Rolling In The Deep: Touched By An Angel

Okay, friends, we’re more than halfway through April already, and the stats are starting to pile up. Still a small sample size, certainly, but I think we’re all starting to get a better idea of how our teams are shaping up to fare over the course of a long season. Whether you’re off to a great start or a disappointing one, there’s no reason not to keep an eye on potential reinforcements that might be out there, particularly in deeper leagues, of course. After a few weeks of FAAB your waiver wire may suddenly be bare, but let’s take a look-see to try to find a handful of deep league names that we may want to consider if they’re available. We’ll keep it pretty deep this week by sticking to players 10% owned or less in CBS leagues.

NL

Thomas Saggese. Saggese’s days with the Cardinals may or may not be numbered depending on the health of their other infielders, so he may be more of a potential long term play. After starting his season 8 for 18, if nothing else, he’s made a nice early season impression; I’ve grabbed him in NL-only and he may even have more standard re-draft league value as the season unfolds, depending on how things play out. He’s already played second, third, and short, so we’ll see if he continues to fill a utility role, and we’ll also see if Nolan Arenado is finally unloaded at some point, clearing up a little space on the Cardinals’ depth chart.

Griffin Conine. Conine is one of those guys I had on my “maybe take a shot at the end of a deep draft and hold league roster” that I passed on for what seemed like more exciting upside, and am already regretting it. Time will tell if he’ll continue to get the opportunity to establish himself in Miami and what he does with the opportunity, but the Marlins are doing sensible things like DFA’ing a useless Jonah Bride, so things are trending in the right direction for their younger players. Conine may not see many at bats against lefties, but so far he’s passing both the eye test and the stats test (he’s 16 for his first 50 ABs for a .320 average to start the year). I streamed him into one of my RLC lineups the other day, and I may do something crazy for me and actually hold him for a while.

Randy Vasquez. Vasquez has gone from 7 to 10% owned in CBS leagues after a very nice start against the Cubs earlier this week. I’d proceed with extreme caution here though, as Vasquez profiles as a guy who will walk more than he should, without a ton of strikeouts, That, of course, isn’t exactly an ideal fantasy profile. If you’re desperate for starts and innings though, there could at least be some streaming opportunity here.

Amed Rosario. He’s played more than expected, between Luis Castillo sitting against some lefties and C.J. Abrams getting hurt. That playing time should continue now, with Paul DeJong down with a broken nose. Rosario’s off to a great start, and we know there was some fantasy value in there relatively recently. He qualifies at 2B and OF (and has also played third and short this season), and I’m already thinking I should have been more proactive about grabbing him in a couple deep leagues where someone else beat me to it.

Nick Allen. He’s not playing every day for the Braves, but he’s playing more than many would have guessed. He’s also hitting over .300 and already has four steals, which alone is enough to put him on NL-only/extra deep league radars.

AL

Miguel Andujar. Andujar has been the A’s forgotten man in fantasy now that they seem to have some actual young hitting talent on their team. Well, he’s also been the forgotten man in fantasy because he isn’t very good, and has had exactly one productive year as a major league hitter, which was… (any guesses?)… 2018. Okay, well, there are a few plusses here if you’re desperate for an outfielder in a deep league: he’s playing almost every day, they’ve got that sorta miniature ballpark, and did I mention the rest of the lineup isn’t horrible anymore? Rising tides, lifted boats maybe?

Jonah Bride. Yes, I’m now writing up the guy I called “useless” a few blurbs ago. He looked absolutely atrocious at the plate before getting cut by Miami, which shouldn’t have been a big surprise, I suppose, as a look at his underlying numbers suggested that he’d gotten quite lucky to have the amount of success he did last year. All that being said, he’s on the Twins now and it sure seems like there will be at bats to be had in the short term, given that they both Willi Castro and Matt Wallner to injury in a span of about 24 hours earlier this week.

Myles Straw. Don’t look now, but the one-time fantasy stolen base darling has been getting starts in Toronto with George Springer out a few games. Springer may be back to 100% by the time you read this, but it’s still worth noting that Straw is in the mix there, as a back up outfielder if nothing else. He’s also been red hot, going 11 for 31 with a homer and two steals.

Angel Martinez. We’ll turn things upside down this week and close with our lede. Is that even technically possible? Anyhow, Martinez has gotten a chance at the big league level in Cleveland and got off to a great start out of the gate, going 8 for 18. Time will tell if he can keep the hits coming, but with Nolan Jones continuing to disappoint in a big way, Martinez may get continued chances. Martinez is only 23, he’s a switch hitter, and he has solid power/speed numbers in the minors, so there could be some reason for optimism here.