We are one day away from September 1st when rosters expand slightly and teams are more willing to call up top prospects to give them a small taste of the majors. However, this week we have already seen two teams promote their top prospects in Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll. Carroll is the much more appealing stolen base threat posting 31 steals across two levels in 2022. FanGraphs has his present and future speed grade as a 70 which makes him a potential game changer in that area. Henderson is only a current 50 runner with a future 40 grade which likely does not make him a stolen base threat going forward. However, he does have over 20 steals in the minors in 2022. The projection systems do not see a ton of speed for him, but he could chip in a few over the last month of the season. Let’s take a look at a few other names to watch who have already been called up or could find themselves on rosters as the season comes to an end.
- Garrett Mitchell – The Brewers have called Mitchell up and seem inclined to let Mitchell play almost every day. Fangraphs gave him a 70 grade for his speed and while the minors SB numbers were in the teens I could see him being a huge source of value going forward for fantasy owners.
- Eguy Rosario – Rosario has yet to start since getting the callup for the Padres but he has some impressive minors numbers. He has three straight seasons with at least 20 stolen bases and showed some pop for the first time in 2022. He is likely an injury away from fantasy relevance.
- Delino DeShields – This one is a bit out there I will admit but Deshields has 31 steals in AAA this season. He can’t hit still but this is the player-type contending team’s callup in September to use as a pinch runner. This could lead to some decent steal numbers for those of you in super deep leagues.
| Name | Team | SB | CS | CS% | Inn | SB/Inn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob Stallings | MIA | 50 | 9 | 15.3% | 746.2 | 0.07 |
| Keibert Ruiz | WSN | 50 | 20 | 28.6% | 806.1 | 0.06 |
| Austin Nola | SDP | 49 | 6 | 10.9% | 665.1 | 0.07 |
| Jonah Heim | TEX | 47 | 10 | 17.5% | 754.1 | 0.06 |
| Christian Vazquez | – – – | 44 | 19 | 30.2% | 737.1 | 0.06 |
| Tomas Nido | NYM | 43 | 10 | 18.9% | 617.1 | 0.07 |
| Cal Raleigh | SEA | 43 | 21 | 32.8% | 750 | 0.06 |
| Tucker Barnhart | DET | 41 | 18 | 30.5% | 635 | 0.06 |
| Max Stassi | LAA | 40 | 10 | 20.0% | 690.2 | 0.06 |
| Elias Diaz | COL | 40 | 12 | 23.1% | 652 | 0.06 |
| Austin Hedges | CLE | 40 | 11 | 21.6% | 651.2 | 0.06 |
| Travis d’Arnaud | ATL | 39 | 11 | 22.0% | 697.2 | 0.06 |
| Carson Kelly | ARI | 38 | 9 | 19.1% | 555.1 | 0.07 |
| Will Smith | LAD | 38 | 9 | 19.1% | 768 | 0.05 |
| Sean Murphy | OAK | 37 | 18 | 32.7% | 832.2 | 0.04 |
| J.T. Realmuto | PHI | 35 | 24 | 40.7% | 911 | 0.04 |
| Martin Maldonado | HOU | 31 | 11 | 26.2% | 790.2 | 0.04 |
| Omar Narvaez | MIL | 31 | 8 | 20.5% | 528.2 | 0.06 |
| Francisco Mejia | TBR | 31 | 9 | 22.5% | 504.1 | 0.06 |
| Joey Bart | SFG | 30 | 11 | 26.8% | 542.1 | 0.06 |
- With the injury to Jorge Alfaro, Austin Nola should be the everyday catcher for the Padres for the next few weeks. He has been a stolen base-allowed machine thus far and is someone we should target in leagues. He gets the Diamondbacks next week and that creates opportunities for their speedsters like Carrol, Josh Rojas, Jake McCarthy, and others. They also get the Dodgers a few times over the next week but there likely are no Dodgers on your wire.
- You can continue to attack the Marlins and Jacob Stallings as well as the Rangers and Jonah Heim. Both guys have been seeing teams run wild all year and there’s no reason to change our tactics at this point in the season. While you may not be able to chase players down on the wire against these backstops use them as a differentiator when setting lineups.
