Prospect News: Dante’s Inferno or Aww, Schmidt!

It’s been a long time since I’ve shared my own moves in this space. I know nobody cares about anyone else’s fantasy teams, but I figured a mid-season check in could give us a slightly fresh way to discuss the game. 

I traded Padres 2B Luis Arraez for Yankees RHP Clarke Schmidt in a 20-team league a couple weeks back, so that’s been fun. Solid starters are rare there in the Highlander Dynasty Invitational, so . . . good thing I benched two-win Justin Wrobleski for the only Schmidt start I got: a three-inning, four-run loss. I’ve been in fifth place for quite a while. It’s a weekly league, so it’s hard to hustle your way up the categories. I had acquired Arraez along with Drew Rasmussen for Luis Robert in something of a sad, sell-low moment considering I’d drafted Robert 7th overall when the league began. Now I’ve got nothing to show for that whole sequence. Well, I’ve got Rasmussen’s couple innings a week, and I’ll be happy to have him next year, but this has been a lesson in chasing innings. Just Don’t, is the lesson. I’ve figured that out in the daily leagues, but the weeklys make me feel stuck sometimes. Plus the rosters are only 40 deep and the Injured List holds only five. The IL thing is a constant irritation for me. I lost Luis Gil before the season got going and haven’t gotten an inning from Rhett Lowder. I’ve also got Justin Martinez, Anthony Santander, Christian Moore, and Alek Manoah. so I’m down to 39 spots. Doesn’t feel like it’s gonna be my year, but my offense leads the league in At Bats and is near the top in everything, so I can’t exactly tank.

In a 15-team daily league where I’m about ten points ahead of the field, I dealt Braves 1B Matt Olson and Mets OF Brandon Nimmo for Blue Jays 1B Vladimir Guerrero. I’ve wanted Vlad forever after winning for him as a prospect for $36 during our league’s start-up auction and later  trading him for Shane Bieber (ouch) in pursuit of a title, so I was willing to roll the dice on finding fill-in outfielders the rest of the way. I added Rockies OF Mickey Moniak and Orioles OF Ramon Laureano and got a pile of homers from them right away. I later dropped Moniak, which I’m kind of regretting today. For what it’s Wuertz, I checked the free agent outfield group before I clicked accept on that trade offer. Always worth a few moments. Feels weird to think that seeing Moniak and Laureano on the wire encouraged me to trade an outfielder, but that’s how I like to play the game, trading away players people want and taking chances on players people don’t want right now. I had a chance to add Jo Adell somewhere in that shuffle too but got outbid by a couple bucks. So it goes. 

I haven’t been making any trades in the Razz30 because the build feels solid, we can’t trade picks during the season, and I don’t have the kind of prospects people chase. Well, I have Brewers SS Luis Pena, but he’s far enough away that nobody’s inquired. I’ve been in first place most of the season and got Braves OF Jurickson Profar back last week. Will theoretically get Dodgers RHP Tyler Glasnow back this week. Good timing considering I just lost Braves RHP Spencer Schwellenbach. 

On the free agency front, I added White Sox utility man Brooks Baldwin this week in every league where he was available. He was on fire in the minors and carried over that success in his first few days after earning another shot in the majors. He started in center field over the weekend then missed Tuesday’s game with back tightness, so this party might already be over. He’s eligible at 2B, SS and OF, so I was planning to patch a few holes. 

I did a similar sweep to pick up Dodgers OF Esteury Ruiz in multiple leagues. I don’t have huge hopes for his playing time, but the price was right, and Ruiz has never played his home games in a decent park. Hasn’t even played on a decent team. I could be cutting him a few days from now, but I want to see where this goes. Michael Conforto has been a little better over these past couple weeks, but he was a black hole before that, and he’s not good at defense. 

Another Dodger I’m holding despite some shaky feelings is RHP Edgardo Henriquez, who missed much of the season with a foot injury and got hit around a bit while he was finding his mound legs. The club doesn’t exactly need another late-inning reliever, but I feel like the best iteration of this team has Henriquez popping 100 from the back end of the bullpen and picking up the occasional save along with a healthy amount of wins and strikeouts and great ratios. 

I added Phillies OF Dante Nori in the Razz30 last week. Was a little surprised to find him on the wire because he was the 27th overall pick in the 2024 draft holding his own in Low-A. The ceiling doesn’t feel super high, to be fair, but Nori is slashing .348/.440/.420 with six stolen bases over his last 24 games. His plate skills have been solid all season: 12.2 percent walk rate against a 16.3 percent strikeout rate in 75 Low-A games as a 20-year-old. 

Cut Me, Mick! 

Diamondbacks OF Jake McCarthy was a spec play when Corbin Carroll got hurt, and I wasn’t disappointed with the results, but Carroll’s already back on the field, and I just have the MLB space or patience to wait. 

I added Red Sox RHP Jordan Hicks for $4 (out of $1000) the same day I cut him in a 15-team league. Not ideal management of one’s resources. Or maybe it was. I like to cut players in waves ahead of FAAB runs and then see how the players land after the dollars fly. NFBC leagues cannot accommodate this simple strategy, fwiw, and I can’t play them for real anyway because I’m in Iowa, and fantasy sports have been legally deemed a game of skill and therefore illegal to play for money in my state, but I doubt I’d play them anyway. Fanduel once robbed a bunch of money from me because I won an early contest of theirs, and they realized I was in Iowa because I said I worked at UNI during the interview they requested after I’d finished first out of a field of 763 and won a chance to play against a field of 20 (weekly winners) for a maximum for $20,000 with a sliding-scale minimum of $500. In the end, they paid me $500 to fuck off. Good times. I considered setting up residence in Illinois and stopped using my real name on the internet, and here we are. Wait, where were we? Oh yeah, Jordan Hicks. I’ll be bidding another few bucks on him in the next go ’round. I don’t mind the ole drop n bid again. I like to think of my roster as a few spots deeper for this reason. 

I still like Braves RHP Didier Fuentes, but he’s just not ready, and I need his spot in that 20-team league where the roster’s been wrecked with injuries. 

Thanks for reading!