You’re probably on your third straight day of eating turkey-based meals, dealing with annoying relatives, staying out of a cold drizzle, and/or shopping in full body armor. Let’s brighten up your Sunday by flying south to the Dominican Republic, where baseball is being played as we speak. LIDOM (which is what cool kids call the Dominican League) is actually pretty entertaining if you can find a stream somewhere. It’s a mix of non-MLBers, prospects of yesteryear, and legit current MLB prospects that you’ll find on the Top 100 lists. There’s also cheerleaders and exciting announcers! They make cans of corn to left field sound like Game 7 of the World Series. The AFL is as dried up as that turkey in your mom’s fridge, so let’s look in on some of the prospects in the DR.
Francisco Mejia, C – Mejia is the best fantasy catcher going, and I wish he was still in Cleveland. He’s currently prosblocked by Hedges as Grey pointed out here, but once he’s up I think his bat will carry him to more playing time (even if it’s at another position). It’s been ho-hum so far in the DR, with no homers and a .259 average.
Victor Robles, OF – Spoiler alert…after Vlad and Eloy, Robles is my number three fantasy prospect. Not that it’s any kind of wild gamble, but I could see reasons to put Tatis or Tucker in that slot. Robles is hitting .265 with a homer and four steals this winter. He’s another redraft darling, so you can get more info on him from Grey here.
Fernando Tatis Jr., SS – Tatis is one of the best prospects in general but also one of the names on the radar for 2019 redraft leagues. You can get Grey’s take on that here. So far in the Dominican, Tatis is hitting .240 with a pair of homers and steals. Outside of the average, it’s the offensive package you’d expect with both power and speed.
Sean Murphy, C – If you were around a few weeks ago when I did up the Oakland specs top ten you know I put him fifth in the system and announced that I liked him as the best fantasy catching prospect after Mejia. I know, that’s like ranking my favorite instant oatmeals (clearly Quaker number one BTW) but Murphy gets cred for his defense and not so much his bat. His average sucks this winter (.185), but he does have a pair of homers and a steal. After some polish in Triple-A, we should see him in Oakland this year.
Rogelio Armenteros, RHP – I try really hard to pretend like I care about pitching prospects. I hope you all know this. But it’s usually as genuine as me saying, “yeah, no…that video isn’t creepy at all”. I just can’t fake it. Pitchers make me feel the way that video does – uncomfortable. So when I actually like one (like Armenteros) it’s a big leap for me. So far this winter he hasn’t disappointed – striking out 22 batters in 23 innings with a 1.17 ERA and 0.70 WHIP. He’s built to start and could see some in Houston this summer.
Leody Taveras, OF – Taveras ranked numero uno in my Rangers report so it only makes sense to check in with the 20-year-old this winter. What’s that? Hitting .229 with a steal? Ugh. Remind me not to check back in next week.
Mike!
Sorry, late to the party. What did I miss?
a. Love these write-ups, man. Damn and on the weekend to boot. I guess no rest for the wicked but you’re not wicked so I guess I have to re-think that one. No rest ever for Mike?
b. Little known factoid about Chad for November 24
Actually little is known about Chad so I don’t have a ton of information to go on. I lived cloistered in the compound and it was forbidden for us to leave the compound in any direction for more than like 5 miles max. Overall it’s a really bad country. In urban areas you can see sons and daughters of the rich paying like 20$ (which is a month’s salary for some in Chad) for a 2-hour swim in the pool in the Hilton hotel.
Oh, and I remember a cool factoid – 100% true story so bizarre there’s no way you could make it up. In N’Djamena there is a hotel called the Shangai (sic) Hotel, and not Shanghai as it should be – the hai part being the crucial harbor part. The owner of the hotel is a Chadian. What did he do? He went to China, found a wife and brought the entire family to Chad to run his hotel. The hotel is more like a brothel. I spent a night there to save money, worst investment I ever made. The complimentary breakfast is so bad. They serve you the world-famous 1/4-egg omelette which makes up 1% of the omelette. I have no idea what made up the rest. No fruit juice or fresh fruit. And they had about 3 or 4 days old baguette bread that was better to be used as a hammer then to eat. In fact, impossible to eat. So, yeah bad all over. The owner is a real badass and speaks fluent Mandarin which really shocked me. And lastly, the guy is brutal to the help, to his wife to basically all the Chinese who get within earshot of him. There were a couple of security incidents I remembered (I only spent 1 night and 1 morning there).
1. A guy walks into the hotel. The Security guard does a sweep with his metal detector. It beeps over the guy’s pocket, clearly something metallic. The security guard points to the sign – no guns – and says what’s that. The guy says ‘A bomb, BOOM’ as he makes a gesture like a bomb blowing up. The guy continues to enter with no further action taken by the security guard ’cause that would be a above his pay grade of 2$ per day, I sh*t you not.
2. Three sons (unrelated) of three rich guys enter the hotel. The security guard’s alarm goes off with his sweep. The security guard points to the sign. The leader of the group takes out the gun and then takes out his father’s ID (my guess) and again there is no further action taken by the security guard, ’cause his momma didn’t raise no fool.
c. Hope you had a nice weekend.
Cheers,
Ante
a. I sleep a ton actually!
b. good lord
c. I did, especially in relation to people in Chad…you too!
Kristian Robinson or Danny Jansen? Thanks man, have a great weekend.
Overall upside Robinson…but if your window is open now Jansen will be more useful.
@Mike: Thanks boss. Have a great week Mike.
you too!
Kristian Robinson or Danny Jansen? Thanks man, have a great weekend.
See Niven’s reply…thanks you too!
Kristian Robinson or Danny Jansen? Thanks man, have a great Sunday.
clearly I’m stuck in some sort of weird comment time warp
Sorry, Bob was in the spam folder, so I approved it out, and, hey, Bob
ha no problem…Bob!
As of Saturday night Tatis Jr. is hitting .286 with 3 HRs, 3 SB and 7 RBIs in his first sevengames.
Excellent, thanks for the update! I tend to write these before the Sat games end.