Rolling In The Deep: Searching For The Adael Answer

Hello friends! It’s the final week of July, and it’s starting to get a little nerve-wracking to see one’s fantasy team floundering in the standings. There’s still time for a surge in statistics if one can make the right moves, but as always in deep leagues, there may simply not be any moves to make from what is likely a picked-clean waiver wire. Hopefully, the real-life trade deadline will lead to some value changes, playing time increases, and under-the-radar promotions that will help restock the pretend player pool, but for now, all we can do is continue to wade through the murky waters and hope for the best. If nothing else, this is a good time to do what you can to analyze MLB teams’ current roster landscapes, just in case you can add someone who may not hold any value now, but could contribute to your team before October (or well beyond October, for that matter, for those in keeper or dynasty type leagues). Let’s swim on and check in on a handful of players who may be available and of interest in deep, or at least deep-ish leagues.

NL

Adael Amador. Amador quietly returned to the Rockies big league squad just after the All-Star break, with both Thairo Estrada and Ryan Ritter hitting the IL. Things can’t go much worse for him than they did in his first MLB chance this year, as he was hitting .146 when he got demoted at the end of May. So far, so good as he had 4 hits and 2 RBI in his first 6 at bats back with the team. He’d been producing in basically every category in the minors, and while he hasn’t shown a ton of power, let’s keep in mind that he’s still only 22. He may quickly get exposed at the major league level again, or he may be able to make some adjustments this time that could lead to at least deep fantasy relevance as the season continues, not to mention renewed interest in his future prospects.

David Robertson. The Phillies bullpen has been a fantasy mess this season, at least when it comes to who is actually getting saves. Granted, the Phillies have made the playoffs recently without a true closer, so maybe they’ll make a big splashy move at the deadline, or maybe they’ll just keep doing what they’re doing. Or, maybe their big splashy move was signing Robertson, who will start his 2025 season in triple A as he gets warmed up for the year before joining the big club. I don’t know if Robertson will ultimately be a factor at the end of Phillies games this season, and I don’t know why it took him so long to sign this year… but in the deep league world, we need to keep an eye on these things.

And speaking of things to keep an eye on in the Phillies bullpen, this is perhaps the time to note that Jose Alvarado’s PED suspension is up in the middle of August. Will he return to the pen, will he be good, and will he be used in high leverage situations again? Even if he does come back and is effective, will the fact that he’s not eligible for the post season affect how he’s used? We shall see, but if you have room for stashes in a deep league, now is the time to throw a wide range of darts on anyone who you think may be able to help you later this year.

Josh Bell. I didn’t realize Bell was just 10% owned in CBS leagues, so while he’s certainly not going to be available in the deepest NL-only formats, he’s probably hanging around in some medium-deep leagues. Of course, it’s not surprising his ownership is that low given his overall lackluster numbers, his .224 batting average, and the fact that the most recent of his 4 total career stolen bases came in 2018. To get to the positive, he’s hit homers in each of his last two games as I write this, so if nothing else we may have a hot schmotato alert given that he can be quite the streaky hitter (especially if he’s motivated and trying to hit his way off the Nationals, and on to a team that’s contending in 2025).

Spencer Horwitz. While he’s another guy who is likely owned in your garden-variety NL-only league, he’s still just at 6% overall ownership in CBS leagues. If he’s available in your deep-ish league, it may be the time to pounce. After his late start to the year due to a thumb injury, he finally seems to be warming up at the plate, including 3-hit games both Monday and Tuesday. He qualifies at the often-handy combination of both first and second base in most leagues, and perhaps most interestingly, he’s been leading off for the Pirates of late. I was intrigued enough in Horwitz this spring after he came over from the Blue Jays to roster him in a couple draft and hold leagues, so I’ll be watching to see if he can put together some fantasy value over the last couple months of the season. (Well, Horwitz went and hit a grand slam about an hour after I wrote this on Wednesday, so those ownership numbers may be going up sooner rather than later. Or… his hot streak will be permanently over by the time you read this.)

AL

Dominic Canzone. I woke up to two alerts on my phone yesterday morning: one from my Ring app with an overnight video of a small critter scurrying across someone’s patio, including the caption “Is this a possum?!,” and another informing me that Canzone had re-entered the player pool in one of my RCLs. Both alerts may be equally irrelevant in most mixed leagues, but the one reminding us that Canzone is currently on a major league team and getting some at bats may be mildly relevant to us deep leaguers. The 27-year-old has been playing in the Mariners outfield regularly, if not daily, for about a month and a half now, and even in that relatively small sample size, the fact that he’s hitting over .300 is impressive. We at Razzball are generally taught to pro-rate only with extreme caution, but I’m going to do it anyway and point out that if you prorate his 6 homers over a 162 game season, he’d have 29.

Miguel Andujar. Andujar has been pretty far off the grid in terms of fantasy this year, and I kind of keep forgetting that he’s on the A’s. He was down for a while with a bad oblique, but he’s back and should have at least a fairly regular starting gig at third as long as he stays healthy. He’s the classic example of a player whose existence standard leaguers can forget about entirely, but probably should be on the radar in some deeper formats. The counting stats aren’t exactly going to pile up, but they’ll be better than nothing, and at least he’s currently sporting a .284 average.

David Fry. Sigh, only in the ultra-deep league world could I be blurbing about a catcher (well, catcher/first baseman in most leagues) who is currently hitting .167. Sometimes we deep leaguers get desperate for a catcher that can contribute anything at all to our teams, though, so here we are. The most ridiculous thing about that mark is that he’s had to go on quite the tear to reach it, given that he was hitting .136 on July 12th. Many of us may remember the mini barrage of home runs he hit over a couple weeks in 2024, though, and wonder if he could have a similar stretch in him later this summer. The fact that the Guardians are playing him even occasionally as their DH, hitting second recently, no less, at least bumps him into the conversation in the deepest leagues. Did I mention he’s also stolen a base?

Taylor Trammell. While I knew that the 27-year-old Trammel had surfaced as a member of the Houston Astros recently, I guess I didn’t realize just how much he’s been playing lately in what’s been a pretty banged-up outfield. Once I saw that he’s been leading off at times, my deep league interest was piqued. He’s had a few nice games, including one earlier this week where he had three hits, including a homer, yet his average hovers around the Mendoza line. It’s not necessarily going to improve any time soon, given the fact that he’s never been able to show any consistency or regular production at the major league level — even when he managed eight homers in 51 games in 2021, he ended the season with a horrifically ugly .160 batting average. Still, if you’re desperate for at bats or have nothing to lose in the deepest leagues, maybe he has another big game or two in him while he’s getting the shot at some decent playing time.