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Please see our player page for Jordan Westburg 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.

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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Graduated from Stash List Volume 2: The First Strand: Matt Mervis, Brandon Pfaadt, Gavin Stone, Christopher Morel. Just a refresher or if it’s your first season with us: Players like Jordan Walker and Taj Bradley are ineligible for the stash list because anyone who has already been promoted in-season is ineligible. Guys like Christophper Morel […]

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A lot has been  written about the breakout of young Dodgers outfielder James Outman.  He has been off to an outstanding start to the 2023 fantasy baseball season and has showed limited signs of slowing down.  Going into the weekend slate, the 25-year old has performed as a top 20 hitter on the Razzball Player Rater.  Sitting on pace for over 35 homers and 100 R and RBI, he has been a revelation for owners.  This week, we will focus our hitter profiles on identifying what in Outman’s background has produced a valuable fantasy asset through the first month of the season.  In addition, we will scour the minors to see if we can find any players the fit the same mold for us to invest in for the rest of the 2023 fantasy season.

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Graduated from Volume 1: Brett Baty, Tanner Bibee, Francisco Alvarez

Just a refresher or if it’s your first season with us, I’ll say that players like Jordan Walker and Taj Bradley are ineligible for the stash list. Anyone who has already been promoted in-season is ineligible. Guys like Christopher Morel and Royce Lewis are a bit of a gray-area exception. 

 

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

The man can hit. Been back for five games. Has four home runs. Hitting .500 (12-for-24). Put a claim in today if you have the chance.

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I hope Dodgers 2B Michael Busch really drinks it all in during his big league debut because he might be right back in the minor leagues the following week. Doesn’t matter much either way to his long-term outlook. I suspect he could push Miguel Vargas if the bat plays early. I’m not confident Vargas ever got right in Spring, and then he got hit by a fastball in the thumb on April 4th. He’s slugging .295 with zero home runs or stolen bases but still posting a .364 on base percentage due to the plus plate skills. 

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Selling Trey Mancini to Houston during the club’s one competitive season in years might have karmically doomed the franchise, but if Baltimore can avoid the hex, they should be in for a steady run of good rosters. This list will only scratch the surface on how much talent this team has accrued through aggressively tanking then gaming the draft-pool system and slow-playing every prospect so they’d all be on the cusp at the same time. 

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The 2022 deadline has already seen one unlikely winner in Pittsburgh catcher Jason Delay, a 27-year-old who had a 59 wRC+ in 28 AAA games this year when he got the call. Those outcomes obscure his ability though. He’d posted a 123 wRC+ in 13 AAA games last year, but he just hasn’t played all that much professional baseball since being selected in the fourth round of the 2017 draft. Shortly after his debut, the club traded Michael Perez, making Delay the lead man post-haste. The slow-to-arrive backstop has taken well to the gig, slashing .308/.357/.462 and passing the eye test as a defender. I’m already comfortable penciling him in as the club’s starter in 2023, which is kind of the goal here: I’m looking for players whose post-deadline, playing time windfall can carry over into next year and launch them into long-term fantasy relevance. 

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Is there ever a bad time for a stash? 

On one hand, three of the top four prospects graduated from my last stash list, so it’s not only a good time to post a new one, the posting of a new one feels essential to the purpose of this space on the internet. 

On the other hand, the minor league tree of stashes looks a little picked over at the moment. It might replenish itself in a week or two if the Orioles can stay in the race or the Diamondbacks can rip off a Seattle-like string of victories, but right now, we’re waiting for some playing time to shake loose for most of the top guys to get their shot. 

Graduated From Stash List Volume 4: Esteury Ruiz is Ready for His Close-Up

Vinnie Pasquantino, Esteury Ruiz, Max Meyer, Nick Pratto. 

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A lot of the best prospects are now big leaguers, but the top of this list remains stocked with ready-now impact fantasy talents. 

Graduated from Volume 3: Wink if You’re Ready or What’s the Rush, Man? 

Royce Lewis, Oneil Cruz, Luis Garcia, Roansy Contreras, Riley Greene, Elehuris Montero, Josh Winckowski, CJ Abrams, Caleb Kilian, Edward Cabrera, Jonathan Aranda, and Zack Thompson.

Graduated from Volume 2: Royce Lewis Rolls Into Town Wearing Pink Like Kirby 

George Kirby, Adley Rutschman, Alek Thomas, Vidal Brujan, Nolan Gorman, Ryan Pepiot 

Click here to see Volume 1: Oneil Cruz Control

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Some of these guys will have to move off the position, either because they’re blocked by a star-level regular or because they lack the hyper-elite twitch, reflexes, hands and arm required to make it as a big league shortstop, but for the most part, these guys will man their middle infields for the next decade or so. Some dynasty league veterans build minor league rosters populated almost exclusively by shortstops and outfielders. Solid plan, really. Shortstop might be the game’s deepest position at the moment, and it’s only getting deeper. 

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These birds are in no rush, man.

They’re just getting going on the international front, so even though we might pounce on players who sign for big deals, I’m skeptical of the infrastructure in place to ease those teenagers’ transitions to professional baseball in the states. I’m skeptical of the whole plan, to be honest, given the slow-roasting, historical-losing outcomes we’ve seen so far. If Baltimore can follow the path the Astros and Cubs laid out by being truly abysmal for a half-decade just before the dawn of a successful stretch, the fans will appreciate the end point, assuming any remain. The AL East piece suggests their hands were tied to some extent–that the only path was full-tank with no on-field investments in the pitching or hitting side. I dunno. It’s just tough for me to get super hyped about the big future all these guys might have when we’ve seen what it took to acquire them. 

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