Please see our player page for Termarr Johnson 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: The Itch
Format = Position Player | Age on 4/1/2024 | Highest Level Played | Estimated Time of Arrival 1. RHP Bubba Chandler | 22 | AAA | 2025 Here’s what I wrote about Chandler on last year’s list: “His 1.50 WHIP across 24 High-A starts isn’t particularly impressive, but his game log tells a different story. […]
Please, blog, may I have some more?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? by: The Itch
26. Padres C Ethan Salas | 17 | AA | 2025
I’ll never have Salas on a roster. Nothing against him, really, just a matter of public-facing, real-baseball lists running him so high up the rankings that there’s no road back to dynasty baseball value. He’s already a top ten prospect in most places, and he’s just nowhere near that for our purposes. He’s in Double-A at 17, but he hit just .200 for nine games in High-A, so that’s an artificial placement to say the least. He’ll likely open back in High-A and should have to hit his way out. There’s absolutely no rush. At 6’2” 185 lbs, Salas moves smoothly behind the dish and receives and frames with a deft touch that’s a decade beyond his years. With a bat in his hands, he’s a dangerous lefty power hitter with a discerning eye. An elite prospect to be sure. Just not an ideal building block for our game.
Please, blog, may I have some more? by: The Itch
Format = Position Player | Age on 4/1/2024 | Highest Level Played | Estimated Time of Arrival
1. RHP Paul Skenes | 21 | AA | 2024
Skenes gave up catching and quickly became the best pitcher in college baseball. At 6’6” 235 lbs, he wasn’t really built for crouching all day. What he was built to do is shove 100 mile per hour fastballs through the strike zone and bury unhittable sliders. The club jumped him up to Double-A for a couple of short outings, so it stands to reason that’s where he’ll open 2024, but this could be a situation where his stuff is just too dominant for the minor leagues.
Please, blog, may I have some more? by: The Itch
I reference mlb.com throughout this piece because it’s not a pay-walled site, and they update the rankings regularly. Makes it a nice shorthand for perceived value in the real-baseball sphere.
Padres C Ethan Salas is a sell for me as a top ten prospect (No. 5 on mlb.com). It’s amazing that he made it to Double-A as a 17-year-old, but also, should he be in Double-A as a 17-year-old? I mean, what’s the point? He didn’t hit in High-A (.229 slugging percentage in nine games), and then he didn’t hit in Double-A (.214 SLG in nine games). I guess the defense can push the profile, but at some point, he’ll have to wait for the bat. And then we run into a high-minors, stall-out situation. We’re just now reaching the other side of that with Luis Campusano. It stands to reason that Salas might receive a red carpet that never got rolled out for Campusano, but that’s still years away, and the return you could earn for shopping Salas this winter or next spring probably beats waiting for me.
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.
51. Rays RHP Shane Baz | 24 | MLB | 2021
With 40.1 innings, Baz remains eligible by the laws of this list. His value is pretty dependent upon your play style and/or league setting, I think. He’s a good bet to gain value between now and spring training 2024.
Please, blog, may I have some more?
by: scar
This week we’re taking a look at the second base landscape, which is definitely shallower than the shortstop position. Overall, second base is looking even bleaker as Jose Altuve becomes the latest injury casualty of the World Baseball Classic. However, there’s always room for finding value and hidden gems at every position. AL East: Blue […]
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
Three Rivers Stadium is about to get hit with a wave of young talent. And yeah, I realize the stadium is probably called Crypto Cathedral or something by now. (Narrator voice: “Three Rivers Stadium was actually imploded in 2001. The Pirates play in PNC Park now, which is, in fact, named for a bank that shuttered 200 branches in June of this year.) So . . . pretty close.
Fact remains that this list is loaded with players set to debut in 2023. One downside of a tank-tastic rebuild is the timeline crunch. Pittsburgh has too many good-not-great youngsters to play at any given time. We saw some of that in 2022 when the club would call up a prospect and let him ride the bench or make him walk the plank like Captain Jack Suwinksi. It’ll take a lot of skill and a little luck to separate playing time winners from losers and build a sea-worthy vessel from this veritable forest of prospects.
1. C/OF Endy Rodriguez | 22 | AAA | 2023
Rodriguez is nearing the end of his minor league journey. In a real-world scenario, he’s probably the Opening Day catcher for this team. Pittsburgh punted in all sorts of creative ways last year, so the chances of Endy breaking camp with the big club are minuscule. It’ll probably be Jason Delay and his 53 wRC+ or Tyler Heineman and his 57 wRC+. You never know, though. If Pittsburgh suddenly decided to give a shit about wins and losses, they could field something resembling a competitive ballclub. Johan Oviedo was a big find for the rotation. Mitch Keller seemed to break through into something approaching functionality. Roansy Contreras is already good fresh off his 23rd birthday.
If you put the switch-hitting Rodriguez behind the plate and in the middle of that lineup, the whole team looks about 50 percent better. The athletic 6’0” 170 lb former Mets farmhand played a fair bit of outfield in 2022 but looks smooth behind the plate. His bat is racing his glove to the majors, and the presence of number one pick Henry Davis complicates the issue further, but it might help them both to share the workload and kick over to DH or left field on off-days. Rodriguez is a better baseball athlete than Davis and a more versatile defender, so he might find himself in the ideal fantasy catcher spot, escaping the rigors of daily dish duty while finding his way into the lineup much more than the average backstop. In 31 Double-A games last year, Rodriguez popped eight home runs and slashed .356/.442/.678 with an impressive 13-to-15.2 percent walk-to-strikeout rate. He finished the year with a week in Triple-A, where he collected eight RBI in six games and slugged .773. In short, he is ready.
Please, blog, may I have some more? by: The Itch
Prospect News: Top 50 for Dynasty Leagues, Post-Draft Update
Here’s where the introductory words for part two would go, if I thought any of us wanted to see those.
And here’s a link to the Top 25, in case you want to see those.
26. RHP Taj Bradley | Rays | 21 | AAA | 2023
27. OF Zac Veen | Rockies | 20 | A+ | 2024
28. LHP Ricky Tiedemann | Blue Jays | 19 | AA | 2023
Taj Bradley is getting knocked around a bit at Triple-A (5.25 ERA in three starts), but this is Tampa we’re talking about. Nobody suppresses their own pitchers’ ratios like the Rays.
Zac Veen has 50 stolen bases in 54 attempts with a 129 wRC+ in 92 games. The Rockies have more good hitting prospects than usual. Can’t wait to see how they screw them up.
Give Ricky Tiedemann another couple dominant starts in Double-A and he’ll have a case for the top ten. He might be there already on some lists. No real argument with that from me. The rankings feel especially fluid right now. It’s a time of putting your money in your mouth and then chewing it up and chasing it down with a shot of tequila.
Please, blog, may I have some more?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?
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?