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Please see our player page for Jacob Lopez 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.

Cardinals OF Victor Scott II should be racing up draft boards now that Tommy Edman and Lars Nootbar are likely to start the season on the injured list. Here’s what I wrote in my St. Louis Cardinals Top 10 Prospects For Fantasy Baseball

“A throwback to the OG RBI Baseball Cardinals that could slash and dash an opponent into submission, Scott the second stole 95 bases in 132 games across two levels this year then added to that total in the Arizona Fall League. He manages the strike zone well and produced wRC+ scores of 117 and 119 at High-A and Double-A, respectively. He’s not a big power threat but doesn’t get the bat knocked out of his hands. He even hit .323 and slugged .450 with seven home runs in 66 games at Double-A. Having just defended an AL-Only crown due largely to a $7 Esteury Ruiz, I find it hard to overrate Victor Scott II. I think we could argue that having more steals available in our game increases the value of standard deviation makers like these. If you miss on speed now, the penalty is something like minus-10 standings points off the top, whereas you might’ve been able to hustle up into the top five in past years just by paying attention. The question of whether or not St. Louis will give him a chance remains, and it’s not a small one given the organization’s struggles to sort its own prospects.”

All that talk about winning a league due to Ruiz last year, and I still fumbled the bag on acquiring Scott in that CBS NL Only league this year. I should have enough speed with Elly leading the way, but it stings today (oh how it stings!!) no matter how it turns out. It’s not just that Edman is hurt. Scott himself is slashing .370/.469/.444 with four stolen bases and is, in my opinion, just plain better than Edman at this point.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

1. SS Junior Caminero | 20 | MLB | 2023

Caminero smashed 31 home runs in 117 games across two levels, slashing .309/.373/.548 with a 17.1 percent strikeout rate in 81 Double-A games on his way to a late-season promotion to the show. To my eyes, he’s the leading candidate to open the 2024 season as the club’s starting shortstop. Maybe they go a different way, considering he’s not a great defender and has spent a lot of minor league time at third base. Tim Anderson feels like a good fit on a prove-it deal, if they’re looking for a moderately priced option in free agency. Taylor Walls is a possibility, in house, but he hit .201 last year and got worse throughout the season. If he can handle the workload on defense, Caminero has the talent to rejuvenate a team and fanbase that will be missing its missing building block until it manages to forget him.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The Giants swapped Luis Matos out for OF Wade Meckler, a mustachioed lefty with a great approach who’s been hot all season across several stops, slashing .379/.463/.522 with five home runs in 69 games across three levels. Well, four, now that he’s gone from High-A to the majors in a matter of months. 

The Cardinals recalled 1B Luken Baker, who was hitting .334 with 33 home runs in 84 Triple-A games and should play a lot from here on out or at least earn himself more than a dozen starts. 

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Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 8: Winn At All Costs: Sal Frelick

1. Orioles OF Heston Kjerstad | 24 | AAA 

Tough time of year for the stash list. I run out of things to say about the guys who’ve been left on the farm. Feel pretty negative in most of the blurbs, but it doesn’t make sense to me that guys like Heston Kjerstad are still in the minors, but here he is, and I’m not even sure I can recommend him as a redraft stash. You might be better off picking up a mediocre hitter who’s hot in the majors now. And while that’s always the proposition of a stash list to a certain extent, the board tilts significantly late in the season as the 2024 incentives of suppressing a player’s timeline grow closer. If roster spots aren’t a key concern, then by all means scoop these top two.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 7: Baltimore Stacks Backups:

Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Colton Cowser, Dominic Canzone, Tyler Soderstrom.

 

1. Cardinals SS Masyn Winn | 21 | AAA 

If I’m the Cardinals, I want Winn to get acclimated to the majors before heading into 2024 because I want him to be my opening day shortstop. He’s been improving throughout the year and has been elite for a while now, slashing .328/.390/.533 with a 12.5 percent strikeout rate over his last 42 games. He has 12 home runs and 16 stolen bases in 87 games on the season and even leads the league in hits with 106.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

For this list, I used the players’ ages as of July 9, 2023.

The cut-off lines for eligibility were 130 at bats for hitters and 50 innings for pitchers.

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. Mets SS Ronny Mauricio | 22 | MLB | 2023

Breakout season began in winter ball but has been complicated by the club’s efforts to find its best lineup. Probably should’ve been playing big league second base a long time ago. Jeff McNeil was a nice find, but he’s 31 years old with a .324 slugging percentage. He’s essentially Luis Guillorme without the cool infield defense. How any club lets him block a bonus baby coming into his own is beyond me.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 6: Meaner Than A Junkyard DogGavin Williams, Jordan Westburg, Henry Davis, David Hamilton.

 

1. Reds 1B Christian Encarnacion-Strand | 23 | AAA

81 games into the season, Cincinnati is tied with Milwaukee for first in the National League Central.Joey Votto returned with a few home runs in his first week but is 0-for-13 in his last three games. Makes me sad to think he might be blocking a better hitter from helping his team win the division.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 5: Our New Number OneLuis Matos, Emmet Sheehan, Bo Naylor, Dairon Blanco.

 

1. Guardians RHP Gavin Williams | 23 | AAA 

Touki Toussaint tooky the first start in place of the injured Triston McKenzie. I suspect Williams will cover the next one, but Cleveland has shown uncanny resilience to fielding their best players. The release of Mike Zunino and promotion of Bo Naylor could signal a temporary sea change, which just so happens to coincide with the certain passing of the floating super two date.

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Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume: All-Inclusive Cruz: Elly De La Cruz, Royce Lewis, Andrew Abbott, Bryan Woo

1. Guardians RHP Gavin Williams | 23 | AAA 

Another week = another handful of wasted frames from baseball’s best minor league pitcher, but this time he actually got hit around a bit, allowing three runs in four innings against the Elly-free Triple-A Reds.

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Graduated from Prospect News: Stash List Volume 3: Red Letter DaysMatt McLain

Just a refresher or if it’s your first season with us: Players like Jordan Walker are ineligible for the stash list because anyone who has already been promoted in-season is ineligible. Guys like Royce Lewis are a bit of a gray-area. 

1. Reds SS Elly De La Cruz | 21 | AAA 

Unless half this list gets promoted and I write a new one next Sunday, this should be Elly’s last stash. The Reds are on the verge of dancing around a weak division, and they’ve been dragging their feet on it long enough. They’re five games out of first but tied with the Cardinals, half a game behind the Cubs. De La Cruz is slashing .341/.452/.765 with a 20.2 percent strikeout rate in 21 May games along with nine home runs and seven stolen bases.

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The guidelines that built this team are pretty fluid, but in a general sense, a player must have significantly enhanced his dynasty profile to qualify. 

Catcher

Orioles C Samuel Basallo has slowed down some since a steamy start but is still slashing .299/.340/.489 with four home runs and two steals as an 18-year-old in Low-A. He looks solid behind the plate, too, especially for a 6’3” teenager. 

Honorable Mentions: Dodgers C Thayron Liranzo. One way to identify a player like this is the ratio of relevance to league-size is changing in a hurry on the fly. Though I’ve added him elsewhere, I’ve mostly ignored Liranzo in my 15-teamer with 20 milb spots per team. This week, I saw his name in some tweets. On May 21, he hit his 10th and 11th home runs on the season. He’s slashing .310/.444/.690 in the month of May with 14 walks and 18 strikeouts in 16 games. Still just a catching prospect in Low-A, but he’ll be off the board in most leagues before long. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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 2022Hitters 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. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?