367 OBP he posted in 2019 or the .375 from 2021. 

I’d probably lay it out like this: 

1. 3B Yoan Moncada 

2. OF Luis Robert 

3. DH Eloy Jimenez 

4. SS Tim Anderson

5. 1B Andrew Vaughn

6. C Yasmani Grandal 

That’s a compelling top six. Could arrange the top five in any sequence. What happens with seven through nine is anyone’s guess.

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The Itch

San Diego Padres Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 30, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 9 Comments

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Despite trading away everything from last year’s top prospect group, AJ Preller’s cupboards are not bare. He won’t have the talent to make moves for Juan Soto or Josh Hader this summer, but Preller himself is an elite scout who has little trouble adding new waves of gifted young players every year. It’s a skill that builds itself out across time. Preller probably had good vision for the game as a young person, but as a long-time executive who makes more trips to the field than anybody, his eye has been honed the hard way: 10,000 hours at a time. Malcolm Gladwell, eat your heart out. 

One way you know Preller is good is James Wood. Another is Jarlin Susana. How anyone else looked at these guys and said “meh, no thanks” is beyond me, but it’s a complicated game. You can’t just target giants and hope to thrive, but if you do see a giant who happens to move like a meta-human, trust your eyes and run, don’t walk, to add them to your squad. 

This trust-your-eyes talent likely provides him an edge in building a scouting department, too. Talent or skill in a craft doesn’t always equate to skill at teaching that ability, but it’s certainly better than being clueless about scouting and then interfacing with a scouting director. All this is to say I spend a lot of time watching young Padres squads and give the team all the minutes I can find before publication day. 

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The Itch

Los Angeles Dodgers Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 27, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 27 Comments

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One thing you notice following the Dodgers’ prospects over the years is that they’re always on time. Some teams are slow to promote their players. Some teams are quick. Los Angeles is typically right on time.

 

1. 3B Miguel Vargas | 23 | MLB | 2022

Over the years, I’ve read a lot of reports that downplay the physicality Vargas brings to the game as a 6’3” 205 lb right handed hitter with baseball bloodlines. He’s not some contact-only, right-center slap-hitter and he’s not a mess on defense. He’s been underrated for a long time in prospect places, and he slashed just .170/.200/.255 in parts of 18 major league games. but his time is coming. The plate skills have always been elite. He’s struck out somewhere between 8.1 percent and 26 percent in all his extended stays: seven levels across four seasons. He’s settled in around 15 percent the past two seasons in Double-A and Triple-A. In 113 AAA games, he walked 71 times and struck out 75, slashing .304/.404/.511 with 17 home runs and 16 stolen bases. The team could bring Justin Turner back for another year or so, but that’s probably not the right play for where they’re at as an organization. They don’t need Turner to make the playoffs or probably even to win the division. Vargas turned 23 last week. There’s no reason for him to play any more minor league games.

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The Itch

Arizona Diamondbacks Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 20, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 16 Comments

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The snakes have a strong system with several waves of help on the way. They have a lot of pieces to sort through and just this week designated OF Stone Garrett for assignment, trading for Kyle Lewis in a separate move that feels connected. Third base could be a platoon between Josh Rojas and Emmanuel Rivera. Roster resource has Pavin Smith penciled in at Designated Hitter, but I imagine that spot’s earmarked for Kyle Lewis or Rivera. Smith slugged just .367 last year as a rag-ball casualty. Lewis would have to get healthy and stay that way to make the lineup, where he could be a key right-handed cog amid a lot of promising lefties. I still think they should find room for Garrett and suspect he’ll clear his own path unless someone else claims him. You just don’t see many weak-hitting teams releasing power hitters who post a 131 wRC+ in their first 27 games as a major leaguer. 

 

1. OF Corbin Carroll | 22 | MLB | 2022

A lightning-quick lefty, the 5’10” 165 lb Carroll calls Mookie Betts to mind for his surprising core strength and plus barrel control. It’s a lofty thought, but Carroll warrants the optimism, cruising through the minors despite losing a season to a major shoulder injury. His all-fields power and double-plus speed helped him to 15 extra base hits in 32 big league games. In 93 games across three levels, Carroll slashed .307/.425/.610 with 24 home runs, 31 stolen bases, 22 doubles and eight triples. I’m not sure how high is too high for redraft leagues, but I suspect his ADP will rise month-over-month from here through April.

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The Itch

St. Louis Cardinals Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 16, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 14 Comments

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I thought about my early days at Razzball while building this list. He’s a link to my draft recap from 2020: Baseball is Back With a Whimper: Pandemic Draft Week Recap. St. Louis did about as well as you can at just about any task in that draft. They picked after 20 teams had their choice, but the top four names on this list were their top four picks in that draft, and they’re all exciting players with likely big league outcomes. 

 

1. 3B/OF Jordan Walker | 20 | AA | 2023

If I had to reshuffle the Top 100 today, I think I’d put Walker number one overall. At 6’5” 220 lbs with 80-grade power, plus athleticism and easy speed, Walker belongs to a rare class. No offense to Corbin Carroll or Gunnar Henderson. I’m just slightly more confident Walker will be an impact fantasy player. Check out Grey’s Jordan Walker, 2023 Fantasy Outlook for more. Fun videos in there. Really drives home how easy it can look for Walker when he’s on his game.

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The Itch

Pittsburgh Pirates Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 13, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 11 Comments

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Three Rivers Stadium is about to get hit with a wave of young talent. And yeah, I realize the stadium is probably called Crypto Cathedral or something by now. (Narrator voice: “Three Rivers Stadium was actually imploded in 2001. The Pirates play in PNC Park now, which is, in fact, named for a bank that shuttered 200 branches in June of this year.) So . . . pretty close.

Fact remains that this list is loaded with players set to debut in 2023. One downside of a tank-tastic rebuild is the timeline crunch. Pittsburgh has too many good-not-great youngsters to play at any given time. We saw some of that in 2022 when the club would call up a prospect and let him ride the bench or make him walk the plank like Captain Jack Suwinksi. It’ll take a lot of skill and a little luck to separate playing time winners from losers and build a sea-worthy vessel from this veritable forest of prospects. 

 

1. C/OF Endy Rodriguez | 22 | AAA | 2023

Rodriguez is nearing the end of his minor league journey. In a real-world scenario, he’s probably the Opening Day catcher for this team. Pittsburgh punted in all sorts of creative ways last year, so the chances of Endy breaking camp with the big club are minuscule. It’ll probably be Jason Delay and his 53 wRC+ or Tyler Heineman and his 57 wRC+. You never know, though. If Pittsburgh suddenly decided to give a shit about wins and losses, they could field something resembling a competitive ballclub. Johan Oviedo was a big find for the rotation. Mitch Keller seemed to break through into something approaching functionality. Roansy Contreras is already good fresh off his 23rd birthday.

If you put the switch-hitting Rodriguez behind the plate and in the middle of that lineup, the whole team looks about 50 percent better. The athletic 6’0” 170 lb former Mets farmhand played a fair bit of outfield in 2022 but looks smooth behind the plate. His bat is racing his glove to the majors, and the presence of number one pick Henry Davis complicates the issue further, but it might help them both to share the workload and kick over to DH or left field on off-days. Rodriguez is a better baseball athlete than Davis and a more versatile defender, so he might find himself in the ideal fantasy catcher spot, escaping the rigors of daily dish duty while finding his way into the lineup much more than the average backstop. In 31 Double-A games last year, Rodriguez popped eight home runs and slashed .356/.442/.678 with an impressive 13-to-15.2 percent walk-to-strikeout rate. He finished the year with a week in Triple-A, where he collected eight RBI in six games and slugged .773. In short, he is ready. 

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The Itch

Milwaukee Brewers Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 9, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 9 Comments

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2023 should be a bounce back year for Bernie and the Brewers, who finished 2022 one game behind the Phillies for a wild card spot and will retain all their elite pitching. Well, all their elite pitching except Josh Hader. The lineup is good, too. Rowdy Telez and Willy Adames combined for 66 home runs, which feels like an emblem of where this organization thrives: making room for talent that falls through cracks in other teams’ roster crunches. 

 

1. OF Jackson Chourio | 19 | AA | 2024

Chourio won’t turn 19 until March 11, giving him an outside shot to make his big league debut at age 19. It’s unlikely but within the range of possible outcomes for a player who has already defied the age-to-level curve in an extreme way, playing AA games at 18 and getting valuable winter league reps in a hyper-competitive environment. The numbers don’t matter a whole lot for a wunderkind like this, but the numbers are good: 20 HR and 16 SB in 99 games across three levels.

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The Itch

Cincinnati Reds Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 6, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 15 Comments

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Been an odd stretch for the red legs. Yasiel Puig. Trevor Bauer. Nick Castellanos. A couple sell-offs. Joey Votto the constant: a Jon Snow meme made incarnate on the baseball field. Brandon Drury and Raisel Iglesias and Jonathan India and Sonny Gray and Fidel Castro and Eric Davis and Pete Rose and Luis Castillo and why the fiery red hell is Hunter Strickland pitching with a lead in the ninth? 

It’s complicated, I guess. They’ve taken some big swings. And mostly missed. Fun that they tried for a while. Not sure what to make of their current direction. Solid pieces in place with Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Alexis Diaz and more. Some impact talents on the way. A few interesting in-betweeners at the big league level. You have to squint a little, but you can see a path back to relevance for the Reds, which is really all you can ask for on the downside of an unsuccessful cycle. 

 

1. SS Elly De La Cruz | 21 | AA | 2023

In his 2023 Fantasy Outlook for Jordan Walker, Grey refers to meta-human type athletes as Lab Babies. Next year, if he’s still eligible, that post is reserved for E to the DLC: Lab Baby. Prospect Thanos. Inevitable. Only thing between him and that kind of shine is a 2023 debut. The strikeouts and the Reds’ general level of competitiveness could conspire to delay his arrival, but if he does make the leap, we’ll want him on our redraft squads. The power and speed are elite, and I’m way less worried about the strikeouts (158 in 120 games) than what I’ve seen in some other prospect portals because I think the quality of contact is so extreme they barely matter until proven otherwise. De La Cruz is a switch-hitter at 6’5” 200 lbs who explodes his hips through the zone from both sides of the plate. Like Aaron Jude and Oneil Cruz before him, he doesn’t have to square up a pitch to send it seven rows deep. It’s unique. It’s uncanny. It helped him slash .304/.359/.586 with 28 home runs and 47 stolen bases in 120 games across two levels.

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The Itch

Chicago Cubs Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 2, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 8 Comments

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Hey Chicago, whaddya say? 

Mervis is gonna mash today! 

1. 1B Matt Mervis | 24 | AAA | 2023

The 6’4” 225 lb Mervis hit 36 home runs in 137 games across three levels and keeps on hitting them in the Arizona Fall League, where he’s got five homers in 13 games. He has struck out and walked thrice a piece, continuing the case of the disappearing strikeouts after K-ing in just 14.6 percent of his Triple-A plate appearances. Should open 2022 in the major league lineup.

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The Itch

Washington Nationals Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

October 30, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 10 Comments

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If you’re gonna pull the early plug on a contention window, you better walk away with some future stars. To their credit, the Nationals did that. A better move might’ve been to hold Trea Turner in 2021 and hope for the best in 2022, but that wasn’t the play this team wanted to make, preferring to off-load Max Scherzer’s deferred money along with their star shortstop. 2022 then became an exercise in futility. It’s tough to imagine the front office saw the Turner trade as precursor to a Soto sale. I guess the checks keep clearing when an ownership group opts to quit an entire MLB season, but the cascading impacts of those tank-thoughts will be felt throughout the organization for years. Players might simply stop wanting to play. They didn’t have to move Soto, of course. Could’ve left him malcontent on the roster then watched him walk in free agency, but I don’t think any amount of free agent spending could undo the damage that had been done. 

 

1. OF James Wood | 20 | A | 2025

There’s a lot riding on the broad shoulders of the 6’7” 240 lb center fielder. If he remains a high-contact, big-power bat through the upper minors, the Juan Soto trade could look okay a couple years from now. CJ Abrams has a big part to play in that math as well, and he started hitting better down the stretch with regular at bats. Like Abrams last winter, Wood should be a consensus top ten fantasy prospect this off-season after slashing .313/.420/.536 with 12 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 76 games this year. He also walked 50 times and struck out 75. So far, his game has no apparent weaknesses. Depending on the timelines of Jackson Chourio and Elly De La Cruz, James Wood could be baseball’s number one overall prospect early in 2024.

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