05/31/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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PitchCon Fireside

• An ace to fade (a top 15 SP you think will be outside the top 45 SPs)
• Favorite tier 2 riser (someone in SP 25-40 you think will be top 10)
• Best unproven breakout: Glasnow, Luzardo, Fried, Urias, Gallen

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Transcript below!

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06/02/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• 2020 Season Outlook

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Over the past couple years, I’ve really started paying more attention to multi-positional eligibility. As someone who plays almost exclusively in FAAB leagues, I love the added flexibility as it often allows me to target the best free agents every week because I can move pieces around to fit them in. Positional flexibility could take on an added importance in a shortened season so let’s take a look at a team of players with an extra position or two.

Here are the studs being drafted in the top 50 with an extra position: Cody Bellinger (OF/1B), Alex Bregman (3B/SS), Gleyber Torres (2B/SS), and Ketel Marte (2B/OF). You could probably land a couple of them without bending over backwards in your draft, but I’m trying to focus beyond the top 50 outside of one inclusion that I’ll point out when I get to him.

(I’m using the standard 20-game eligibility threshold)

CATCHER

Yasmani Grandal, CWS | Extra Position: 1B

I don’t really think you should ever put catchers at non-catching positions as so much of their value comes from catching, but there’s also the fact that the dual-eligible Cs usually only have 1B as their secondary and that’s often one of the deeper positions available. I said I’d make a full team so I had to include a catcher.

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Last year saw some really remarkable breakouts from unexpected candidates. Ketel Marte had a power explosion, Tim Anderson collected hits at an obscene rate, Hunter Dozier reminded everyone why he was a top 10 pick back in 2013, and Marcus Semien transformed into one of the game’s best players with offensive and defensive improvements. All four of them were in their mid-to-late 20s which made the surges even more surprising as we had locked these guys in at a certain level.

We’ve all heard the phrase that “growth isn’t linear” but given how much we lean on the previous season when studying for drafts, it’s easy to look for that linear improvement. That can leave some players overlooked and make breakouts more unexpected than they should be if we took a broader view.

Here are 7 hitters in their mid-20s poised for a breakout (though a half season mucks things up quite a bit):

Dansby Swanson | SS, ATL

If he doesn’t get hurt last year, the former #1 overall pick probably doesn’t make this list. Swanson was pacing toward a 28 HR/11 SB season with a .265/.330/.468 line before a late-July injury cost him a month. He returned with a .552 OPS and 0 HR in his final 114 PA. There were improvements on the whole, but still netted just a 92 wRC+. He has back-to-back double-double campaigns with top-flight speed and burgeoning power. There’s a .285/25/15 season in here, but he’s overlooked at the insanely deep shortstop position.

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05/26/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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• @sporer – Host
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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• 2020 Season Outlook

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If you follow me on Twitter, you’re aware of why last week’s article reviewing 2027 and updating on 2028 never got posted. Let’s take a quick look back at the ’27 season before diving deep into ’28.

2027 REVIEW

After an ugly 74-88 in 2026, we were demoted from Iron back to Stone and we took advantage of moving down a level with a robust 96-66 record. Unfortunately, it was only good for a 2nd place finish behind a 102-60 ballclub. In fact, the 96 wins would’ve only won one of the six divisions and not only did it fall a game short of the wildcard in my conference, but it would’ve been three games shy in the other conference, too!

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05/19/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• 2020 Season Outlook

ADP FALLERS

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If you’ve been reading my Texas Red Bulls OOTP series, then you’re familiar with the Perfect Team mode. Every Thursday they release new content cards available in their packs and this week they let me curate the set! Kris Jardine is the content manager for Perfect Team so I sent him an insanely extensive list of players I’d be interested in and he pared it down to these 12.

Here are the 12 players and some insight into why I chose them:

Jose Ramirez 2016 – His breakout has been really fun to follow, and this season was the taste of it with a .312/.363/.462 line, 11 HR, 22 SB, and infield/outfield eligibility having played 3B and LF. This generated a really solid silver card that will be popular in tournaments and be a staple for teams in Rookie and Stone leagues. Strong contact, gap power, and ability to avoid strikeouts should play very well.

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05/14/20

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live. Support the show by subscribing to Fangraphs! With a standard $20 membership, you help maintain and improve our database of stats and graphs as well as our staff of 8 full-time employees and over 50 contributors. The premium ad-free membership at $50 year supports site growth and also includes faster load speeds and better site performance. You can also support monthly for just $3.

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TOPICS

• No WBC in 2021
• 1999 Re-Draft

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