Prospect News: De Los Santos Delivers Early or The Lawlar Won

Pirates SS Yordany De Los Santos has been living in the present and making the most of his limited opportunities with Pittsburgh this preseason, popping three home runs in just 11 plate appearances, good for a 394 wRC+. Prior to spring training, he had played just two games above Low-A and slashed .249/.311/.388 in 116 games there last year, but he was 20 years old posting an average (95 wRC+) against older players (+1 years on average) in full-season ball, so I’m looking past the slash line a little bit and gazing longingly at his 51 stolen bases in 65 attempts. That’s a 78 percent success rate, which ain’t great but isn’t the kind of red flag that would stop a youngster from running. He looks bigger this year than his listed 6’1” 170 pounds, and while a reality beyond their listed size is true of just about every international signing, De Los Santos looks like a major leaguer, physically, when glanced through my admittedly large television screen. At 21 years old, he’s ripe for a statistical breakthrough playing in a hitter-friendly home park for High-A Greensboro. If that materializes, he’ll be headed to Double-A by midseason. Won’t turn 22 until February 17 of next year. There’s a lot to like here. 

Diamondbacks OF Jordan Lawlar is playing like he thinks this chance might disappear the second he stops smashing baseballs at it, which makes sense considering he’s already experienced two false starts to his big league career. Those 108 plate appearances spread across two calendar years have conspired to make a post-hype fantasy sleeper out of an extremely gifted 23-year-old. He’s slashing .333/.455/.815 with four home runs in 33 plate appearances across nine games functioning as the everyday center fielder. I’m still sending offers in my leagues, but the price seems to be climbing day by day. 

Once upon a time, I had Cardinals OF Joshua Baez in most of my dynasty leagues but traded him away when I thought the market-value waters were cresting. Today, I feel like I moved too early on that. Baez made big gains in the plate skills department last year and carried that approach over to this spring. If he could maintain something like the 25 percent strikeout rate he has so far this year, he’d be a mainstay in fantasy outfields in even the shallowest leagues. He’s banging on the door to a starting job by slashing .333/.417/.762 with three home runs and one stolen base in 24 plate appearances. The Cardinals still have some bats to sort, but they’ve cleared out Nolan Arenado and Brendan Donovan, and Roster Resource has Nathan Church penciled into left field. They’ve already optioned Baez to Triple-A to open the season, but he’s already part of their best lineup. Shouldn’t be long before he’s playing every day in St. Louis. 

The Marlins have a cluster of capable hitters in search of playing time alongside Jakob Marsee and Josh Stowers in the outfield. Heriberto Hernandez, Griffin Conine, Owen Caissie, Esteury Ruiz and Kemp Alderman all figure to play some innings on the grass this year. That adds up to five left-handed hitters out of seven potential outfielders, which makes me think 1B Christopher Morel is part of this picture, too. He’s already sharing first base with Conine and Caissie, I suspect. I’ve been doing puzzles lately. Kind of calms the mind. I hope new Marlins skipper Clayton McCullough feels similarly because he’s going to have pieces to move around every day. I like Hernandez quite a bit for this year, and part of that is that he’ll be important for lineup balance every day in a lefty-heavy group. 

A week ago, I wrote the following about the Reds pitching depth in Prospect News: Burrows Digs Deep or Domo Arigato Victor Bericoto:

“In most organizations, Reds RHP Jose Franco (25) would be competing for a rotation spot this spring after posting a 3.11 ERA in 110 innings split almost evenly between Double-A and Triple-A. In Cincinnati, Chase Burns and Rhett Lowder are battling for the 5th spot, meaning Franco is all but certain to open the season in the minors. The stuff is big league ready, the command is coming, and he’s a sturdy dude at 6’2” 257 pounds. Feels like he’s a little under the radar as a potential innings eater for deep leagues.”

That same day, Hunter Greene’s elbow was hurting. Needed to get it checked out. Yesterday, we learned he’ll have an arthroscopic procedure to remove bone chips from that elbow today, and that Greene will be sidelined until July, at best. I hate it. He’s one of my favorite players to watch. It’s cool that his path wasn’t always smooth but that he improved steadily across time and became consistently dominant. One of my least favorite things about fantasy baseball is that this undeniably bad news for pretty much everybody in pretty much every way is actually good news for Jose Franco’s fantasy baseball value. So it goes. 

Thanks for reading!