Dylan Moore is, simply put, Whit Merrifield for people who are smarter than Albert Einstein. You can hem, and you can haw, and you can even hew, but there’s no getting around it. Austin Meadows is the most overrated dumpster fire that was born from a stork pooping into a grassy field, so don’t even come at me with that guy, but if you want it, here goes: Dylan Moore is, simply put, Austin Meadows for people who look after wiping. You get up without looking? You’re a dirty stork-dropping turd hole and you’re not smart enough to see the wonderous wonder that is Dylan Moore. Dylan Moore is a young man’s Lorenzo Cain. Call him Still Able Cain. You want a better metaphor? Come up with it yourself, you two-bit noodle nose! How about we put some meat on these bones? In Dylan Moore’s last 151 games in the majors, he’s hit 17 homers and stole 23 bases. Wanna come at me with another guy who you want to compare him to? Fine, Tommy Pham went 24/31 and is a decade (minus six years) older than Dylan Moore. But get this, Pham’s Ks were going up last year and he hit .211. Moore’s Ks went down and he hit .255. Whaddup, Pham?! Who else you got to compare him to? Kevin Keirmaier?! Fine, go for it with Keirmaier, who has had one healthy season in his seven-year career when he went 10/18 back in 2015. Good luck with that! You want more? Well, I want Moore! So, what can we expect from Dylan Moore for 2021 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
Dylan Moore hit nine homers and stole 37 bags in 2016. Sure, it was Single-A ball, but that made me horny so I had to pass it on to you. At no point in Dylan Moore’s minor league career did it seem like he was going to struggle with strikeouts. He actually seemed to have the making of a .275+ hitter. He has a 50-grade Hit Tool, and hit .373 in Double-A, .280 in Triple-A, then was promoted to the majors and bottomed out in 2019, hitting .206 with a 33% K%. It was, and is not good. Something was off, and I honestly don’t know what the problem was with homeboy, but he started to show who he was this year. His biggest adjustment was his cutting back on swings, in general. He became more selective, going from 67% Z-Swing to 61.2% and 44% to 41.5% Swing%. Being more selective should mean making better contact, and he did. His Barrel% went from 6.5% to 13.8 year over year, and his exit velocity jumped from 88.4 to 90.4 MPH. xBA went from .193 to .251, and xSLG went from .340 to .464. His 24.7% LD rate was a little high for him, likely due to a small sample, but isn’t totally off from his minor league numbers. Steamer projects him for a .222 average, but that seems off by one of the largest margins I’ve seen so far, or sofa if you sell couches. That could be as far off as forty to fifty points. Even conservatively, Dylan Moore’s gonna hit .250, book it, Paul Dano.
Spent a lot of time on his batting average, because I don’t think there’s much to say on his speed. His Sprint Speed is equal to Cavan Biggio, and feels like he’d have to be injured to not at least attempt to steal 25 bags. He might get caught a few times, sporting not the best caught stealing percentages, but he’s a lock for 17 steals, give or take three, and prolly take…or give. The one that gets him to 20 steals, I never know if it’s take or give.
Wait there’s Moore! The lede that is buried with this post is he is more of a 25-homer hitter than a 12-homer hitter. His 17.3 Launch Angle and 40+ Fly Ball rate could cause his batting average to fall a few points, but will also help him surprise with power. Looking for a guy who could shock the world and go 30/20/.270? I know, that sounds crazy, but the tools are there. No one, including me, is projecting him for that. It is a lot closer for him than, say, Tommy Pham or Austin Meadows or Whit Merrfield or Lorenzo Cain. This guy is Still Able Cain! For 2021, I’ll give Dylan Moore projections of 85/21/62/.262/20 in 567 ABs with a chance for much more.
