Please see our player page for Owen White 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.
by: B_Don
What would Grey and B_Don do if they were in charge of some of the teams poised to be involved as we approach the trade deadline? After we spend some time going over trades that probably won’t happen, we move on to the call-ups of the week. Sal Frelick and Brandon Pfaadt lead the call-up/recalled […]
Please, blog, may I have some more?Dynasty baseball is always complicated. The winners tend to allocate their roster spots most effectively, and this time of year especially, each spot is gold. With short-season leagues underway in Florida and Arizona, new names are popping into the newsfeed all the time. These two remaining short-season “leagues” have inherited the levels left behind by the recent minor league purge, so one could argue they matter more than they ever have. On the other hand, the pitching and defense is perhaps too haphazard to help us sort the hitters. Same goes double for the Dominican Summer Leagues. Also, it’s only been a week, and everyone is telling everyone else to hold their horses while filling their own FAAB runs with DSL hitters like Atlanta OF Luis Guanipa and Guardians SS Welbyn Francisca. And that’s where we’ll close this post: circling some names making waves in the dynasty-verse.
Let’s take it from the top first though. Big news of the night has to be Giants OF Luis Matos, who homered in his first at bat and got pulled from the game after his second. He’s hitting .398 with seven home runs and six steals in 24 games at Triple-A Sacramento. This might be a drill but does not feel like a drill. San Francisco is 35-and-32: good enough to make the playoffs if they started today. Hard to make a strong case against promoting Matos. I added him in two leagues yesterday: a ten-teamer and a twelve. Both redraft leagues. Chasing that lightning.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
by: Grey
Mitch Haniger fractured his forearm on a pitch, which was his most solid hit this year. Giants’ beat reporters are saying Luis Matos is being called up. Luis Matos being called up is fun. I like fun. Transitive! I like Luis Matos. He had hit six homers in the last six MiLB games. Total damage in the minors: 9/15, and he was hitting .396 in Triple-A. Can I get a giddy up, pardner? Itch said two days ago he was on his Prospect Stash List. Itch said previously, after Matos was coming off a disappointing previous year, “The premium bat speed remains. He just needs to develop better plate discipline. He has the hands to make contact with most pitches, so he swings at most pitches. That has to change. Development is not linear. He’s got time, and I might do time if I find where Grey lives.” Okay, honestly, I’m scared. So, I grabbed Matos in my shallowest leagues. He’s got power and speed, and he’s crazy hot. Let’s see how far it takes him. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:
Please, blog, may I have some more?76. Pirates 2B Termarr Johnson | 18 | A | 2025
A double-plus hit tool leads the way for Termarr Johnson, a 5’7” 175 lb left-handed hitter who calls Jose Ramirez to mind on a quick visual evaluation. The organization will be thrilled if Johnson follows a similar path, grinding his way up the chain before growing into power at the highest level. He’s off to a great start, slashing .275/.396/.450 with one home run and four stolen bases in 14 Low-A games. He also walked 18.9 percent of the time. Scouts have hung a lot of superlatives on Termarr. Some called him the best high school hitter they’ve ever seen. It’s a high bar, but I’m not going to bet against him.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
by: The Itch
Money talks, and the Rangers have had a lot to say these past two winters. The timing was connected to their new stadium but nonetheless ideal for a system stocked with ready-soon contributors.
Format: Position Player | Age on 4/1/23 | Highest Level Played | ETA
1. 3B Josh Jung | 25 | MLB | 2022
Happy birthday week to Josh, who turned 25 on February 12. Fantasy baseballers (Grey’s mom’s term) probably shouldn’t penalize players on their way back from injury, but Jung feels underrated in the wake of an abbreviated 2022. When Jung had surgery for a torn labrum around this time last year, I expected him to miss the whole season, so getting 49 games across two levels feels like a win. Jung was a shadow of his 2021 self that slashed .348/.436/.652 for 35 games in Triple-A. The difference was most notable in his plate skills. His walk rate dropped from 11.5 percent to 3.8 percent and his strikeout rate spiked from 17.2 to 28.3 percent. Shoulder injuries can permanently lower ceilings and even ruin careers, but Jung has the talent to overcome it. He’s a target for me in the CBS AL Only auction tomorrow night.
Please, blog, may I have some more?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.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Cubs 1B Matt Mervis (24, AA) looks like a prototypical, left-handed hitting, middle-of-the-order masher at 6’4” 225 lbs who has already blasted 19 bombs in 66 games across High-A and Double-A this season. His strikeout rate has been around 24 percent at both levels along with .644 and .650 slugging percentages, but he has almost doubled his walk rate from 4.6 percent in High-A to 7.7 percent in Double-A. Gotta watch this one closely. Never-nervous Mervis got a little lost in the covid-draft chaos but raked in the wooden bat Northwoods League in 2018 and did the same in the wooden bat Cape Cod League in 2019. He looks more athletic to the eye test than the statsheet and profile might suggest.
Please, blog, may I have some more? 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.
Please, blog, may I have some more? by: The Itch
Some great prospects are about to find a home on the Rangers. I wrote about their future at some length back on December 1 after they’d signed Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jon Gray and Kole Calhoun. Click here if you’d like to mosey through their organizational outlook in Prospect News: Texas Rangers Wrangle a Future For Their Jung.
Please, blog, may I have some more?A little birdie told me our 2024 Fantasy Baseball subscriptions are live. The little birdie also said it includes our Draft War Room. You really wanna lose in a fantasy baseball league to a little birdie? Would be kinda embarrassing, tbhhttps://t.co/1ag7IFSYS0
— Razzball (@Razzball) January 8, 2024
