When this article drops, it will be my Christmas Day – the real, MLB opening day. OK, so this year, we call it the “domestic” opening day, but whatever. This is when baseball officially starts back for everyone, and it’s beautiful. And we’ll do our best to ignore how COLD it will be in many places in the country. (I live in the Southeast, so cold isn’t exactly a thing.)
A couple of things cold weather will lead to during the first full weekend of games: low scores and injuries. I’m ok with the low-scoring games – for a while anyway. But injuries are no fun to deal with, and we need to be prepared to cover the inevitable holes that will pop up in our rosters.
This week I’m going to take a deep dive on three middle infielders, all with a draft-season ADP of 250+, that I think could contribute to our teams when our best laid draft plans go awry.
– Joey Ortiz, 3B – soon to be SS, MIL (ADP: NFBC 281.25, Yahoo 250.3, Fantrax 292.77, CBS [roto] 299.51)
– Otto Lopez, 2B, MIA (ADP: NFBC 347.92, Yahoo 253.2, Fantrax 310.99, CBS [roto] N/A)
– Jacob Wilson, SS, ATH (ADP: NFBC 345.11, Yahoo N/A, Fantrax 386.91, CBS [roto] 309.87)
Explanations for any confusing abbreviations can be found in last week’s rankings article.
Joey Ortiz, 3B – soon to be SS, MIL
Ortiz is my favorite of the three players I’m discussing today. While he is currently only eligible at 3B, that will change soon. For Yahoo, all he needs to do is breathe in the general direction of SS, so he is already eligible there. For the other sites, we’ll need to wait 5-10 games into the season, but within two weeks, he will be ready to go at middle infield.
What he offers:
Ortiz is someone who can contribute a little bit in all roto categories. In his first full season last year, he had a line of 511 PA, 11 HR, 58 R, 60 RBI, 11 SB, and .239 AVG. Nothing stands out as amazing in the stat line, but a deeper dive into his numbers gives me some confidence that he can have more like a .260 AVG with 15 HR & SB, and around 65 R & RBI. Maybe more.
In the field, while Ortiz has an average arm, he has elite range, ranking in the 96th percentile. With a young – and cheap – team in Milwaukee, PAs seem fairly secure as long as he performs at a reasonable level for a young MLB player, especially with that defensive skill to fall back on even when slumping. So I would expect him at closer to 600 PAs this year (though the Razzball hitter projections are more conservative in their estimate).
With his bat, I think he’s going to be a better MLB hitter than last year would indicate. Though Ortiz finished with a .239 AVG, as of June 8 of last year, he was actually at .291 and dipped from there. As of July 1, he was at .269 and then went on the IL for neck inflammation. Upon his return, his AVG dropped quickly, nearly 20 points in July alone, and he hit a whopping .211 post All Star break. That looks like an injury-related decline to me. Given that in 1,376 PAs in the minors, he hit .285 with a .357 OBP, and in 821 PAs in college, he hit .342 with a .402 OBP, I’m willing to believe that he’s probably better than a .240 hitter. Add that to his plate discipline metrics from last year (11% BB% with only a 20.2% K%, Contact% of 85.1% and Z-Contact% of 92.7%). And then consider his 38.2% HH% (not great, not terrible, just below avg) and his bat speed that is in the 76th percentile. I feel like his chances of having a solid AVG are decent to good. His sprint speed is 28.7 ft/s (85th percentile), and while his GB% (48.8%) doesn’t promise a ton of HRs, the GB%-sprint speed combo should help with BABIP.
His power metrics don’t scream slugger, but they certainly look better than guys like Gimenez and Stott who are widely projected to hit around 8-10 HR. I like Ortiz’s chances to get around 15. And his speed is unquestionably legit, yet he had a measly 1.3% SBA% last year. Milwaukee isn’t afraid of running (they led all teams in Spring Training SBA and SB), so I like his chances for his SBA% to go up, pumping his SBs up to 15, maybe 20+.
What he doesn’t offer:
Ortiz isn’t expected to hit high in the lineup, so his R and RBI likely won’t be amazing, but getting 120 R+RBI from the waiver wire is not too shabby. Plus, his other numbers more than make up for the mid-level R-RBI help.
Long story short:
In a shallow league, he’s just waiting out there for someone to benefit from his quiet, 5-cat contributions. If I’m looking for someone to give me some help in all categories with the potential to become one of next year’s must-draft players, he’s my guy. And if he pops off in SBs, that wouldn’t surprise me.
Otto Lopez, 2B, MIA
What he offers:
Otto Lopez is a nice option if you’re looking for AVG and speed (maybe lots of speed).
His sprint speed is the same as Ortiz’s (28.7 ft/s), but Lopez uses his speed to RUN. His 3.1% SBA% helped him get to 20 SB in only 434 PAs last season. Assuming he gets more PAs this year, which I think is a real possibility, we can reasonably expect that SB total to go up. Our Razzball hitter projections don’t necessarily buy my argument, listing Lopez with 438 PAs and 15 SB, so take my prediction with the necessary grain of salt. Regardless, when Lopez is in the game, he’ll be playing for a team that will likely struggle mightily to score runs. I suspect anybody who can do anything on the bases will be encouraged to run. And Lopez can run.
Lopez has a chance to be a real asset in AVG. In his first full season last year, he hit .270, and his underlying stats suggest he might be able to improve that number a bit. His Contact% (80.1%), Z-Contact% (88.6%), and K% (17.3%) tell us that he isn’t flailing blindly during at bats. He has a sense of what he wants to do at the plate, and his plate discipline gives him some room to grow as a hitter. His HH% at 38.4% is hard enough to do some damage (like Ortiz, not great, not terrible, just below avg), and he consistently hits the ball on the ground (GB% of 53.6%). Hitting the ball in the air only a quarter of the time means few homers, but it also means higher BABIP. His speed should help the BABIP numbers as well – last year’s was .318, which I think is sustainable, maybe improvable. His minor league numbers also suggest AVG as a carrying tool: in 2,251 minor league PAs, he held a .300 AVG.
What he doesn’t offer:
Roster Resource has Lopez penciled in to bat 6th against RH pitchers, so (1) expect him to be consistently in the Marlins lineup but (2) also understand the lineup is not of MLB quality – it’s BAD. I mean bad. So don’t bank on him being much of a source of R & RBI. And unless he makes some serious changes to his LA, he won’t provide power.
Long story short:
If I need a SB and AVG source deep in the waiver wire pool, I like Lopez to provide those. Someone who can provide speed without tanking AVG is a gem, especially in roto leagues.
Jacob Wilson, SS, ATH
My most boring suggestion is Jacob Wilson who is about as milquetoast as a hitter comes. But a milquetoast who can hit .285-.300 has value.
What he offers:
Jacob Wilson is a nice option if you want potentially strong AVG help. His plate discipline metrics are crazy: In his first partial season in MLB, he had a 7.8% BB% to only a 9.7% K%, a Contact% of 87.8%, a Z-Contact% of 93.5%, and a CSW% of only 22.6%. This guy is up to bat with one goal: to put his bat on the ball and see what happens. His AVG numbers in both the minors (337 PA, .401 AVG) and college (697 PA, .361 AVG) suggest this is his carrying skill.
What he doesn’t offer:
Pretty much anything else. Wilson has NO power, I mean not even an inkling of power. Last year’s HH% of 19% is, well, do I even have to say what that is? His maxEV of 104.6 theoretically could get a ball over the outfield fence, but I wouldn’t bank on it happening very often. Our Razzball hitter projections put Wilson at 7 HR, which is right in line with the Fangraphs public-facing projections. I honestly would be surprised if he got to that number.
Wilson also isn’t terribly fast – his 27.2 ft/s speed is below average, but it’s fast enough to steal a base here or there. Razzball and the other projection systems pretty much agree that we can expect around 3 SB. Not much help there either, but also not a zero.
And batting 9th in the vaunted Oakland Sacramento Athletics lineup isn’t exactly a guarantee of R & RBI, though while some projections agree with Razzball’s projection of 50ish of each, some are more bullish. We’ll see.
Long story short:
If you like drafting players like Luis Arraez, Wilson gives you some similar numbers without the high draft capital – or even high waiver capital. While Arraez is going to provide significantly more Rs than Wilson, I think the other stats all have a real chance of being mirror-like. I wasn’t willing to invest a top-200 pick in that kind of stat line, but I’m happy to pick it up off the waiver wire, especially for a cheap bid.
Final Thoughts
Picking players up off the waiver wire is a delicate balance. Since finding the next Zach Neto is possible, but not likely, our goals have to be more specific to the stats we need. And once we find a player who can supply those stats we need, we also have to make sure he won’t absolutely annihilate us in the other categories. Each of these three players provides something valuable, but each does so in a way that we can plan for and keep from damaging us too much in other places. Let the grind begin.
