I’ve got two guys in the Senior Circuit – one for all formats and one for deep-leaguers particularly – who I think could have big seasons in 2016 while costing you relatively little on draft day (especially the second guy). I’ve done two drafts already (I know, right?) and the earliest either of these two went was the 10th round of a 15-teamer so even some winter helium isn’t going to send them into the cost-prohibitive territory where they have to perform to return value.

Raisel Iglesias, CIN – pick 165 (to me) in early November, pick 147 from a draft last week

Iglesias was one of those guys who probably landed on three or four teams throughout the course of the season in your league with the best work coming for whoever had him last.

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My headline would’ve been way better if Todd Frazier was traded somewhere south of Cincinnati. It’s pretty dope, though, right? RIGHT? He was the centerpiece to a three-team trade with the Dodgers, White Sox, and of course the Reds. The Dodgers and Reds each got a three-pack of prospects which we’ll get to shortly, but first let’s focus on Frazier with the White Sox.

Third base has long been an issue for the White Sox. In fact, when they first hired Robin Ventura it was to be the third baseman again, but after informed them that he was 44 years old and wouldn’t be any better than the dregs they were running out there already, he shifted into the manager’s role and they went with Orlando Hudson (50 wRC+ in 51 games) and Brent Morel (11 in 35) before getting the last bit of juice out of Kevin Youkilis for the second half of the season (110 in 80 and then he was done after just 28 games with NYY the following season).

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I did this with three young outfielders and really enjoyed it so I’m running it back with some pitchers. In fact, I might do a couple for pitchers given the remarkably vast pool of arms. Are these guys good? We’ll look at a couple key elements of their game and then give a recommendation.

One guy had some nice highs, but also some remarkably painful lows and injuries have dogged him throughout his career. Another guy held a sub-3.00 ERA through August 21st, but struggled so hard in his final eight starts that he wound up with a mid-3.00s figure by season’s end. Our last guy is 33 years old so we probably already know the answer, but a remarkable 11-start run to close out the season has re-opened the question about his goodness.

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Episode 293

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Jason Collette have returned for their last episode of the year (Paul & Eno will almost certainly have at least one more) with some big signings to cover with Johnny Cueto going to San Francisco and Jason Heyward to the Cubs. Other notable moves on the docket for them today include Steve Cishek, Mark Reynolds, and an amendment to the Ken Giles trade.

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Episode 292

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris have a huge episode full of transaction analysis. The guys are talking about 15+ moves including Zack Greinke, Jeff Samardzija, Shelby Miller, Mark Trumbo, Starlin Castro, Ken Giles, and Brett Lawrie. It’s pretty great.

*air horn sound*

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of key transactions all winter long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. The Winter Meetings wrap up early today with the Rule 5 Draft, but the last full day of action gave us a couple more high-impact trades:

To HOU: Ken Giles

To PHI: Vincent Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer, Derek Fisher, and Thomas Eshelman

Primary piece(s): It seemed pretty clear that it was a “when” not “if” situation regarding the Astros acquiring a closer. They have been tied to all the available big-time closers and finally landed their guy in Giles. This might actually work out best as others they were targeting either lacked long-term control (Aroldis Chapman – I’m not ignoring his awfulness off the field, but that came to pass when Houston was already out of the running) or cost a pretty penny for said control (Andrew Miller).

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of the Winter Meetings moves all week long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. Tuesday night offered up two nice fantasy-relevant deals and then a Wednesday morning deal came in as I was finishing this up!

To NYY: Starlin Castro

To CHC: Adam Warren

Primary piece(s): Warren performed better last year, but he is unlikely to have a role relevant to all fantasy leagues making Castro the piece that matters most here. Castro enters his age-26 with six full MLB seasons – four good, two bad. Unfortunately, the two bad have come within the last three, including 2015. Castro hasn’t really run since 2012 with just a 55% success rate in 33 attempts. His path to resurgent fantasy value is with the bat.

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of the Winter Meetings moves all week long here at Rotographs. Jeff has already done some pieces on earlier signings including his most recent on the huge pitching deals made this weekend. Let’s take a look at the three most recent deals of note, chronologically which happens to put them in order of least-to-most impactful for fantasy purposes, too.

–The Chapman deal isn’t done yet, so I’m holding off, especially since we don’t even have a general idea of the returns for Cincy–

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Three young outfielders who had vastly different seasons in 2015: one was excellent, but only for 350 PA, another has had an MLB-caliber glove forever but finally showed something with the bat, and the other failed to meet high expectations set by his 2014 leading to a demotion. Even with the positive aspects from two of the three guys, we’re still left wondering one question about all three: are these guys good? We’ll look at a couple key elements of their game and then give a recommendation.

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Episode 291.5

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is live!

In this episode, Paul Sporer and Eno Sarris get together for an impromptu semi-episode to discuss the just-completed David Price deal. Then, Paul gets Jason Collette on the horn to get his thoughts on the Price deal.

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