| | | | Monday, March 11, 2024 | | "Life – uh – finds a way." | | Anytime we're talking about how a team has too many players for too few spots, I like to invoke the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park. While there isn't much overlap between the fields of Fantasy Baseball and dinosaur cloning, the message resonates, because, if you've played this game long enough, you know that attrition has a tendency to make simple work of logjams. | | Of course, the problem when projecting a situation like Cincinnati's overcrowded infield is that you can't necessarily predict what direction that attrition will come from, which was why it was hard to recommend buying the likes of Elly De La Cruz and Matt McLain with early-round picks in Fantasy drafts this season. Emphasis on was there, because it got a whole lot easier to project the playing time in the Reds infield after Noelvi Marte's 80-game suspension for a failed PED test . That suspension will keep Marte out for close to half the 2024 season and makes him practically undraftable in most leagues, but also makes it a lot easier to project playing time for De La Cruz, McLain, and especially the likes of Christian Encarnacion-Strand. | | With Marte out of the picture until at least late June – and, in all likelihood, longer, because he isn't exactly proven enough to just drop back into the lineup when the suspension is over – the Reds infield suddenly makes a lot more sense. De La Cruz will handle the majority of the work at shortstop, while McLain will be the primary second baseman; Jeimer Candelario will now likely slide over to third base, where Marte was projected to see most of his opportunities, which should free Encarnacion-Strand up for full-time first base duties, at least at first. | | | | We'll see Jonathan India and Spencer Steer in both corner spots occasionally, and obviously everyone needs to hit to maintain their jobs, though there might not be much risk of someone losing a job outright until Marte is ready to return. I'm still not sure I love the idea of a second-round pick on De La Cruz, and McLain's skill set isn't quite as safe as his sixth-round price would make you think, but they're both worth chasing for the upside if you want to shoot for the moon. And Encarnacion-Strand suddenly looks a lot more appealing as a potential 30-homer pick in the middle rounds – if you wanted to reach inside the top 150 for him, that would be reasonable. | | Obviously, there was no way to specifically predict this outcome for Marte, and in a different timeline (if I may borrow a second sci-fi trope), the attrition could have taken out someone else and opened an opportunity up for Marte instead. It still could, of course, though now it'll have to wait until July for that to happen. But, there was always likely to be something to clear up this log jam. Players get hurt. They underperform. Sometimes, they get suspended. But, as any sports fan should know by now, there's no such thing as "too much depth" once the games start. | | And there it is. There will be other examples of crowded depth charts looking a lot more wide open than expected moving forward, and there is probably value in betting on players whose value is held back by playing time concerns. Sure, maybe you bet on the guy who gets hurt to break up the log jam, and that would be a shame. | | But there's a lot of profit to be found in betting on seemingly intractable logjams, because as the man said: Life – uh – finds a way. | | That was the biggest news of the weekend, and I'm glad it came down before one of my biggest drafts of the season. I'm taking part in the FSGA Experts League tonight at 8 pm, and you can listen along on Sirius XM Fantasy as they break down the draft live – I'll be calling in at some point to explain the picks I'm making from the No. 14 spot (out of 14 teams), and I'll have my thoughts on that draft in tomorrow's newsletter. | | In the rest of today's newsletter, we'll go through some of the biggest spring news you need to know about from this weekend, plus I've got 10 more deep sleepers for you. Let's get to it: | | | | Spring updates you need to know about | | | | Scott White is going much deeper on the biggest stories from spring training here, so make sure you check out his full article. For now, here are my briefer thoughts on some of the big storylines from this weekend: | | Hello, triple-eligible Mookie Betts – The Dodgers are moving Betts to shortstop – "permanent, for now" – due to Gavin Lux's struggles at shortstop this spring. He's had trouble making the throws from the hole, and the hope here is that this move down the defensive spectrum helps keep Lux in the lineup consistently. That's certainly the optimistic view, and you can see the logic – the Dodgers could have simply gone with Miguel Rojas at shortstop if defense was the only concern, but they clearly want to give Lux's bat a chance to stick in the lineup. I still like him as a sleeper, though this is a pretty concrete example of the team losing faith in him, and it probably means the margin for error for Lux is suddenly much lower. As for Betts? I'm not moving him up in the rankings, but having an extra bit of flexibility will be nice once the season starts and he plays his fifth game at SS. | | Devin Williams is dealing with a back injury – Williams has been dealing with a sore back during spring training, and he's set to receive a second opinion, putting Opening Day in doubt for one of the best closers in the game. Williams had imaging down on his lower right back last week with the team's doctors, but he is seeking out a second opinion from a specialist to try to get to the root cause of his lingering discomfort. If Williams isn't able to go by the start of the season, I'd expect Joel Payamps to be the first option for the Brewers. Payamps is coming off a season where he posted a 2.55 ERA with 77 strikeouts in 70.2 innings while serving primarily as the eighth-inning option behind Williams. If Payamps doesn't get the opportunity, it could go to second-year man Abner Uribe, but I would definitely be prioritizing Payamps as a late-round alternative. | | | | Gavin Williams is dealing with elbow soreness – Williams was scratched from his scheduled start Sunday due to a sore right elbow, something he picked up as a result of an awkward throw during a session with weighted balls. The concern level from the team as of Sunday seems relatively low, with manager Stephen Vogt telling reporters he expects Williams to throw in a couple of days. But any elbow injury is scary, so I'm moving Williams down in my rankings to around 190th overall until we see him back on the mound. | | Edward Cabrera was scratched with shoulder tightness – Cabrera was removed after a few warmup tosses prior to his scheduled start Sunday, though the team described his absence as "precautionary" after the game. And, for his part, Cabrera told reporters the injury wasn't "even close to what I felt last year." when Cabrera missed a month. Hopefully this is just the team and pitcher exercising and overabundance of caution, but it's definitely a concern at this point. Cabrera is still cheap enough that I'm not moving him down in my rankings, but this dampens my enthusiasm for his sleeper case a bit – though it does potentially make two other deep sleepers on the Marlins even more enticing, as you'll read shortly. | | Jameson Taillon is in doubt for Opening Day – Taillon is dealing with a lower-back injury that Cubs manager Craig Counsell acknowledged could keep him on the sidelines for the start of the season . He is set to undergo further testing on the back, and this could lead to two of Javier Assad, Drew Smyly, Hayden Wesneski, or Jordan Hicks making the rotation. I'm not sure I'd have much interest in any of those four outside of an NL-only league. | | For more of what you need to know from spring action this weekend, make sure you check out Scott's piece here. | | 10 more deep sleepers | | If you missed my initial deep sleepers list, I've got 15 from the AL and 15 from the NL for you to check out. Here are 10 more I'm adding to my late-round targets list, especially in deeper leagues. | | Victor Scott, OF, Cardinals – Scott still feels like a long shot to actually make the Cardinals Opening Day roster, but it's feeling like less of a sure thing with each passing day. Tommy Edman is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day as he continues to recover slowly from offseason wrist surgery, and now Lars Nootbaar has a couple of fractured ribs due to a spring injury, putting the Cardinals down potentially two outfielders to open the season. They've got depth with Dylan Carlson and Alec Burleson around, but if they want to take a bigger swing, Scott could be worth a look. A top-100 prospect, Scott was one of the best defensive outfielders in the minors last season while hitting .303/.369/.425, but what makes him especially intriguing for Fantasy is the 94 steals on an 87% success rate. Scott records pretty average exit velocities, which makes betting on the speed even easier; this might not be an Esteury Ruiz situation, where he's a potential zero outside of the SB category. Scott has a legitimate game-breaking skill, and I took him with one of my last picks in The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational draft, a 15-team, 29-round Roto league. He's worth stashing in those deep formats just in case. Gavin Stone , SP, Dodgers – Stone dealt with a blister on his right foot last season that screwed up his mechanics and led to a disastrous season for the former top prospect. But he put on weight, worked on new pitches, and thinks he solved the mechanical issues that plagued him last season, with an eye on living up to the considerable promise he showed pre-2023 – Stone was a consensus top-60 prospect after posting a 1.48 ERA with 168 strikeouts in 121.2 innings in 2022. If he can rediscover any of that form, he could win 15 games with this Dodgers offense backing him, and with Emmett Sheehan dealing with a shoulder issue, the opportunity is there to open the season. Ryan Weathers, SP, Marlins – A.J. Puk has pitched his way out of the deep sleepers discussion, and you should absolutely consider taking the former top prospect who ranks third among all pitchers in strikeouts this spring with 15 in 8.1 innings of work. But if you want an even later target from the Marlins rotation, consider Weathers, whose 17 strikeouts in 13.2 innings of work this spring actually lead baseball. Weathers is a former top prospect in his own right, appearing on MLB.com's list in 2019 and Baseball America's in 2021, but he's still just 24 years old, and is showing some of that upside in camp. Weathers shut the Astros out over five innings Sunday, striking out seven and walking none, and he's been throwing harder this spring, averaging 96.5 mph with his fastball a start earlier this spring. With Cabrera's injury potentially opening up a spot in Miami's rotation, I'm actually pretty excited to see what Weathers can do with an opportunity. I'll also note that I wouldn't mind seeing Max Meyer get an opportunity at some point, though I'd guess the Marlins will be careful with his innings early on as he returns from Tommy John surgery, potentially ticketing him for the bullpen. Jared Jones, SP, Pirates – Velocity has never been an issue for Jones; control has been. He has just one walk over his past two outings for the Pirates as he competes for a spot in their rotation, and he's up to six strikeouts with three walks in 7.1 innings so far. Jones struck out 10.4 per nine innings between Double-A and Triple-A last season, and if he figures the control out, there could be significant upside here. Leody Taveras, OF, Rangers – I think if you polled most Fantasy players right now, they'd choose to get Taveras out of the picture for the Rangers to open up a spot for Wyatt Langford , but I'm not sure the Rangers see it that way. Taveras is a good outfielder, and while he doesn't have the upside Langford does, he did have 14 homers and 14 steals in 554 plate appearances last season and might just be a rock-solid starting outfielder. That's less exciting than the potential Langford could grow into, but it's also being massively overlooked – Taveras was a top-50 outfielder in Roto last season.Logan Allen, SP, Guardians – Allen wasn't overwhelmingly impressive as a rookie, but I'm a bit surprised at how little interest there has been in him so far this spring. He was slowed by a shoulder issue early in spring, but he's made two starts without incident over the past week and looks in line to open the season in the Guardians rotation. Allen didn't show a ton of swing-and-miss upside as a rookie, hence the chilly reception of the Fantasy community to him in drafts. But betting on talented young pitchers on the Guardians has been a winning strategy in the past, and Allen has an elite changeup and a couple of promising breaking balls to build on, in an organization that tends to maximize its young pitching. Joe Boyle, SP, Athletics – In his first 84 innings last season, Boyle issued 75 walks in the Reds organization. In 57.2 innings since joining the A's organization (including this spring), he has 26 walks, a drop from 8.0 per nine to just 4.1. Now, 4.1 is still pretty high for most pitchers, but Boyle might just have the stuff to get away with it – he's struck out 35.4% of batters faced as a professional, the kind of number we typically reserve for high-end relievers. It's still a relatively small sample size of success to go on, but Boyle's tantalizing upside is worth betting on in deeper leagues. DJ LeMahieu, 1B, Yankees – Look, he's never getting anywhere close to a top-five MVP finish ever again, so that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the guy hitting ahead of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge this season. If LeMahieu can stay healthy, he might score 90 runs even if he isn't any good. If he actually manages to hit, say, .275 with double-digit homers, he might score 100-plus runs.Graham Pauley, 3B, Padres – Pauley doesn't light up the exit velocity readings, but he's coming off a pretty tremendous first full pro season, hitting .308/.393/.593 while getting all the way to Double-A. He only played 20 games at that level, and in more organizations, that might lead to either a repeat assignment at Double-A or, if the org wants to be aggressive, a trip to Triple-A. With the Padres, it might mean he breaks camp with the big team, especially with Manny Machado unlikely to be able to play third base early in the season as he recovers from elbow surgery. That leaves a hole at third base that the 23-year-old Pauley could fill, and his .308/.419/.539 line this spring has him in the conversation. Pauley could be a 15-15 corner infielder available for free even in the deepest of leagues. Anthony Bender, RP, Marlins – Tanner Scott is having an absolutely awful spring, having failed to finish an inning in any of his four outings with seven walks to three strikeouts in 1.2 innings of work. The Marlins don't seem too concerned, but given Scott's inability to consistently throw strikes before 2023, I am. There isn't an obvious No. 2 candidate for saves on the Marlins if Scott doesn't work the ninth, and unless they want to turn Max Meyer into a late-inning weapon – a role I think he would absolutely dominate in, for the record – Bender might be the next best thing. He emerged as the closer in April of 2022 before injuries kind of derailed things for him, but Bender has a 2.90 ERA and 1.116 WHIP with 88 strikeouts in 80.2 MLB innings and could be the answer if Scott's struggles continue. | | | | | | | | Eye on College Basketball | | Women's Bracket Games | Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander bring college hoops to your ears, covering the biggest topics from around the sport.
Listen Now
| | Start or join a Women’s pool and enter Men’s and Women’s Bracket Challenges for the chance to win trips to the 2025 Final FourⓇ and (if you join both) a new Nissan Rogue!
Join Now
|
| | | | |
|
|
