Greetings friends and readers, hope you are enjoying your summer both in real life and in the fantasy baseball realm. I honestly wasn’t expecting there to be so little trade news or even rumblings with less than a week to go before the deadline, but I suppose with the new playoff rules and the relative lack of obvious sell candidates, that is to be expected. It might be somewhat of a bust year in my NL and AL only leagues where I’ve been saving FAAB money hoping for a team-changing crossover player to bid on, but we’ll see what develops in the coming days. If nothing else, it’s a great time to really take a moment to go over depth charts and bullpen situations, especially for us deep leaguers. Transactions or minor trades that are meaningless in standard leagues might be of supreme interest in deeper ones. A low-profile player might gain a better opportunity by changing teams, or by having his situation improved if someone ahead of him in the pecking order is jettisoned. As we keep on top of real life rosters, let’s not forget to keep trying to improve our fantasy versions if possible, which may not be easy at this point in the season. If your leagues look anything like most of mine do, the waiver wire is picked pretty clean, and there are not a lot of places to turn as injuries and disappointing performances continue to pile up. The offerings likely aren’t inspiring, but let’s take our weekly look at a handful of players that AL-only, NL-only, and other deep leaguers might want to check in on.
(Side note: now that Grey and I have both written posts in the past week telling you to start thinking now about drafting Brent Rooker next year, I propose all of Razzball Nation jots that note down, and we all collectively agree not to mention him again until all of our drafts are done next spring in an effort to keep his draft cost under control. Just a thought.)
AL
Victor Robles. He’s up from 2 to 9% owned in CBS leagues this week… I realized he’d been playing regularly for the Mariners, but I didn’t realize how productive he’s been lately. He’s raised his average 60 or 70 points in the last couple weeks, and has 7 steals in that time to give him 12 on the season. The average won’t keep skyrocketing, of course, but the stolen bases should continue to accumulate if he can keep hitting well enough to stay in the lineup. Post, post, post hype prospect, anyone? Also, while we’re talking about the Mariners outfield, the injury to Julio Rodriguez has not only assured Robles of continued playing time for now, it could seep even further down the depth chart. In the deepest of leagues, it should be noted that 30-year-old journeyman Jason Vosler has been getting DH at bats, while Cade Marlowe is up and getting the chance to add to his 90 total major league at bats as well.
Brooks Baldwin. There wasn’t much fanfare when the White Sox promoted Baldwin recently, but there really hasn’t been much fanfare on Chicago’s South Side all season. Fewer people paying attention means more players from disappointing real-life teams that we have all to ourselves in deep leagues, though, which leads us to Baldwin. It looks like he’ll get an extended chance at second base, as he’s already starting six games in a row there. Baldwin is 23 and was having a solid year across the board in the minors, with 8 homers and a .324 average/.391 OBP. It’s very likely his transition to the big leagues will be a bumpy one, but his speed may come into play as he had 17 SBs before he was recalled.
Tyler Locklear. Didn’t realize we’d be talking about the Mariners so much this week, but I guess that will happen when a team loses an outfielder and their shortstop to the IL, and DFAs a first baseman. Locklear is back for his second go ’round at first base thanks to that DFA after Seattle gave Ty France the boot. He’s still under 10% owned in CBS leagues and probably completely out of the mixed league conversation for the moment as he’s shown a hefty amount swing and miss at the big league level so far. His minor league stats hint at value in all five roto categories however, so I’ve got him in an AL-only league and am monitoring in slightly shallower formats as we wait to see if he can take a few steps forward in terms of adjusting to the majors.
NL
Tyler Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s ownership numbers have been slowly but surely rising, and he’s likely unavailable in the deepest leagues, but might be worth a look in some formats if he’s sitting in your free agent pool. He’s been on a run that would be impressive for any major leaguer, let alone a 26 year old with a total of 49 major league games on his resume. Most ridiculously, he homered in five games/five days in a row for the Giants, and is now hitting .322 with 7 steals to go along with his 6 total homers in 90 at bats. Those numbers define a player who has nowhere to go but down, but they also have likely given him a fairly long leash in terms of playing time, and the fact that manager Bob Melvin has been singing his praises and admired his “calmness” doesn’t hurt. He’s already played four positions this year so if he can keep the hitting up at all, he should find his name in the lineup one way or another.
Randy Vasquez. Vasquez gets a shout out after making a start for the Padres earlier this week where he shut out the Nationals for 6 innings and grabbed one of those incredibly valuable but stupidly constructed MLB/fantasy stats we like to call wins. It’s now time for my weekly Grey Albright quote, this one from a few days ago: “Thought you might be wondering so I went to look at Vasquez’s peripherals and they’re hilariously awful.” Would I touch him at this point? No. Is he likely to out-pitch between one and five of my starters in most of my leagues? Probably. Welcome to starting pitching in 2024, sigh.
Victor Vodnik. Yes, it’s another Rockies reliever that got a save and may be in line for more, who probably shouldn’t be on any of our radars regardless of league size with a bullpen this messy. I know I’m speaking to a small handful out there when it comes to folks desperate enough to do what I have done, namely add Vodnik to an NL-only roster because I’m so ridiculously closer-poor. Justin Lawrence, who’s been pitching much better of late (low bar indeed), was grabbed in the same league as well. I hope your fantasy baseball life is stable enough that you don’t have to sink the the Colorado relief corps in an attempt to find any save you can get, but if it isn’t, please know that you are not alone.
Nick Ahmed. Ahmed was a glove-first shortstop even in his prime, but he was not only signed by the Dodgers this week after Miguel Rojas hit the IL, he was immediately in their starting lineup on Wednesday. There may be no reason to expect anything other than semi-regular at bats, but sometimes semi-regular at bats lead to counting stats, and sometimes any counting stats at all are worth chasing once we’re talking about the deepest leagues. Fun fact: Ahmed has eight homers at Dodger Stadium; the only ballpark where he’s hit more is Chase Field, his long-term home in Arizona. (Note: even more fun fact, Ahmed hit yet another Chavez Ravine HR Thursday, and he hit this one literally as I was driving by Dodger Stadium, minutes before turning this post in. So… yeah.)
Thanks as always for reading and happy fantasy baseballing!
