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Top 30 For 2023 First-Year-Player Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Drafts

February 8, 2023 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 15 Comments

by: The Itch

Here’s a link to the Top 15.

Around this point in the draft, you should probably be checking the free agent pool. You never know who can slide through the cracks created by transaction freezes, roster limitations, football season and the general malaise that sometimes accompanies late-summer rotisserie baseball.

16. Mariners SS Cole Young | 19 | A | 2025

Cole Young looks like the early win of last summer’s draft. He wasn’t especially late at 21st overall, but he might go inside the top ten if the draft happened tomorrow. A 6’0” 180 lb left-handed hitter, Young features plus bat-to-ball skills and an all-fields approach that plays beyond his years. He graduated the complex league in seven games and got even better in Low A, slashing .385/.422/.538 with two home runs and a stolen base in ten games. In the cold light of dawn between publications, this ranking feels a little low.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Miami Marlins Top 10 Prospects for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

October 19, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Featured | 17 Comments

by: The Itch

Strikeouts have been the Marlins’ calling card the last several years on both offense and defense. A recent pivot toward contact skills has already rewarded them with a couple strong stretches from Bryan De La Cruz, but the team’s bread is definitely buttered on the pitcher’s mound, where the organization remains rich from top to bottom.

Format = Position Player | Age on 4/1/2023 | Highest Level Played | Expected Time of Arrival

1. RHP Eury Perez | 19 | AA | 2023

It’s tough to keep Eury Perez in perspective. He’s 6’8” 220 lbs and started his second Double-A game on his 19th birthday. His control came and went this season, netting him a 4.08 ERA and 1.16 WHIP in 75 innings as a 19-year-old facing hitters half-a-decade (5.4 years) older than him. He missed about a month late with injury but returned before season’s end, walking four batters in two innings on September 16 to round out his 2022. If you track prospects, you have to like this guy for his easy velocity and repeatable, athletic mechanics. He’s a unicorn. The only rub here is his perceived value. After all the off-season ink has dried, Perez could be the consensus top pitching prospect in baseball–a mantle frequently carried by players who wind up disappointing us in the long run. Last year’s top two were Shane Baz and Grayson Rodriguez, who will again be in the running for king of pitching prospect mountain after missing most of 2022 with a lat strain. For most of Perez’s trajectory, I’ve been hammering the gas, but I’ve backed off over the past few cycles as his name value has skyrocketed. I even traded him in the Highlander Dynasty Invitational last year. Brought back Camilo Doval who was crucial to me winning that league. I’d still want Perez wherever I could get him. I’m just wary of the price point and think he’s likely to struggle if he debuts in 2023.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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

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

by: The Itch

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?

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.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Collegiate Corner: Early Season Pots o’ Gold

March 17, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 9 Comments

by: Hobbs

Tommy tanks. Juddy jacks. Berry blasts. There has been no shortage of golden nuggets in the first month of the 2022 college baseball season, which was up and running in full force by mid-February while Major League Baseball and the MLBPA squabbled like Brian Kenny at a Golden Era Committee meeting. Truthfully, the college game may be healthier now than ever before, with so much talent concentrated into every conference from coast to coast. Although the 2022 MLB Draft is still four months away, pre-draft rankings are already beginning to shift as a result of notable early-season performances across the nation. I’ll highlight a handful of those today in the first Collegiate Corner installment of the year, while sipping on a Fuzzy Leprechaun and proofreading out loud under my breath using my best Warwick Davis impersonation.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Top 15 College Prospects for the 2022 MLB Draft

February 3, 2022 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 10 Comments

by: Hobbs

College prospect coverage is officially back like cardigans and leather. Those are hip again, right? This is coming from a guy who had to ask a coworker what it meant last week when she said the staff taco bar was “bussin’, so you’ll have to pardon my mid-life cluelessness. Fortunately, one thing I’m not clueless about is the 2022 college draft class. After posting way-too-early top-10 rankings in September, I have reworked my original top 10 and added five new names to create the first installment in Razzball’s college rankings for the 2022 MLB Draft. As I’ve done here the last two years, I will expand upon this initial top 15 in the months leading up to July, culminating with a Complete College Top 100 prior to draft day. This year’s top 15 features three stud catching prospects, but only three right-handed hitters and three pitchers. It’s a draft class loaded with left-handed and switch-hitting position players, and everyone I’ll go over today should immediately be on your radar in dynasty formats and any league utilizing a first-year player draft. Once you have your lilac cardigan on with some trendy leather pants, click the button below and we’ll get started on the top 15.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Way-Too-Early Top-Five College Prospects for the 2022 MLB Draft

August 31, 2021 | Fantasy Baseball Prospects | 2 Comments

by: Hobbs

We’re all enthralled by the likes of Elijah Greene and Termarr Johnson, but who is best-positioned to be the first college prospect off the board in the 2022 MLB Draft? 2022 will be nothing like 2020 in terms of the college arms that come off the board, but could the top-five collegiate prospects ALL be position players next year? That’s the way I have it drawn up as of right now, with Florida’s Hunter Barco, Arkansas’ Peyton Pallette and Alabama’s Connor Prielipp representing the arms most likely to break into the top five. But for now, it’s all bats — and as always, I have some bold opinions in my prospect rankings. So let’s get to ’em.

Please, blog, may I have some more?