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Cleveland Guardians Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

January 11, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 20 Comments

by: The Itch

Even as 2022 was a great season for the Cleveland Guardians, their future looks brighter all the time. Nobody has more ready-soon, major-league-level starting pitchers in their system, which is a nice fit because you could make a case that nobody is better at developing pitchers, particularly in the early stages of their major league careers.

1. RHP Daniel Espino | 22 | AA | 2024

Injuries kept Espino sidelined for much of 2022, but he was around long enough to leave a loud impression, striking out 35 batters in 18.1 Double-A innings and posting a 0.71 WHIP across those four starts. He’s listed at 6’2” 225 lbs and looks like a bodybuilder. Upside is as high as any pitcher in the minors thanks to an 80-grade fastball and double-plus slider. I’ve got 2024 listed as the ETA just because he hasn’t thrown that many innings, and the team is deep in pitchers both in the majors and on the cusp, but Espino could almost certainly help the major league club this season if he’s healthy.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Prospect News: Yankees Find Room For Oswaldo Cabrera

September 25, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 22 Comments

by: The Itch

Guardians OF Will Brennan fits beautifully onto a playoff roster given his contact-heavy approach and solid all-around game. In 129 games between Double and Triple-A, Brennen slashed .314/.371/.479 with 13 home runs, 20 stolen bases, 69 strikeouts and 50 walks. They probably could’ve used him sooner, which would’ve given him time to adjust before the playoffs. It’s just three games so far, but he’s got three RBI’s, two stolen bases, zero strikeouts and a .364 batting average.

As most MLB teams have moved ever closer to three-outcome lineups, Cleveland has traveled the opposite path toward roster construction, prizing low strikeout rates and all-field approaches. It’s working, and it could be a deadly brew to the fence-swinging clubs in October. Tampa gets a lot of love for maintaining a winner despite penny-pinching owners, but Cleveland is about to make its fifth postseason in seven seasons, and 2022 feels like the beginning of a dominant run through the AL Central. They’re up eight games ahead of the second place White Sox right now and eleven games up on the Twins. It’s not easy to see how those two bridge the gap next year.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Prospect News: Top 75 for Dynasty Leagues, Post-Draft Update

August 14, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 38 Comments

by: The Itch

Here’s where the frontispiece would go, if I didn’t think that word was kinda nasty.

Here’s a link to the Top 25.

Here’s a link to the Top 50.

51. 1B Triston Casas | Red Sox | 22 | AAA | 2022

52. RHP Andrew Painter | Phillies | A+ | 19 | 2024

53. OF Evan Carter | Rangers | 19 | A+ | 2024

54. OF Jasson Dominguez | Yankees | 19 | A+ | 2024

Triston Casas hasn’t had the season some expected, and Eric Hosmer joining the club muddies his playing time outlook, but he remains a high-probability major league bat.

For all the talk about Eury Perez being huge and young with good command, you don’t hear much about 6’7” 215 lb Andrew Painter, but Painter has been every bit as dominant as Perez, racking up 109 strikeouts through 68.1 innings across two levels and posting a 1.32 ERA along the way. He threw seven shutout innings against the High-A Yankees his last time out, allowing two hits and one walk while recording eleven punchouts. Makes me wonder if they’ll send him to Double-A for September.

Evan Carter has 22 extra base hits and 13 stolen bases over his last 39 games, slashing .333/.415/.605 over that stretch. He’s controlling the zone, too: 11.1% BB and 15.8% K-rates. He’ll turn 20 on August 29 and might be in Double-A before then.

Gotta hand it to Jasson Dominguez for evolving his game to make plate skills his calling card. Or one of his calling cards, anyway. He’s already stolen eight bases in 19 High-A games, where he’s posting a .410 on base percentage and 16.9-to-22.9 walk-to-strikeout rate. The power is coming, too. He’s got 39 extra base hits in 94 games across two levels this season.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Prospect News: Welcome to Dumpsville (Final Faab Cuts)

September 23, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 16 Comments

by: The Itch

I’m making some cuts today in my 15-team dynasty. More than ‘some,’ I suppose. I currently have 50 claims in for Thursday morning’s free agent run, but that’s mostly because I use my pending transactions screen as a watch list. My style of dynasty play involves building lists of free agents I want and cutting all the guys I think are drop-able before faab runs. I arrange the list by talent/value over need and let the dominoes fall where they may. This presents some drawbacks in terms of balance between MiLB and MLB players at times and occasionally trips me up on the positional-depth front for a couple days, but it remains my preferred method in large part because it enforces a kind of thinking I find beneficial.

Knowing where the cut line lands in any particular league is endlessly valuable. It prevents you from trading for replacement level talent and invites you to swap out some of those players when their value spikes. It’s a theoretical concept and a moving target, so the more frequently you’re checking in with it, the better grasp you’ll have of who to add, drop, trade and ignore.

So who’s on the chopping block this week?

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Top 2020 Prospects: Cleveland Indians

January 1, 2020 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 25 Comments

by: The Itch

Once upon a time, Cleveland had too many catchers.

The fantasy baseball community knew just what to do in this scenario: throw a killer New Years party, trade Yan Gomes, start Francisco Mejia, and bench Roberto Perez.

Cleveland scanned this obvious play and disregarded it, attempting instead some inverse combination of the above by staying home to watch a movie, trading Mejia for Brad Hand and starting Gomes, who played well and endeared himself to a fan base that was frustrated to see Mejia go.

That off-season—last winter—fans were livid to see the club swap Gomes for Jefry Rodríguez, Daniel Johnson and Andruw Monasterio. Yanny G was set to cost about $7 million, and the inferior Roberto Perez was under contract for about two million. Nasty things were said. Baseball Universe decided Cleveland was cheap and dumb for how it handled the catching surplus.

One year later, Roberto Perez is a solid OBP source with excellent defense and plus power for the position, while Yan Gomes is a $7 million backup in Washington.

So my thinking in regard to this Kluber trade or any Cleveland move: que sera sera.

The Yandy Diaz trade for Jake Bauers did not go as well, but in general, Baseball Universe loved that one, and this team knows what it’s doing. I’m sure it’s depressing to lose the Klubot and Bauer in a matter of months, but if anyone can develop the pitching to make fans forget, it’s Cleveland. Maybe it’s not the perfect trade, but Emmanuel Clase is going to bring positive value across the life of his contract. Open-market relievers are pricey these days. And we have little reason for confidence regarding the state of Kluber’s health. Could be this one looks bad next New Year, but whatever will be, will be.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Top 150 Prospects for 2020 Fantasy Baseball

October 13, 2019 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 26 Comments

by: The Itch

If you’re a fan of a baseball team, chances are good at least one of your team’s coaches got fired this week. Maybe even the manager. Eleven Major League clubs don’t have one today.

And if you’re a fan of HBO’s Succession, you’ve been promised a “blood sacrifice” tonight.

This landscape littered with scapegoats is, ironically enough, a land of opportunity. Management wants to get young players on the field for extra cap-feathers on evaluation day. Look no further than San Diego, where Fernando Tatis and Chris Paddack may have saved A.J. Preller from a moment on the chopping block even though everyone else got canned.

All that is to say, even with service-time suppression suffocating our game, kids like these in the Top 150 can still come quick.

Please, blog, may I have some more?