Hey, what’s up Bud Black, why you dressed as a Smurf with a blue face? Would you prefer I call you Blue Black? Bud Blue? Haha, I’m just joking, I know you’re now and always Bud Black, one of the best managers in baseball, and not someone I ever need to worry about playing someone with promise. Anyway, I’m going to check in on Michael Toglia. Looks like he’s set to hit cleanup and play every day for the Rockies. Sweet, and he won’t be subject to platoons because he’s a switch hitter. Likely will get 162 games played and accumulate all kinds of counting stats. [two games into the season] Oh my God! Why is Michael Toglia being benched for Brandon Drury? Brandon Drury isn’t even on the Rockies! What is Bud Black doing?! Oh, that’s why he had blue face paint? He’s Jokey Smurf! UGHHHHHHHHHH!!!
[shoots up in bed, sweating] Holy crap, I just had the worst nightmare. I dreamt that I was writing a Michael Toglia sleeper post, thinking Bud Black would actually play him, not taking into account how stupid Bud Black is. What’s that? I really am writing a Michael Toglia sleeper post? OH NO!!! UGH!!! So, what can we expect from Michael Toglia for 2025 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
PSYCHE! My 2025 fantasy baseball rankings on the Patreon started last week and are ongoing. Don’t wait for the rankings to come out next month. Anyway II, the Michael Toglia sleeper:
Last year in 116 games and 399 ABs, Michael Toglia went 25/10/.218 with a 32.1 K% and 11.8 BB%. First off, the speed is goofy. He is quite literally the Pitch Clock 12 come to life. The Pitch Clock 12 says that a guy can steal 12 more bags, based on the pitch clock, if he wants. So, if he’s neutrally an 8-steal guy, he can steal 20 bags if he wants. Wait, so that means Toglia is a negative-two-steal guy based off his 10 steals last year? Yes, actually, that’s not wrong. In 45 games in 2023, he stole one bag in MLB. If he were to steal one bag in 2025 or 12, it wouldn’t shock me. He does walk a lot, so while the average may not be great, he will be on base to steal. Speaking of averages…
Or should I say spanking my average down like it’s a baaaaaaaaaaaad, baaaaaaaaaaaad boy, spoken like Lou Costello. I don’t love splits, but let’s break Michael Toglia in half. Mich Tog was a .197 guy with 16 HRs then Ael Lia was 9 HRs and .235. If he’s more Ael Lia than Mich Tog, then he could be more than able to toler with average for tolerable. Less Seussian and more how normal people talk, Toglia won’t be bad on average if he continues to hit .235 or better. Will he? Seems possible. He had a .250 xBA. I’ve mentioned in the past about the problems with that stat, but it is being powered by a lot of red on his Statcast page.
This is as good as Statcast gets if you have horizontal vision. It’s like not having peripheral vision, but instead you can’t see below the horizon, and the horizon in this case ends at Bat Speed. The good news is what we learned this year. What did we learn this year? That Sean Combs is more like P. Diddly? No. I mean, I guess, maybe you learned that, but I’m talking about what we learned with Elly De La Cruz. Sucks that Toglia can’t make contact, but also we can’t put too much emphasis on that. Unlike Elly, he doesn’t have insane speed, unless you’re talking about exit velocity. Toglia’s 92.1 average exit velocity is actually higher than Elly’s, and, since I’m looking, Elly’s Barrel% is 12.7, Hard Hit% is 45.7 and LA Sweet Spot% is 35.7. If you don’t have reverse horizontal vision (not being able to look up), you’ll see Toglia handily beats Elly in all of those. Toglia is basically top 15 in all of baseball for quality of contact. That alone should have you drafting him everywhere.
Let’s recap super quickly: Michael Toglia has an elite walk rate, i.e., he waits for his pitch. Home games in Coors, so elevated balls and BABIP, i.e., he will produce better average and power than he might be projected for in a lesser park. He hits everything hard eh-eff, i.e., more elevated balls and BABIP. I before E, I truly believe Michael Toglia could be a top 30 hitter with a 40/10/.250 season. Looking for this year’s Brent Rooker? Look no further. Well, a little bit further for his projections. For 2025, I’ll give Michael Toglia projections of 77/33/86/.237/5 in 517 ABs with a chance for much more.
