There’s going to be guys who are sleepers for friends and family leagues and there will be sleepers for deep leagues, and there might be sleepers for both. Imagine Nelson Velazquez won’t fall into the Both category. He feels to me like a guy who will get a lot of helium in those “We’re Smart” leagues. They’re not actually “Smart” leagues, but if you play in a deep league, you think you’re smart. I’ve said many times that I think shallow leagues are just as hard. Or just a shard if glass is reading. In shallow leagues, it’s a nonstop debate if a guy is producing enough, even if they’re supposed to be great down the road. In “smart” leagues, you usually can’t do anything after your draft that makes much of a difference. That doesn’t make things smarter. With that said, I think Nelson Velazquez will be appreciated readily in “smart” leagues but shouldn’t only be in “smart” leagues. This guy is a dumb league guy too! Wait until you hear what he did last year (at the age of 24!), you’re gonna blow your freakin’ lid, smarties and dummies alike! In Triple-A and the majors combined, he hit 33 homers, stole seven bags and, holy schnike balls, I see why those smarties are in on this guy. Let’s see if we can convince the dummies! So, what can we expect from Nelson Velazquez for 2024 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?

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See all of today’s starting lineups

# MLB Starting Lineups For Fri 8/8
ARI | ATH | ATL | BAL | BOS | CHC | CHW | CIN | CLE | COL | DET | HOU | KC | LAA | LAD | MIA | MIL | MIN | NYM | NYY | PHI | PIT | SD | SEA | SF | STL | TB | TEX | TOR | WSH | OAK

Wrote an Anthony Santander sleeper last year, and he’s still kinda asleep. I wrote a Cedric Mullins sleeper a few years ago, and he woke, then went back to sleep for his draft season. Wrote a Taylor Ward sleeper last year and loved him so freakin’ much, and he’s a sleeper still, because he disappointed. That is a few outfielders who come to mind that I saw being drafted late: Noted they were sleepers, but chose to ignore them because I had been there before. I don’t want to go over the same guys again. Think that gets as stale to read as it is to write. With that said (HA!), here’s what Itch said about Sal Frelick previously

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1. SS Jackson Holliday | 20 | AAA | 2024

While building out this list, I found myself wondering if Baltimore’s tanktastic strategy would work these days. The draft lottery changes the math a lot. If you take Adley Rutschman and Jackson Holiday away from the Orioles, not to mention some of the high-upside, overslot chances they took with their draft budget surplus over the years, they’re probably nowhere close to the ALDS, where their season ended in 2023. Yay for the draft lottery, is what I realized. I already felt that way, of course, and the Orioles would still be on the uptick with this front office even with a penny pinching nepo baby in the ownership suite, but it’s nice to think the wins-are-bad loophole that helped build the Astros, Cubs and Orioles title contenders has been closed even a little bit. Baltimore’s final big prize for super-quitting, Holliday traversed four levels in 2023, climbing all the way to Triple-A for a few weeks and posting a 109 wRC+ there with 16 walks and 17 strikeouts in 18 games. He’ll begin 2024 with a chance to claim the opening day shortstop job.

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This year MLB is taking a different approach. Rather than having different teams, it’s the Dodgers and everyone else. That group of misfits over there sharing a glove? That’s the non-Dodgers. Over here, the boat with everyone else you might remember from All-Star Games and similar fanfare? That’s the Dodgers. Yeah, the boat that says […]

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In our twenty-second episode,  Mike Couillard and Jeremy Brewer open by reviewing Ohtani signing an unusual contract with the Dodgers plus all of the other MLB moves over the last week. Then we discuss the release of 2023 Bowman Draft along with four other Topps release dropping this week (51:43). We now have Cards & Categories swag for purchase, visit […]

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1. SS Marco Luciano | 22 | MLB | 2023

Luciano was rushed to the majors despite struggling at most stops along the way, and Farhan Zaidi has said he’ll have a chance to open 2024 as the starting shortstop despite hitting .209 with a 35.9 percent strikeout rate in 18 Triple-A games and .231 with a 37.8 percent strikeout rate in his 14-game September stint. If he does get that job, he’s going to have some rough patches. Like a lot of players who signed just before 2020, he hasn’t really played all that much and retains some hidden topside as he settles in at the highest level.

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Here’s what I think happened with Jordan Walker. Everyone told you Killers of the Flower Moon was the best Scorsese film, and you were like, “I’m going to watch Killers of the Flower Moon, then go into the parking lot and divorce my wife, leaving her for Killers of the Flower Moon, but first I’m going to watch it,” then you watched it, and, afterwards, you were like, “Well, it was good, but my wife is like Goodfellas. She’s even Raging Bull on occasion. Honestly, she’s The Departed, and Killers of the Flower Moon is barely Casino.” So, you ended up not divorcing your wife to marry a movie you just met and you went home, back to the uze. Expectations are a helluva drug. It’s not just like that with movies, TV, music or what-have-you. Expectations for Jordan Walker last year were ridiculous. I played a role in that, naturally. But let’s prorate out his rookie year: 65/22/65/.275/10. That’s not taking a three-homer week and extrapolating out to 70 homers either. He had a 16/7/.276 year in 420 ABs. That’s just giving him an extra 100 at-bats from the 7-hole. That’s really not bad for a rookie! Your expectations were that he was going to be Aaron Judge in his rookie year, and that’s fair, but he was not bad. He doesn’t even turn 22 years old until next May. This is a 21-year-old’s numbers in the majors his rookie year? Yeah, I regret to inform you, I’m going to be raising expectations one more year. So, what can we expect from Jordan Walker for 2024 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?

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1. SS Jackson Merrill | 20 | AA | 2024 

Supreme contact skills from the left side give Merrill a fantastic base from which to develop his game over the next decade. He struck out just 62 times in 114 games across two levels last year, posting a 111 wRC+ in High-A and a 104 in Double-A despite being 4.3 years younger than the league average age. He’ll open in Triple-A and could look ready for the majors in April. There’s a chance the club trades Ha-Seong Kim and/or Jake Cronenworth this winter and opens an early avenue for Merrill.

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Grey and B_Don return to the Razzball Fantasy Baseball Podcast to discuss the happenings from the MLB Winter Meetings. While Grey missed his opportunity to hangout with a Japanese baseball legend, the greatest Japanese baseball legend (maybe just baseball in general), Shohei Ohtani was holding the baseball world captive with his free agency decision when we recorded, so if we sound dumb…More dumb than usual, you know why. 

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