Please see our player page for Asa Lacy to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.

Kansas City Royals Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

January 15, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 28 Comments

by: The Itch

2022 wasn’t fun in the standings for Kansas City fans, but in the long arc of time, 2022 was a good year for the organization. MJ Melendez, Vinnie Pasquantino and Brady Singer all emerged as first-division starters. Melendez even looks like a functional defensive outfielder. Bobby Witt Jr. is also here and good. Needs work on the approach but who doesn’t. Every season brings them closer to the post-Dozier era, which is only addition by subtraction because the team insists he’s an everyday player. New Manager Matt Quataro figures to come in like a kind wind after years with Mike Matheny. Might be some playing-time surprises in our near future.

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Collegiate Corner: April 28

April 28, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 1 Comment

by: Hobbs

We’ve come a long way from the 2020 college pitching class that featured Max Meyer, Asa Lacy, Emerson Hancock, Reid Detmers, Garrett Crochet, Bryce Jarvis, Cade Cavalli, Jared Shuster, Bobby Miller… the list is as long as Mandred’s balls are deformed and unpredictable. Think of the 2020 class as Max Scherzer and the 2022 pitching crop as Patrick Corbin. Collegiate hurlers continue to go down with the injury bug, as yet another first-round talent has hit the shelf since the last Collegiate Corner update. In MLB Pipeline’s latest mock, only one college pitcher is projected in the first 26 picks — the recently-recovered Blade Tidwell out of Tennessee. For comparison, eight college arms went in the top 26 selections in both the 2020 and 2021 MLB Drafts. Safe to say, dynasty managers should be looking at this year’s crop and strategizing far differently for first-year player drafts compared to the last two seasons. Personally, I recommend placing a pair of old boxer shorts over your head and pecking at the keyboard with your elbows to make each selection. Truthfully, there’s a lot to like about the bats at the top of the class and a plethora of value options on the hill later on. We’ll discuss a handful of those hitters today in addition to touching base on the health of the pitching class.

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Prospect Faceoff: Asa Lacy vs. Emerson Hancock

March 3, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects |

by: Hobbs

On June 10, 2020, Texas A&M left-hander Asa Lacy was drafted fourth overall by the Kansas City Royals and Georgia right-hander Emerson Hancock went sixth overall t0 the Seattle Mariners. 12 college starting pitchers went in the first round that year including the competitive balance picks (first-37 selections). If we were to redraft today, most would still take Minnesota right-hander Max Meyer as the first collegiate arm off the board, but there’s a good chance Lacy and Hancock would be drafted after the likes of Reid Detmers and Cade Cavalli — possibly even Garrett Crochet. If you ask me, Tanner Burns is the sleeper name to know from the tail-end of the 2020 first round, and someone I hold in just as high of a regard as Lacy and Hancock. But we’re here today to discuss the second and third college hurlers selected back in 2020, and how their stock has shifted since that memorable day.

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Top 50 Starting Pitcher Prospects For Dynasty Fantasy Baseball in 2022

February 23, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 17 Comments

by: The Itch

Woe be to ye who love pitching prospects in dynasty baseball. Seriously. No fun to learn the hard way how tricky it is to trade a big-named pitching prospect in a strong dynasty or keeper league. Even tricker to graduate them as mainstays of a winning staff.

I already discussed a fair bit of this in the Top 25 Starting Pitcher Prospects for Dynasty Fantasy Baseball in 2022. Hitters fail, too, but they can typically be traded earlier and later than pitchers in their minor league career arc. Pitchers can be traded the week or month they get called up and then again if they’ve been really good as rookies. If you’re lucky enough to land an Alek Manoah type, you probably don’t want to trade him anyway. The Daniel Lynch types can still be moved for pennies on the dollar, but they’ve have lost at least half the perceived value they had as top 25 prospects, which, again, isn’t much in a real strong dynasty league where everyone has been burned by enough pitchers to recount the scars.

I really should be more positive in this intro, but honestly a lot of this group is made up of players I’d trade away in a heartbeat yin my leagues. Let’s look ’em over.

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Kansas City Royals Top 10 Prospects for 2022 Fantasy Baseball

December 22, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 24 Comments

by: The Itch

Bobby the Witt leads a crew of young bangers simmering in Kansas City. Ace Lacey, Nicky Pratto, Vinnie P, Frank the Maserati and MJ Melendez give us a glimpse at the ghost of Christmas future in KC.

Full disclosure here. I slipped up and wrote Bibbt Wutt Jr. at one point. Bibbt–wutt? Then my phone wrote Bobby Whipit. Like when a problem comes along, Bobby Whip it! In this case, the problem is several losing seasons in a row. Typos, amiright? I’m getting light-headed over here, but that’s probably just the Royals’ sunflare future vibing in my blood. Let’s check the system.

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Top 30 College Prospects for the 2021 MLB Draft

June 22, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 3 Comments

by: Hobbs

Omaha! Omaha! Either Peyton Manning just put together a quick game of pick-up flag football in my backyard, or the College World Series is officially underway in Nebraska. *editor buzzes into my earpiece* Manning is in fact in Canton learning how to properly construct a Super Bowl trophy out of a Wheaties box for the next incredibly average Peyton’s Places segment, so it must be the latter — which is good for him, because my backyard is currently infested with slime mold and being treated for turf diseases, so that simply wouldn’t be advised for the local neighborhood youths. But alas, the CWS is here, and we have the luxury of scouting an excess of 2021 MLB Draft talent from June 19-30. Six players in my top 30 were able to advance to college baseball’s ultimate event, but countless others such as Arizona’s Ryan Holgate, Vanderbilt’s Isaiah Thomas and NC State’s Luca Tresh made the Omaha cut as well. This not only means that these rankings are fluid and will undoubtedly change prior to the July 11-13 draft, but also that I recommend taking the below intel and doing some of your own personal scouting over the course of the next week-plus. So, who has made the cut as we inch closer to the release of the complete college top 100? Check it out below, as there are a handful of new names previously excluded from the preseason list that utilized excellent 2021 campaigns to springboard their stock — such as Washington State’s Kyle Manzardo and Florida State’s Matheu Nelson. Where they’ll ultimately fall in the draft, nobody knows! For that reason, I like to refer to such players as this year’s “unsupervised children flying off trampolines at the annual Memorial Day reunion.” There’s always bound to be one or two.

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2021 Bold Predictions on Vaughn, Harper, Trout and More

April 1, 2021 | 2021 Fantasy Baseball | 2 Comments

by: Hobbs

It is I, Hobbstradamus, here to predict all things as it relates to the 2021 fantasy baseball season! Well, rather, here to make eight detailed predictions about the upcoming campaign, all of which have played some role in how I constructed my onslaught of 2021 fantasy teams. What if we call it Baseball Hobbspectus? Any better? No? Okay, I’ll keep trying. But no matter what we call this or how creative I try to get, in the end, these are not empty predictions. I have stock in all of these. While some are much bolder than others, all of the statements to follow, if true, will translate to a varying degree of success across my teams this year. So, close your eyes, walk slowly towards the creepy humming sound reverberating through the walls, and enter the void with me as we run through some of my favorite and more interesting predictions regarding the upcoming season.

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12 Team, H2H Points Dynasty Startup Mock Recap: Call Me Dave

February 11, 2021 | 2021 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 11 Comments

by: Hobbs

For a two-time World Series Champion with over 40 years of experience in MLB front offices, Dave Dombrowski gets a bad rap. The consensus on the baseball operations veteran seems to be that his only formula for success is to either ink big contracts or swap top prospects for elite talent that comes accompanied with hefty salaries. However, Dombrowski’s maneuvers have largely come as a result of the hands he has been dealt and the relative competitiveness of his various organizations at the time of his hire. He turned the 1997 Florida Marlins, a 1993 expansion team, into a World Series Champion. He built one of the greatest starting rotations in modern history in Detroit. He came to Boston in 2015 with a mandate to take the Red Sox to the top and did just that in 2018. Is he perfect? Far from it. Can he win a championship? Clearly. You should desire the same.

I say this to explain why I frequently refer to my strategy in dynasty leagues as Dombrowski-esque. It is not simply because of Dave’s suave, shiny gray hair to which I look forward to sporting myself in my mid-50s. In these formats, managers are drafting using such polarizing strategies that the key is to seek out excess value by pitting your opposition’s own intelligence (or so it may seem) against them. Seek opportunity where it presents itself, and if that means honing in on proven talent to win now, then do so. There will always be newer, shinier (but not as shiny as Dave’s hair) prospects to target in these leagues down the line. That’s why today I will be reviewing my selections in the 12 team, H2H points dynasty startup mock that fellow Razzballer Dylan Vaughan Skorish and I partook in this past week. Although I will reveal all of my selections, my focus in this piece will be to review my strategy and discuss the prospects I targeted in this mock draft.

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First-Year-Player Draft Top 25 for 2021 Fantasy Baseball

January 27, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 33 Comments

by: The Itch

With dynasty drafts fast approaching or already underway and the 30 system rundowns in the rear view mirror, now is the perfect time to revisit and reshuffle the crew of young athletes entering our game this winter.

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Top 10 Kansas City Royals Prospects for 2021 Fantasy Baseball

January 3, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 32 Comments

by: The Itch

In a baseball universe flickering with intentional losing, the Royals employ a bold strategy: trying. They haven’t seen much success of late, but that’s largely due to the natural contention cycling of a small market club. Also due in part to the death of young fireballer Yordano Ventura, whose innings could’ve gone a long way toward bridging from one cycle to the next. This group of prospects isn’t quite as promising as the Hosmer Moose crew that brought home a title, but it’s not overly optimistic to compare the two. Brighter times are coming to Kauffman Stadium.

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Taxi!! Follow That 40-man Bus! (American League Central Scuba Dive)

June 24, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 8 Comments

by: The Itch

As I write we don’t know everything official yet, like who’s going to opt out for health concerns, but we know the owners have taken their ball and headed home.

If you see a headline saying the sides have come to an agreement (and I’ve seen several using that language today), that’s not a fair representation of how this shizz went down. The players have indeed signed off on the health stuff, but it’s not clear they had a choice. Regardless, Major League Baseball’s 2020 regular season will consist of 60 games with a limit of 60 players per team, including taxi squads.

30 looks like the opening number for active rosters, which is a bit staggering when considering in-game applications, but rosters are scheduled to decline to 26 spots by the halfway point because reasons. Might need a few new folding chairs in the bullpen.

Making a team’s 40-man roster has always granted players an edge in getting a promotion. Every season when we’re waiting for our favorite prospects to get the call, we watch a parade of misfit toys already on the 40 get that chance first. Especially in some organizations that don’t like to toggle the 40-man.

f you’re in a deep league, making semi-regular rounds on the 40-man rosters can give you a predictive edge. If you’re in any league, really, how can it hurt to know who’s likely to get called up next at a given position on a given team, no matter how anyone’s hitting or pitching?

Can’t hurt, right? 2020 will be all about maximizing short-term opportunities, so let’s take a lap around the AL Central.

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Top 20 Prospects for 2020 First-Year-Player Dynasty Drafts

June 21, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 10 Comments

by: The Itch

Major League Baseball teams have to draft a lot of young pitchers. You do not.

This discrepancy is a big part of what makes dynasty prospect rankings fascinating and fun for me. Simply put, at any given moment, more quality pitching prospects exist than dynasty leagues have minor league roster spots to accommodate.

You can always pick up a relevant pitcher.

You cannot always add a relevant speedster, and you very rarely add a legitimate bat with stolen base upside. .

The TheoCubs tried to build a dynasty the way we would in fantasy baseball: drafting high-floor, well-developed hitters and buying pitchers via free agency and trade. This brought the Cubs a title but has proven difficult to maintain once they started stealing from the future to tread water in the present.

I attempted something similar in this space before the draft, building my Top Ten for 2021 First-Year-Player Dynasty Drafts by anticipating which international signings would crack the list on both the amateur and professional sides.

A funny thing happened on the way to part two: MLB owners decided they didn’t want to pay up on the July 2 signing date and pushed that all way into January. Just like that, illegal handshake deals worth millions of dollars went poof. Families sacrificing toward this date for a decade were told to eff off, if they were personally told anything at all, and the dynasty draft season went up in smoke, at least in its typical form, at least for the time being.

To that end, I’m ranking just the draftees here this time. Can’t really count on January signings or international free agency to actually happen in this climate when MLB just makes shizz up as it goes along.

It’s not a coincidence that baseball’s head McDucks waited to see how the $20,000 per player free agent bonanza went before pushing the international deadline. Very dark timeline stuff all over in 2020, including the post-bonanza, post-postponement note from MLB for teams to be miserly with any scholarships connected to the ultra cheap sweepstakes.

Just so ironic to bang the drum about pace of play and fan interest for years only to say screw it all in 2020, but here we are. Let’s talk baseball!

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