All Aboard the Tyler Saladino Hype Train

No need to fret. The unofficial conductor, who is also the author of this post, does not expect the cabin to reach capacity. Not prior to April, at least.

Brett Lawrie’s time with any organization, not just the White Sox, was ticking away; more writing was scribbled on more walls with each passing year since his debut. So when the White Sox released Lawrie, the first thought on most fantasy owners’ minds was not Where will Lawrie end up? but, rather, When will Yoan Moncada get the call? Moncada, a consensus top-5 prospect, changed socks and is now the marquee name of the South Side’s now-promising future.

Yet one could argue Moncada’s not quite ready for the big show. After raking and running absolutely wild in High-A in 2016, Moncada graduated to Double-A and, well, his performance is open to interpretation. On one hand, his 11 home runs, nine stolen bases and .277/.379/.531 triple-slash in 207 plate appearances amounted to a batting line that was more than 50% better than the league. On the other hand, he struck out more than 30% of the time — and that lack of contact carried over into his Major League debut, during which he struck out in 12 of 20 PAs. The tools are immense, but, at 21, he could definitely use some polish, and the White Sox have no incentive to rush him along.

Allow me to (re)introduce you to Tyler Saladino.

This is not the first time Saladino has graced these pages; indeed, Karl de Vries once wrote about Saladino as a deep-league waiver wire option. In 2015. A lifetime ago, for many babies and a lot of pets. Saladino was once the #2 prospect in a thin Chicago farm, expected to hit — wait for it — 15% worse than league-average. That’s… not good, at least for an organizational #2 prospect who’s not a pitcher.

Yet here we are, chit-chatting about Saladino — Saladino, who has amassed 12 home runs and 19 stolen bases alongside a .257 batting average through his first 573 career PAs. He certainly takes the scenic route to fantasy relevance — he strikes out almost five times more often than he walks — but, at a certain point, you can’t argue against an 8/11/.282 batting line in half a season. Extrapolations can get us into trouble, but a power-speed threat who doesn’t hurt your batting average is an asset, even in shallow leagues. With Lawrie out of the picture, Saladino has an opportunity to seize the keystone for good, or at least for the first five months of 2017.

Saladino is a ground ball hitter, so power will never be his strong suit. The worm-killing approach, however, plays to his strengths: he’s fast, having stolen at least 28 bases in three separate seasons. When he hits the ball in the air, he has been able to notch a home run roughly 10% of the time — consistently, too, through his first two half-seasons. Again, he does not hit the ball hard, so it’s likely his ratio of home runs to fly balls (HR/FB) drops into the single digits, but that still means he scrapes double-digit power in a full season.

Although Saladino’s plate discipline declined in 2016 — he swung more often at bad pitches while making less contact on them — he’s actually a good contact hitter when it counts. His 91.8% zone contact rate (Z-Contact%) ranked in the top 15% of hitters who recorded at least 300 PAs last season. It seems like a matter of sequencing, but given his very solid swinging strike (SwStr%) and contact rates, his strikeout rate (K%) could dip into the mid-teens, helping his batting average in tow. He may not hit for a superb batting average on balls in play (BABIP), but his speed should keep him league-average in that regard at the very least.

You know who Saladino reminds me of? Ender Inciarte, but with less impressive (yet still admirable) contact skills and what appears to be significantly more power. Inciarte walks more, but not significantly more, and Inciarte strikes out less, but (I anticipate) not significantly less. Unlike Saladino, Inciarte sprays the ball to all fields more effectively (and is also left-handed), but both make their money hitting ground balls and legging ’em out. Both the Braves and White Sox project to be bottom-three offenses, making their prorated contributions to the other counting stats roughly equal (although their spots in their respective batting orders could change the distribution of their runs and RBI). The primary trade-off between the two, then, is between batting average and home runs; it’s possible that Inciarte’s contributions to the former outweigh Saladino’s to the latter. Besides that, the two are remarkably similar.

Inciarte is being drafted like a top-50 outfielder (just inside the top-200 overall). I’m not saying Saladino should be drafted similarly — I don’t think he will anyway — but I think that’s the kind of upside we’re looking at with him. (In other words, a fringe starting middle infielder in standard leagues.) His primarily plays second base, not outfield, in the scenario I envision, but he actually played every position last year except for catcher and pitcher, indicating he can aptly fill a super-utility role in the event of an early Moncada promotion. Granted, Robin Ventura, who utilized Saladino that way, no longer mans this ship, and maybe Manager Rick Renteria has other ideas, but the potential still exists.

So, that’s Saladino for you. He’s being drafted as the 27th shortstop off the board, well outside the first 400 players, per NFBC. His situation reminds me of Jonathan Villar’s last year — I believed in Villar, but even I thought he would be displaced by Orlando Arcia sooner rather than later pending a slow start to 2016. He ended up sharing the middle infield with Arcia and becoming a huge part of the Brewers’ rebuilding plans. Saladino’s future is nowhere near as bright, but the threat to his playing time — also by a top prospect — is, like Villar’s last year, not as imminent as the fantasy community may think. That makes Saladino and his potential to post a 12/20/.275* line a must-own in AL-only leagues and a necessary dart throw in deeper mixed formats.

* FanGraphs’ Depth Charts projection, which seems to not appreciate Saladino’s contact skills and speed the way I do, is 13/22/.251 per 630 PAs. Still, this is nearly identical to teammate and double-play partner Tim Anderson, by the way — 12/21/.265 with an even-more-pathetic 3.2% walk rate — who is being drafted as the 12th shortstop and roughly 160th overall in NFBC drafts. Food for thought.