| | | | Tuesday, October 8, 2024 | | Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be taking a few more looks ahead at 2025 as I put together my very first lists of sleepers, breakouts, and busts. And among those lists, the breakouts are by far the easiest to put together because they're the only ones where I don't need to know anything about a player except that I think they're going to do something they've never done before. That's it, that's the criteria. | | When talking about sleepers, however, I prefer to talk about pricing inefficiencies. And that requires a marketplace to compare my rankings to, and we just don't have that yet. We have a few scattered drafts happening here and there, but there's no ADP to go off right now. Heck, there really aren't any overall rankings we can look at and compare to – Scott White, Frank Stampfl, and I are working on ours throughout the early part of the offseason, but all we have right now are my position-by-position rankings from last week and Scott's ongoing series, where he has covered first base, second base, third base, and catcher so far. | | So, for this first round of sleepers, I'm just kind of guessing at players I think will be especially undervalued for 2025 drafts. A lot of assumptions are going into that, and a lot will surely change for at least some of these players between now and next spring. So, in today's newsletter, I've got six sleeper picks I feel pretty comfortable planting a flag with already, plus five more I'm waffling on, at least in the short term. Any of those five could very well end up being some of my favorite sleeper picks for 2025, but until I know where these guys are playing and where us Fantasy players are drafting them, I'm not quite ready to stick that label on them. | | Before we get to that, though, let's run through some of the news from the past week or so around MLB, starting with some really significant news from the first round of the MLB playoffs. And then later this week, I'll continue my position-by-position series by taking a look at first base, which is actually one of the most interesting positions in Fantasy heading into 2025: | | | | News and Notes | | The biggest and most unfortunate news of the weekend: Joe Musgrove will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss all of 2025. He pitched through bone spurs in his elbow and was pretty incredible down the stretch, but this was always a possible outcome – Musgrove talked about trying to avoid surgery to remove the bone spurs because that could lead to Tommy John. This is frustrating and certainly puts Musgrove's long-term viability in jeopardy even when healthy; he'll be 33 the next time we see him. | | Clayton Kershaw's injured toe has not improved, and he won't be available to pitch again in 2024, regardless of how far the Dodgers make it. He may still pitch next season, but I don't think there's any reason to view him as anything more than a bench piece for Fantasy. | | Brent Rooker underwent right forearm extensor surgery Tuesday. Apparently, he dealt with discomfort in his elbow/forearm for the majority of the season, which might explain why he won't have outfield eligibility next season, which makes his remarkable breakout season all the more impressive. If he's going to play outfield early on next season, he might just need to be a top-50 pick, as I wrote late in the season. | | Alex Anthopoulos said Ronald Acuña isn't a given to be ready for Opening Day as he recovers from a torn ACL. I'm just hoping that is the team trying to keep expectations in check, and we'll certainly know more by the spring. | | Anthopoulos said the Braves will proceed deliberately with Spencer Strider 's rehab and are not setting a timetable for the pitcher yet. Anthopoulos added that it's possible Acuña and Strider could be back by Opening Day, but they could also be as late as June. Again, we'll know more come the spring, but if both are back in April, there shouldn't be much of a discount on Draft Day for either. | | The Braves are exercising three options: Marcell Ozuna, Travis d'Arnaud, and reliever Aaron Bummer. | | Orioles GM Mike Elias said Felix Bautista and Grayson Rodriguez are both expected to be ready for Spring Training without any restrictions. Bautista is coming back from Tommy John surgery and could step right back into the team's closer role after Craig Kimbrel imploded down the stretch. If he looks locked in as the ninth-inning option, Bautista could be a top-12 closer. | | In somewhat of a surprise, the Reds hired Terry Francona to be their manager. | | During his Guardians tenure (2013-2023), Cleveland ranked third as a team in steals. All the Reds players should continue to have the green light. Francona also typically settled on one closer at a time, which should bode well for Alexis Diaz's chances of a bounceback. | | And we have international news: Japanese pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano intends to pitch in MLB next season. The soon-to-be 35-year-old is coming off an incredible season: 1.67 ERA, 0.95 WHIP over 156.2 IP, albeit with 111 K. Offense has been way down in Japan in recent years, so take those numbers with a grain of salt, but he could be a late-round sleeper for 2025. | | | | Way-too-early 2025 Sleepers | | First up: Five players I'm not quite sure I want to call "sleepers" yet. At least not until I see what they're going to cost me: | | Bobby Miller, SP, Dodgers – Assuming he's healthy, I think it makes a lot of sense to bet on a Miller bounceback season. I'm just not sure his price will fall quite enough to justify a "sleeper" call. | | Kyle Manzardo, DH, Guardians – Manzardo put together a bunch of multi-hit games and hit .270/.330/.540 after returning to the majors on Sept. 1. But it's not clear the Guardians view him as an everyday player, and his DH-only status for 2025 makes him a tricky fit unless he goes in the reserve rounds. | | Patrick Bailey, C, Giants – His home park is always going to work against him, but Bailey put up much better underlying numbers than his surface-level numbers, and his elite defense will keep him in the lineup and give him a chance to live up to them. | | Nick Martinez, SP, Reds – Long-time swing-man heads into free agency after showing upside as a starting pitcher? If you're looking for this year's Seth Lugo, Martinez is your best bet. Let's just hope he signs somewhere that will give him a rotation spot from the start. | | Yariel Rodriguez, SP, Blue Jays – The Blue Jays had to be careful with Rodriguez's workload after he was largely a reliever overseas, but he showed a starter's arsenal and some swing-and-miss upside and will hopefully have a full-time rotation spot come Spring Training. | | |
| | And now, six players I'm comfortable throwing the "sleeper" tag on already: | | Parker Meadows, OF, Tigers – I went back and forth on whether I wanted to include Meadows or his teammate Kerry Carpenter here, and I'm going with Meadows because I think Carpenter is just going to be the more expensive of the two. But Meadows might be the better Fantasy option, especially in five-outfielder categories leagues. Meadows got off to a miserable start to the 2024 season, and it dragged his numbers down for the whole season as he was sent down to Triple-A. But after dominating in the minors, Meadows came back and did roughly the same thing while helping spark the Tigers' unlikely postseason run. He hit .300/.344/.513 over his final 50 games, with a 23-homer, 19-steal pace while starting 49 of 54 games he was available for. The underlying metrics don't come close to backing Meadows' success up, which is part of why I think there will (rightly) be some skepticism of his late-season success – his .233 xBA for the season is especially alarming. But the power-speed combination here helps cover up for some of the most glaring flaws in his game, and I don't think you're going to have to pay anything close to face value for his second-half breakthrough. | | Christopher Morel, 3B, Rays – I've been something of a Morel skeptic for a while, but it's easy to see what people have liked in him. The physical tools are there for Morel to be an impact player, and he has certainly been one for stretches in his career. The problem is he's just been too raw to ever put those tools into play consistently. He hits the ball hard, but often at the wrong angles – too often directly into the ground or way up into the air, as his second percentile launch-angle sweet spot shows. He has decent plate discipline but swings-and-misses too much anyway, leading to a 26% strikeout rate in 2024 – actually an improvement on his 31% mark in 2023, albeit with a huge step back in quality of contact that totally overwhelmed any improvements he might have made as a contact hitter. But it doesn't take an expert to see the upside with Morel, and I'm going to be a lot more comfortable paying for that upside at what should be a bargain-basement cost, certainly relative to his 183.7 ADP in 2024. The Rays couldn't quite solve the Morel puzzle in their first crack at it. But with a full offseason to work, I'll be very willing to make a late-round bet on Morel this time around – especially after he added second base eligibility for 2025. | | Evan Carter, OF, Rangers – After 40 games during the Rangers World Series run where he looked like an absolute star, Carter felt like one of the safer bets you could make on a 21-year-old rookie. Sure, there were questions about his ceiling, but his on-base skills and plate discipline should have given him a nice, solid floor in all Fantasy formats. Instead, he struggled through a brutal slump to open the season and then suffered a back injury in May that left him with a .188 batting average for the season. Carter should be good to go for the start of 2025 after missing basically the final five months with a stress reaction in his back, and the good news is, he'll still be just 22 years old until next August – younger than many of the top prospects we're still waiting on to get the call. There isn't a whole lot to look positively on from Carter's 2024 campaign – he continued to have very good plate discipline and was 97th percentile in sprint speed before the injury, and that's about the end of the list – but it's a bet on pedigree and a guy who was a top-120 pick last year and will likely go off the board much, much later now. There are now questions about both the ceiling and the floor here that weren't there before the season, but I'm expecting a step forward for the entire Rangers lineup in 2025, and I'm hoping Carter will be a big part of that. | | Nick Lodolo, SP, Reds – Here's another one I'm mostly willing to give a mulligan to because of injury. As it turns out, Lodolo was just never really right after coming back from a blister in July, telling reporters he struggled with soreness in his middle finger to the point where he had trouble straightening it after games – and it was an injury that would ultimately end his season. When Lodolo went on the IL in late June, he had a 2.76 ERA, 3.37 FIP, and 26.1% strikeout rate through his first 11 starts; after his return, he had a 7.54 ERA, 4.45 FIP, and 24.3% strikeout rate. Lodolo identified the primary issue being related to his curveball grip, and you can see that in the numbers – he had a whiff rate of 50% with the pitch in April and May, with an expected wOBA below .200 in each month, marks he wouldn't come close to repeating the rest of the way. I know a lot of you are probably tired of waiting for Lodolo to figure it out, and I get it. It's been a frustrating experience, for sure. But it sure looked like he was figuring it out before the finger injury this season, so I'll take whatever discount is on offer here. | | DJ Herz, SP, Nationals – Only 13 pitchers in the majors last season managed multiple starts of at least 10 strikeouts and zero walks, and Herz was one of them. I'm not saying you can't fluke your way onto that list – Brandon Pfaadt was one of three pitchers to do it three times, and I'm hardly excited to draft him in 2025 (though I did at least consider him for this list). But Herz did at least show the kind of upside we need to take notice of, and I'm just not sure it's going to be factored into his price. In part because it's just kind of a peculiar profile. Herz posted a 27.7% strikeout rate as a rookie despite a fastball that comes in at just 93.5 mph – about average, even for a lefty these days. But that fastball was a terrific swing-and-miss pitch, arguably his best, sporting a 30.5% whiff rate, the fifth-best among the 110 pitchers who used their four-seamers the most. It's been an effective pitch for him, and his slider and changeup both rated out as above-average pitches by Stuff+, so there's room for growth with those two pitches if the fastball steps back. The key for Herz will be his control, though – the stuff is good enough to get strikeouts, so if he can get and keep the walk rate closer to average, there's plenty of upside here. The Nationals don't have the best track record with developing young pitchers, but Herz is an interesting arm who isn't likely to carry much hype into next season, and there is must-start upside here. | | Andrew Painter, SP, Phillies – "Out of sight, out of mind" is a real thing, and Painter has been out of sight for two straight years now, so I'm going to guess most of you completely forgot about him at this point – if you ever knew who he was. If you need a reminder, Painter was on the verge of making his MLB debut as a 19-year-old prior to the 2023 season when he suffered an elbow injury that would ultimately cost him two years of development time. Despite that, he won't be quite 21 yet on Opening Day of 2025, and he seems to be well on track to make his debut by then. He'll pitch in the Arizona Fall League, and I'm hoping to get an eye-witness account of where he's at when I'm out there later in the month. Not pitching in competitive games for two years is a lot to overcome, and it's possible Painter just won't be the same guy he was before the injury. Even if he is, he's still wholly unproven at the MLB level and will likely be dealing with significant workload limitations, so there are plenty of ways for this to go wrong. But there's also at least a chance of a Paul Skenes-level outcome here. | | | | | | | | Cover 3 | | NWSL | Cover 3 College Football Podcast is the perfect call for any die-hard fan. Join hosts Chip Patterson, Danny Kanell, Tom Fornelli, and Bud Elliott as they take you from National Signing Day to the national championship.
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