Well, hello Razzball Nation! It’s your favorite DFS Dad back for another year of baseball content! When Truss asked me if I’d be interested in taking over part of the SAGNOF analysis this year, I couldn’t have been happier. Writing up anything in these spaces really is an honor, and giving me some time to focus on the specifics of our favorite game is never a bad thing. I’m happy to announce that I’ll be your main conduit for steals info this season!
As far as experience goes, I can say that I’ve been picking through the SAGNOF pile long enough to know that Milt Cuyler is not a fictional name. I’m old enough to remember Kenny Lofton’s heyday. And, most importantly, I can share that I have seen Rajai Davis’s predecessors (both Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman) burn a path for their fleet-footed brethren to follow.
So I was brimming with excitement when I got the call. My first thought was, “Steals would be great!!!”…until I realized that the universe was sending me a very clear message.
No matter…
How hard…
I try…
I will never…
Escape…
(Actual photograph of Adalberto Mondesi indicating how many 7th chances I will give him…before giving him an 8th chance)
The infielder formerly known as Raul Junior? Yep. You know the guy. You’ve rostered him before. Maybe you leaned into the prospect potential and got in early (like I did in our AL only home league so many years ago)…or maybe you jumped on board when he was being projected as a top 20 pick.
But I thought I was done.
Then, when he was dealt to the Red Sox in January, not unlike a kid staring at a plate of steamed broccoli, I wrinkled my nose and asked Truss, “Do I haaaaaaaaave to?!”
Yes. So, please. Bear with me as we tread carefully…which coincidentally is also what should be branded backwards on Mondesi’s forehead to remind him each time he passes a reflective surface.
We’ll be sifting through some steals notes that should at least give you a few points to inspect OR a bit of entertainment as you pick through a thousand player names to fill your queues this February.
Did you grab a couple of corner infielders with your wheel pick in rounds 1 and 2?
Did you get in on Yordan Alvarez and Pete Alonso early, then take a couple of pitchers before round 6?
Did you secure Luis Arraez and Michael Brantley but forget that both have the average top speed of a three-legged Galapagos tortoise?
Did you get 9-10 rounds deep and realize the only SB you have is Seth Brown?
(Oh no…and let’s ignore how you somehow ended up with Seth Brown in the 9th round)
Like I’ll do each week, today I’m going to run through a few names that you can target in your roto or season long leagues. Unless I otherwise state it, I’ll try to run the numbers (ADP and rounds) as if we were drafting for a 12 team league.
For this week, I’ll focus in at different points of your draft where you might have missed out on those early steals (Trea Turner, Julio Rodriguez, Ronald Acuna Jr.) or need to beef up the projections on your roto-squad in those mid-to-late rounds.
I’ll try to mix up names each week to help with trades, waiver adds, or prepping for those big FAAB runs (if you’re in a league like Razzslam that has minimal free agent pickups). I’ll also put some focus on the Head-to-Head players that may want to stream some speed demons to give you an edge over your weekly opponents based on matchups or projected pitchers.
But before we get too deep here, make sure to check out Rudy’s tools subscriptions available right here on Razzball. It’s what all of us writers use for our articles and for our preseason preparation. It’s what I’ll be using to get set up for TGFBI, Razzslam, RCLs, and for my home leagues as well. You can select which tools package you like from a few different tiers. It’s all excellent no matter what you choose to go with…and there’s a great DFS package in the link for you serious Daily Fantasy Sports players, too.
Today I’ll profile three hitters that you can get in the mid to late picks if you got skunked on speed in the early rounds of your NFBC drafts. Next week, I’ll go through the new rule changes that should affect steals, along with a bit more of a detailed explanation about what I look for when searching for the guys with the wheels.
But let’s remember, the players that tick all of those advanced metrics boxes are NOT going to be written up here. The Trea Turners and Julio Rodriguezes of the world are first round picks for a reason. They’re elite in many different categories and should be picked as such.
The guys below, (and through the next few weeks), are high speed targets that might have a bruise or two (see: BB%, OBP, contact rates). Who can you grab at a discount? Are there new faces in new places? Are there players that might break out or have a path to increased playing time? That’s some of what I want to dive into a bit more deeply here.
I’ll attach the ADP of these guys when I originally looked at them, (January), and the updated ADP change, if any, from Wednesday, February 15.
Let’s go!
Oneil Cruz – January ADP 75; February ADP 70
I tried to find some guys that can not only give us some good speed numbers, but can also help out in other places too. The tales of Cruz’s exit velocity are well documented, and he profiles as a top 10 SS in Grey’s SS rankings.
That Statcast is about as Jekyll and Hyde as any. The obvious bright red spots are the keys to Cruz’s next step in his evolution and his ability to lock down a full-time gig. The guys here have said it before. His September was a healthy turnaround and he chopped that 46% K rate down to 29%. But we’re not looking for power and contact right now, are we?
Doing a bit of a deeper dive, even the Baseball Forecaster has Cruz slotted in snugly at a 137 SPD ranking for players >400 AB. That he’s chunked in with two pretty proven speed demons in Myles Straw (140) and Trea Turner (137) should be an even bigger testament to the pick here.
The bottom line is, you can get an exit velocity king in the 6th round at a position other than OF who can give you a 30/20 season if everything goes according to plan. Will O’Neil Cruz hit .300? Um…like I said earlier, there are flaws with these guys. If O’Neil Cruz was going to hit .300, he’d be going off the board 70 picks sooner than he is here.
Adalberto Mondesi – January ADP 260; February ADP 244
Hello, darkness, my old friend…
I can’t say that there is empirical evidence to back up this claim, but I would doubt that there’s a more polarizing figure this year than our boy. I mean, you could take all the prayers from every fantasy prayer circle since Mondesi’s rookie season, and no matter how you slice it this guy will still give hundreds of people the “take a good bite out of this box of lemons” face.
A test, if you will, for someone with more time on their hands than me…it’s like a litmus test, but for the reactions of fantasy owners.
I would assume that showing a picture of Adalberto Mondesi would elicit one of three responses..
(1) Confusion and innocent ignorance – “Who is that guy? You say he’s got speed? Should I draft him?”
(2) Exasperation and anxiety/fear – “Please, no. Not again. This can’t be the only one left. Can’t I just pretend this guy doesn’t exist? How did it come to this?!”
(3) Explosive and Unparalleled Fury – “*expletive* Mondesi. How did I back myself into this *expletive* corner again? I said it before. Never *expletive* again. I promised myself I would never *expletive* take this bag of *expletive* ever again as long as I *expletive* live.”
I can say that I’m definitely not (1), I can very much relate to (2), and have a few shakes of (3) sprinkled in for seasoning.
Even Mondesi’s speed score comes in right at that same slot as our three guys mentioned above (138). We all know the upside, but, of course, the injury risk is a big turn-off.
Last year in my Razzslam draft, (I wrote up a bit of an obituary of sorts for that team here), I went with the whole “make a few picks that could pay off in a big way”. Anyone who pulled the trigger on Mondesi last year knows how that turned out.
But at 240 overall, you’re looking at a 27 year old guy on a new team (Red Sox) who doesn’t have Xander Bogaerts in front of him at SS, has Trevor Story out of the way for 4-6 months at 2B, and is facing competition for playing time from the noted popcorn bat of Christian Arroyo.
Spelling Enrique Hernandez at SS is also a possibility, as Hernandez should continue to see some time in other positions as he has in past seasons. We’re talking about the 20th round here. If you’ve drafted a solid lineup so far with very little risk (eg. rookies or injury question marks), this could be an SB source that comes at a huge discount.
Esteury Ruiz – January ADP 306; February ADP 290
Another one that’s slowly creeping up the ADP list, Ruiz slots in on Steamer’s projections with 27 projected steals (after Rudy’s update this past weekend).
Before the update, Ruiz was just five behind the leader, Acuna, and tied with Cedric Mullins for the second spot with 30 steals. After the update, Ruiz got pushed down to 13th overall in projected SBs.
There won’t be a shortage of OF to draft before Esteury, (he’s Grey’s 104th OF in his rankings), but there is some sneaky information to mine if you want to dig a bit deeper.
I wrote Ruiz up in a trade deadline piece last season, and Grey wrote Ruiz up in a November sleeper post, here. Both illustrate his very eye-popping MiLB stats from a combination of AA/AAA and highlight underlying power skills. A one-trick rabbit should not be posting 16 homers across two levels of minor league ball. A guy that steals 86 (yep, that’s not a typo) in 114 MiLB games isn’t supposed to also lead the minors in OBP at .447…right? His minimal Statcast numbers have one other piece of data worth looking at – a 98th percentile in sprint speed. Yikes.
I don’t want to just rehash what Grey put up in the fall, but I can see looking at this guy in the 25th round if you whiffed on speed early. Playing time was the issue in Milwaukee with their glutton of OF. Now that he’s in Oakland, Ruiz has a much clearer path to an increase in playing time. With apologies to the Christian Pache truthers, I could see Esteury Ruiz doing enough to surpass the 379 AB that Rudy has him projected for (up from 330 AB before the update). Even with Oakland trading for JJ Bleday on the weekend, Ruiz still projects as the starting CF. At a post 24th round pick, this one seems like the ultimate risk vs. reward.
I hope you liked it! I’ll be back next week with a general overview of what I look for when digging for steals in my pre-season prep. If you have any questions, comments, or anyone you want me to dig a bit deeper into, leave a note here or catch me on Twitter @MarmosDad.
