| | | | Friday, September 20, 2024 | | I need more time to figure out the outfield for 2025. Luckily, I've got like six months to get there, but I wanted to at least have a rough draft ready to go by the end of this week so I could focus on pitchers next week – I wrote about some way-too-early infield rankings takeaways last week – but it was too tall of a task. | | Outfield is, obviously, the toughest position to rank among the hitter positions because it's the biggest position. But it's also the toughest to rank because there are just so many tough players to figure out at the position. Oh, it's easy enough at the top, with Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Mookie Betts ranking among the obvious, no-doubt first-rounders. But after that, you've got to figure out where to put Ronald Acuña, Kyle Tucker, and Fernando Tatis amid their injury-wrecked seasons, Corbin Carroll and Julio Rodriguez amid hugely disappointing seasons, and breakouts from the likes of Jarren Duran, Jackson Chourio, and more. | | So, yeah, I need more time. I'm hoping to have an initial 2025 rankings list for each position ready for you by the end of the regular season, but the outfield is going to require some extra thought. And today, I'm going to give you some examples of why I need some extra time, so before we get to recapping Thursday's MLB action, here are five outfielders I'm having the most trouble figuring out how to rank ahead of 2025: | | Ronald Acuña, Braves | | When Acuña tore his ACL in 2021, he ended up returning a little over nine months later. If he follows a similar timetable this time around, he'll be ready for Opening Day in 2025, as nine months removed from his late-May injury would be late February. There should be plenty of time for Acuña to get back to 100% in time for the season, but how confident can we be that Acuña will be himself? He was struggling mightily before the injury, hitting .250/.351/.365 with just four homers, and the underlying numbers suggested it wasn't just bad luck – Acuña had a .262 expected batting average, and .430 expected slugging percentage, leading to a .348 xwOBA, by far the worst of his career. | | And, of course, Acuña struggled the last time he came back from a torn ACL, putting up a .764 OPS with just 15 homers in 119 games, by far the worst numbers of his career. On the other hand, we absolutely know, for a fact, that a healthy, locked-in Acuña is the best player in Fantasy, as he showed in 2023. I'm leaning toward ranking him as a top-five outfielder and a first-round pick for 2025 despite the concerns, but I have to note the concerns. I'm not sure another first-rounder is going to have comparable ones. | | | | Oneil Cruz, Pirates | | There's no doubt Cruz still has unbelievable physical tools, and he became the first player besides Giancarlo Stanton to have multiple batted balls of at least 120 mph in a season in the Statcast era – he's done it four times this season. It's true 80-grade raw power, and Cruz has started to put his other prodigious physical tools on display as the season has gone on, going 15 for 15 on stolen base attempts since the All-Star break. He still has easy 30-30 potential, and he has even cut his strikeout rate to a much more manageable 28.4% in the second half of the season, too. | | And it's not just because the Pirates have been shielding him from lefties in the second half, as he has also cut his strikeout rate to 27.9% against them in the second half – he struck out 31.7% of the time against them in the first half. Cruz is about to turn 26 but remains pretty raw, and you can look at that one of two ways. First, if you're not a believer, you can say it probably means he's never going to be a finished product, or at least not the kind of finished product we want him to be. If you're an optimist, you can make the case that Cruz is still showing both elite upside and signs of improvement. And hey, he's a top-40 hitter in Roto this season, which isn't so bad for a non-finished product. | | Tyler O'Neill, Red Sox | | Moving from St. Louis to Boston, O'Neill did exactly what we hoped he would with his park upgrade: He hit a bunch of homers. Thirty-one of them and counting in just 107 games, putting him just three short of his career high with a week left in the season. And while the underlying numbers don't quite back it up (.370 wOBA vs. .346 xwOBA), they're still the second-best of his career. But there are three problems that I can see when it comes to trying to value O'Neill for 2025: | | He missed 40-plus games for the third straight season.His strikeout rate has spiked to a career-high 33.4%He's a free agent this offseason. | | I'm less worried about the third one because O'Neill's power should play up anywhere, and he's actually been better away from Fenway this season. The first one has been a consistent issue for O'Neill, but I'll point out that two of his IL stints seem like total flukes: One was because of a concussion, and the other was for an infection in his leg, costing him 20 games total. The strikeouts are an issue that figures to keep O'Neill's batting average from ever being helpful and could lead to some ugly downside scenarios. But the way the power played up this season was promising enough that I think O'Neill will be worth the risk inside the top 150 picks or so. I'd rather take the chance on him than someone like Adolis Garcia, at least. | | | | Mike Trout, Angels | | For one glorious month, we got the old Trout back. He played 29 games and had 10 homers and six steals, putting him on pace for 56 and 34. And then he tore the meniscus in his knee, which ultimately didn't heal the way the Angels hoped, requiring yet another mid-season, season-ending surgery. Trout has now missed at least 43 games in four straight seasons, playing just 41% of the Angels total games in that span. When he's still on the field, Trout remains a difference maker, hitting .276/.376/.575 in that span, and he showed this season he can still run if he wants to. Of course, will he still want to after yet another season wrecked by lower-leg injuries? Probably not, right? So we're left betting on the bat continuing to be a difference maker for a 33-year-old with a long list of health issues in his recent past. A healthy Trout is probably still a top-20 player in Fantasy, and I hope we get one more 150-game season from the greatest player I've ever watched play baseball. But I think we're finally at the point where you can't bet on him unless it costs a pick outside the first 10 rounds. | | James Wood, Nationals | | Like Cruz, Wood clearly isn't a finished product, so the fact that he's on a 16-homer, 31-steal pace while hitting .265 as a 21-year-old this season is incredibly impressive. Wood hits the ball plenty hard and is a plus athlete, but he's also striking out 29.1% of the time and has one of the highest groundball rates in the majors, holding his power potential back. It's pretty easy to see how Wood could emerge as a 30-30 player who doesn't kill you in batting average as soon as next season, and there are undoubtedly first-round outcomes in his future. And it might be worth just betting on the ceiling with a third-round pick, given how massive it might be. But then you look at an even younger player like Jackson Chourio with a similar ceiling who has actually realized much of his potential as the season has gone on, and it becomes a lot tougher to justify the bet on Wood. I think he's a top-50 pick for the upside, but there's a pretty good chance someone else in every league I play in is going to talk themselves into him at an even higher price. I'm going to have a lot of FOMO. | | | | Thursday's recap | | Before we get to anything else – before we even get to the usual thumbnail, I include in this spot of the newsletter: Shohei Ohtani. | | In the midst of a season like nothing we've ever seen before, Ohtani just had a game like nothing we've ever seen before. He stormed past the 50-homer, 50-steal mark Thursday against the Marlins, going 6 for 6 with three homers, two doubles, 10 RBI, and four runs scored. It's the first six-hit game in the majors this season and the 15th-three-homer game of the season, but no player has done both since 2017 – and only six have ever done it. It's the first 10-RBI game since 2018 and, the 16th in MLB history, and the very first three-homer, two-steal game ever. | | What more can we say about Ohtani? He's up to 51 homers and 51 steals, with 123 runs, 120 RBI, and a .294 batting average. And, oh yeah, next season, he'll be back to pitching like an ace because, oh yeah, he's still rehabbing from elbow surgery while doing this all. We've never seen anything like this before. This isn't a "since Babe Ruth" situation because even Babe Ruth wasn't doing this. | | Ohtani is the No. 1 pick in Fantasy for 2025 in all formats, and if you get him in a league where both his hitting and pitching stats count at the same time, your league-mates should probably rescind your second-round pick, just to make it fair. | | He's a one-of-one player having a one-of-one season, and we're all just blessed to be able to witness it. We've truly never seen anything like him before as a hitter, let alone as a pitcher. | | Alright, now let's get to the rest of what you need to know about from Thursday's MLB action: | | | | News and Notes | | Juan Soto will undergo X-rays on his left knee after crashing into the wall on a sliding catch Thursday. He remained in the game, and the imaging is considered precautionary, but we'll hold our breath until we know for sure. | | Francisco Lindor was out of the lineup Thursday, as expected. Manager Carlos Mendoza said there's a chance Lindor plays against the Phillies this weekend. | | Ozzie Albies will return Friday against the Marlins. He's been out since late July with a fractured left wrist and will bat exclusively right-handed until his left wrist is fully healed. But I kind of hope this isn't just a temporary thing because Albies has a much better swing from the right side, with a .932 OPS in his career against lefties compared to a .747 mark against righties. It might not be quite as simple as projecting him to just be that good if he hits right-handed full-time, but I'd still like to see him try. | | Bo Bichette was placed on the IL with a fractured right middle finger. A lost season ends with an injury, fittingly, and this might be the end of Bichette's time if the Blue Jays follow through on deadline-era trade rumors. | | Kevin Gausman was removed from his start Thursday due to lower-back tightness. That's frustrating because he was awesome before the injury, striking out six over five no-hit innings. | | Oneil Cruz returned to the lineup after missing three straight with left ankle discomfort. | | Aaron Boone said that while Luke Weaver could close out a lot of games, he stopped short of naming Weaver the closer. | | Thursday's standouts | | Chris Sale , Braves @CIN: 5 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K – Sale's velocity was down again in this one, but it still isn't really impacting his effectiveness, and I'm certainly not considering sitting Sale for his next outing. But I do think it's worth keeping in mind that Sale has thrown 80 more innings than last season and more than he's thrown in any season since 2017. He'll be 36 next year, and while he has been the best pitcher in Fantasy this season, I think it's reasonable to downgrade him a bit from what he's accomplished this season. That still likely makes him a top-five pitcher for 2025, but I'll be a lot less likely to draft him next season than I was coming into 2024. | | Kumar Rocker, Rangers vs. TOR: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 5 K – It sure seems like it's "live by the slider, die by the slider" for Rocker, who just didn't have the pitch working for him in this one. He threw it in the strike zone 37% of the time but garnered just four swings on sliders out of the zone, and that just isn't going to work for a guy who needs to rely on his breaking ball for whiffs as much as Rocker does. My long-term excitement for Rocker isn't shaken by this start at all, but given that we know the Rangers will have a quick hook, it makes it tough to trust him even in a good matchup against Oakland next week. | | Yusei Kikuchi, Astros vs. LAA: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K – Kikuchi is down to a 3.00 ERA and 0.94 WHIP in nine starts with the Astros, with 68 strikeouts in 54 innings. There have been some ugly stretches yet again for him, but Kikuchi has now put together two straight second halves as a must-start pitcher – and his 3.66 FIP before the trade suggests his 4.75 ERA was at least in part about some bad luck. The upside is clearly high, and Kikuchi should probably be drafted as a top-50 pitcher in 2025. | | Zack Littell, Rays vs. BOS: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 7 K – Littell has changed his pitch mix a bit lately, fading his sinker and leaning more heavily on his four-seamer, slider, and splitter, and it's led to some pretty good results, with a 1.64 ERA over 22 innings since his return from the IL. However, it has also come with just 18 strikeouts in 22 innings, so I'm not sure we can really consider this a significant change to his value in the future. Littell is a solid pitcher, mostly thanks to his elite command, and is worth trusting in Week 27 against the Tigers . As for 2025, I think he'll be a fine arm to round out the back end of a pitching staff, but unless he finds a way to generate strikeouts more consistently, he'll probably never be someone worth getting too excited about. | | Luis Severino, Mets vs. PHI: 6 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – We've seen several different versions of Severino this season, and this latest one kind of looks more like the one we saw with the Yankees . He's not that guy anymore, but he does have 47 strikeouts over his past 44.1 innings over seven starts, with a 2.64 ERA. Severino has settled back in as a solid option for Fantasy, and he's a fine choice for next week's start against the Braves. | | Brayan Bello , Red Sox @TB: 5.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K – Bello has settled in in the second half and has a 2.89 ERA over the past eight starts. But I still just don't know if he's ever going to be much more than a low-end Fantasy option with his current approach because his sinker is just too hittable. He gets a lot of groundballs with it, but it doesn't really generate a lot of soft contact and doesn't let him take advantage of his very solid slider and changeup as swing-and-miss pitches. I'd like to see him experiment with his four-seamer as his primary fastball, but I don't think there's much reason to think Bello is going to do that, so I think he remains just a decent streamer in a decent matchup against the Blue Jays next week. | | Edward Cabrera, Marlins vs. LAD: 2.1 IP, 4 H, 7 ER, 5 BB, 3 K – I had no interest in starting Cabrera in a matchup with the Dodgers , but I'll admit, I was interested to see if he could continue to build on his recent success. So much for that. This was a predictable result, but still a disappointing bit of regression for a guy who so clearly has the talent but just can't figure out how to put it all together. At this point, Cabrera probably needs to give us a reason to view him as anything more than a late-round flier for 2025, and I don't know if he's done enough. He still just doesn't have the command to be an above-average starter in the majors. | | Brandon Pfaadt, Diamondbacks @MIL: 7 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 12 K – Baseball's a funny sport. Pfaadt had a 7.58 ERA in his previous nine starts, albeit with significantly better underlying numbers. Still, nothing suggested this kind of start was coming. Pfaadt saw a bit of a velocity bump (up 1.2 mph with his four-seamer), and apparently, it helped out a lot, because he had a whopping 14 whiffs with the pitch. I don't really think this portends a breakout for Pfaadt or anything, but I guess it's worth keeping an eye on his final start against the Giants to see if he can build on it. But you'd have to be a braver Fantasy player than me to actually start him in that one. | | | | | | | | NFL | | Big Ten | Who can remain undefeated through NFL Week 3? Watch your local game live this Sunday at 1 ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
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