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Cam Collier

Please see our player page for Cam Collier 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.

The Itch

Cincinnati Reds Top 10 Prospects For 2025 Fantasy Baseball

October 16, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 7 Comments

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1. RHP Chase Burns | 22 | NCAA | 2025

Burns set a new single-season NCAA record with 191 strikeouts in 100 innings for Wake Forest. That’s the kind of math I can get behind. Seems like he’s striking out about two guys per innings, which seems like a good plan. His slider just isn’t something college hitters are used to seeing. Isn’t something any hitter is used to seeing, really. Plays like an 80 when he’s commanding it, which he usually is. Usually commands his 100 mph fastball well, too, and while he’s got a little Kirby in him in the sense that people hit his fastball more than makes obvious sense, he’s not doomed to that fate, given his incredible athleticism and clear growth arc across time.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Itch

Prospect News: The Future Is Not A Game or Collier Daddy

July 14, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 26 Comments

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I found out a few hours before the Futures Game that the Skills Showcase Challenge won’t air live after the seventh inning. Instead, it will be available on tape delay the next morning (today) at 10 a.m. EST. Perhaps that’s for the best in the sense that this event is new, and the league has no idea how it’s really going to play out, and certainly has no idea how to broadcast it before it happens. I figured it was pretty intuitive: show the hitter, show the hit, show the hitter, show the hit, and so on, but maybe it’s not that simple, and maybe it’s on tape delay for other reasons than trust in competence. I’m sure they want to have some kind of post-game show and include an interview or two. Whatever the reason, the showcase is probably on right now if you’re reading this as part of a Sunday morning routine. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Itch

Prospect News: Futures Game Features Gamified Batting Practice

July 3, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 18 Comments

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The 2024 Futures Game rosters were made public on Tuesday, so I’d like to highlight some key takeaways that might be relevant to people with mid-week transaction set-ups. 

For dynasty purposes, the Futures Game has always been an escalator for prospect fantasy values. Most people don’t watch minor league baseball on the regular, so their first time seeing some of these prospects with their own eyes happens during this seven-inning exhibition game. 

My takeaway today is that values are going to change more than ever this season due to the new Futures Skills Showcase that will follow the game itself. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Itch

Prospect News: Always Look On The Leiter Side Of Life

April 17, 2024 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 41 Comments

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Big week for redemption-arc prospects, particularly Rangers RHP Jack Leiter and Astros RHP Forrest Whitley. Leiter is scheduled to make his major league debut Thursday, just a couple days before he’ll turn 24 on April 24. He has not fared well as a professional, logging ERAs of 5.54, and 5.07 in two extended stretches in Double-A heading into 2024. Leiter’s command has been much better this season, as seen in his 0.98 WHIP and 38.6 percent strikeout-minus-walk rate across 14.1 Triple-A innings. He’s pulled an interesting trick of becoming found money after being the 2nd overall pick in 2021. Could provide a nice boost if he gives the Rangers anything this year. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Itch

Top 75 Prospects For 2023 Fantasy Baseball: Spring Training Snapshot

February 26, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 36 Comments

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List season is tricky for me. I always forget somebody for reasons that remain mysterious to me. This year, it was Josh Jung. Sorry about that, Josh and the Jungs. I’ll clean it up in post, by which I mean I plan to collate the hundred in a long scroll here near the end of spring training, tweaking the sequence as the new information suggests. Jung would be 19th or 20th or 21st at the moment among Neto and Tiedemann. All three could move the needle in a significant way this spring. I’m sure it’s just the nature of my work and focus, but the minor leagues look absolutely loaded to me. There’s maybe four guys in my top 25 who won’t see the majors this season (Wood, Holliday, Jones, PCA). We had a great rookie class last year, and it’s natural to expect an ebb from that flow, but after my lap around the league, 2023 feels to me like a pandemic-slash-service-time backlog is still seething at the edges, bubbling over early before rushing into our lineups come summer. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Itch

Top 15 For First-Year-Player Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Drafts

February 5, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 32 Comments

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1. Orioles SS Jackson Holliday | 19 | A | 2026

The number one overall pick in 2022’s amateur draft, Holliday is a 6’1” 175 lb left-handed hitter who appears to have inherited his father’s all-out approach to baseball. He’s probably in a batting cage or a weight room right now. Everyone works hard at this level, but Holliday’s had access to baseball resources for a long time, and you can see the results in his game and his build. He dominated on the complex for just eight games before the team had seen enough and sent him to Low-A for the final two weeks of the season, where he posted a .439 on base percentage. He’ll likely head back there to open the year but should be able to force a promotion at some point. I suspect we’ll see more aggressive timelines with this next cohort of young Orioles in general. Holliday could be a nice bellwether for that. 

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The Itch

Cincinnati Reds Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

November 6, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 15 Comments

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Been an odd stretch for the red legs. Yasiel Puig. Trevor Bauer. Nick Castellanos. A couple sell-offs. Joey Votto the constant: a Jon Snow meme made incarnate on the baseball field. Brandon Drury and Raisel Iglesias and Jonathan India and Sonny Gray and Fidel Castro and Eric Davis and Pete Rose and Luis Castillo and why the fiery red hell is Hunter Strickland pitching with a lead in the ninth? 

It’s complicated, I guess. They’ve taken some big swings. And mostly missed. Fun that they tried for a while. Not sure what to make of their current direction. Solid pieces in place with Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Alexis Diaz and more. Some impact talents on the way. A few interesting in-betweeners at the big league level. You have to squint a little, but you can see a path back to relevance for the Reds, which is really all you can ask for on the downside of an unsuccessful cycle. 

 

1. SS Elly De La Cruz | 21 | AA | 2023

In his 2023 Fantasy Outlook for Jordan Walker, Grey refers to meta-human type athletes as Lab Babies. Next year, if he’s still eligible, that post is reserved for E to the DLC: Lab Baby. Prospect Thanos. Inevitable. Only thing between him and that kind of shine is a 2023 debut. The strikeouts and the Reds’ general level of competitiveness could conspire to delay his arrival, but if he does make the leap, we’ll want him on our redraft squads. The power and speed are elite, and I’m way less worried about the strikeouts (158 in 120 games) than what I’ve seen in some other prospect portals because I think the quality of contact is so extreme they barely matter until proven otherwise. De La Cruz is a switch-hitter at 6’5” 200 lbs who explodes his hips through the zone from both sides of the plate. Like Aaron Jude and Oneil Cruz before him, he doesn’t have to square up a pitch to send it seven rows deep. It’s unique. It’s uncanny. It helped him slash .304/.359/.586 with 28 home runs and 47 stolen bases in 120 games across two levels.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Itch

Prospect News: Top 100 for Dynasty Leagues, Post-Draft Update

August 21, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 28 Comments

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I was going to copy and paste the whole list here, but then I remembered last time I did that, I had to scroll forever to read the profiles on this group, which is arguably the most important group in the list for our purposes given that they’re the likeliest to be available in the most leagues. Anyway, the links are still here and the most streamlined way to build this out, I think. 

Here’s a link to the Top 25. 

Here’s a link to the Top 50.

Here’s a link to the Top 75.

 

76. RHP Gavin Williams | Guardians | 22 | AA | 2022

77. RHP Cade Cavalli | Nationals | 24 | AAA | 2023

78. C Tyler Soderstrom | Athletics | 20 | AA | 2023

79. OF Sal Frelick | Brewers | 22 | AAA | 2023

Gavin Williams threw six hitless innings his last time out, bringing his Double-A ERA down to 1.59 and his WHIP to 0.95. That’s in 45.1 innings across 11 starts. WHIP is 0.81 in eight starts since July. Cleveland is somehow getting better at pitcher development, partly because they’re applying their systems to better and better athletes. Williams is 6’6” and 255 pounds but repeats his delivery well. Two plus benders. Double-plus fastball. 

Cade Cavalli is similarly enormous at 6’4” 240 lbs. You could convince he’s three inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than that. Looks like a linebacker pumping high heat with extreme run to the right-handed batter’s box. Bigtime tempo guy. When it’s going well, he’s back on the mound and firing in blinks. When it’s not, his whole game slows down. He’s been awesome for three months (2.12 ERA, 1.02 WHIP since May 22) and would likely be in the majors at the moment if the Nationals were. 

I’ve never been a Tyler Soderstrom pusher. I think he can hit, and I’ll give him the high-probability big leaguer thing, but ours is a game of impact. Standout tools. Soderstrom’s best tool is hit, which is often what you’d like to see, but Oakland is not the best home for a hit-first catcher who might not catch but doesn’t have much speed to handle the outfield. 

Get your money for nothing and your licks for free. Better Call Sal has a 200 wRC+ in 15 games at Triple-A. He’ll be on the next stash list. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?
The Itch

Prospect News: Top 15 for 2023 First-Year-Player Dynasty Drafts

July 20, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 29 Comments

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I try to take a fairly simplistic view of the draft. My mind resists at times because the Major League Baseball Draft is an exercise in antitrust-exemption hyper-capitalism run amok, spotlighting primarily the lucky few blessed with generational gifts of wealth and circumstance along with their considerable physical skills. It’s a barefaced look at how structures that appear to be egalitarian in their theoretical bones are anything but in practice.   

Whoops, I did it again. Got lost in the games. Keep It Simple, Guy.

Reset: it’s about the organizations as much as it is about the players. You’ll see Jackson Holliday third here even though I like Elijah Green more as a player because I think the Orioles are doing well when it comes to communicating with their young players and aiding their development. No knock on the Nats, who have developed some hitters of their own, but Elijah Green brings some swing-and-miss risk along with the big power and elite speed, and I can’t remember this team developing someone with that specific hang-up. Plus, I don’t know . . . something about the whole organization feels bad right now. Can’t put my finger on it. Oh yeah, they’re doing this weird dance with Juan Soto a year after giving Trea Turner to the Dodgers to offload Max Scherzer’s contract. Their minor league system is weak, partly because they insisted on major-league-ready players in return for Turner and Scherzer. Their 2021 first round pick Brady House, also a high school hitter, has not played particularly well this year (0 HR, 2 BB, 31 K in his last 20 games before landing on the IL).  

I also like to take my time on stuff like this. Would prefer to see how these guys adapt to the pro game before ranking them for fantasy purposes, but I know some people have drafts that begin immediately after the MLB draft ends, so I burned the midnight oil for the past few weeks in hopes of replicating my best successes from FYPD lists of summers past like CJ Abrams, Corbin Carroll and James Wood.  

Please, blog, may I have some more?
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