Background Talent, Part 1

True story, or at least a story that was presented to us as true: A movie is shooting on location near where one of us lives, and a call goes out for extras to be in the crowd scenes. Except they’re not called extras nowadays; they’re “background talent.” And a guy we know, an aspiring actor, signs up. And the time comes to shoot a scene with a crowd in the background and the stars in the foreground, and our guy is there in costume, jostling with the other aspiring actors to be in the front of the crowd. The crew is setting up the cameras and lighting for the scene, using stand-ins to calibrate things, when there’s some sort of contretemps, and one of the stand-ins stops standing and walks away. The director, or whoever’s running the shoot, looks around, sees our guy, and notices he’s of about the same size and shape, and wearing about the same costume, as the stand-in. So he beckons to our guy, who winds up standing in for the stand-in, and whose reward is to be front and center in the crowd scene, in which position the camera dwells on him for, oh, half a second. And now, our guy’s forever enshrined in whatever the digital equivalent of celluloid is.

We mention this because, for the next three weeks, our mission is to bring background talent into the foreground. Our specialty is the deep part of deep-league drafts. Ideally, of course, we try to identify players who are so good that we think they might have full-time jobs coming out of spring training (assuming it happens—we’re not optimistic). But often, we’re looking at guys who may not play at all, except things have a way of happening, so when the first-string guy gets suspended for PEDs and his backup is injured, his backup’s backup stands in and does something unexpected.

So we’re going to do a sweep through both leagues, ten teams per week, to try to identify at least one guy per team who fills the bill. One caveat that you probably don’t need: we’re looking at the rosters as they now exist, and there will no doubt be some changes—trades, free-agent signings, Rule 5 selections, and so on—that will affect the players we identify. But you’re not waiting until the lockout ends to do your deep draft, and neither are we, so let’s get to it. The numbers in parentheses are NFBC Average Draft Position for all drafts since the start of the year:

Toronto: Jordan Romano is the Blue Jays’ closer. He had a fine season in 2021, and we wish him well. However, take a look at Tim Mayza (734), who was coming off TJ surgery last season. (Romano’s also a TJ survivor.) Especially take a look at him from May 16th on, after he had a four-game hiccup when he couldn’t get anyone out. He then became essentially unhittable (the lowest hard-hit percentage of the 200+ relievers who pitched 30+ innings in that period) and a ground ball machine to boot (13th highest groundball percentage). Moreover, he was able to get right-handed hitters out, which he’d had trouble with before. And you won’t complain about his strikeouts (10 K per 9 IP). We envision an encore.

Baltimore: This is quite possibly the worst non-expansion team we’ve seen in six decades of baseball fandom. They’ve got some good prospects, of course including future superstar Adley Rutschman, but you can go way down the depth chart and not find anyone who figures to help them before late in the season. Having twice before recommended the perpetually injured Richie Martin, we can’t bring ourselves to do so again. Kelvim Gutierrez is a way better hitter than he showed last season, and we might like him if he qualified at middle infield, but he doesn’t and won’t. The best we can do is Jorge Mateo (455), a streaky hitter who should get some stolen bases, won’t destroy your batting average, and has only the dismal Rougned Odor standing between him and a full-time job at second base.

Tampa Bay: This is a superbly assembled team, which is a problem for us Fantasy players, because everyone on the team does exactly and only what he’s capable of, which means that there’s nobody hiding, nobody that the entire world can’t assess. We talked a bit about Vidal Brujan in the Comments section of last week’s article. Maybe something will happen at first base, where they may not be able to tolerate Ji-Man Choi’s weak glove, limited power, and inability to hit left-handed pitching, even as the strong side of a platoon. In that case, Yandy Díaz figures to cobble together enough plate appearances and has enough upside to be worth getting at ADP 384. But if you’re looking for a Ouija-Board level dark horse, you might try Jonathan Aranda, who’s been taken by no one in NFBC even though he had what was arguably the best hitting season in the high minors last year.

Yankees: Miguel Andújar (690) was healthy for about six weeks last season, during the second half of May and all of June. The numbers for that six weeks—.283/.313/.441, 5 HR in 119 PA—look kind of like his big 2018 numbers, if you squint hard enough. If the A Team is healthy, he won’t play much. But if there’s an injury—and you know there will be—you can imagine him filling in as a corner infielder or outfielder and hitting well enough to be in your lineup.

Boston: Christian Vázquez played too much last season (119 starts) and wore down some towards the end. Granted that he’s a nonpareil glove, but Kevin Plawecki (641) is pretty good too, and he loves Fenway (.349/.409/.510 career record). We figure he’ll play a bit more, hit about the same, and be a better guy to have on hand than some catcher who plays more but hits less.

Cleveland: This is a real stars-and-scrubs teams, but the scrubs are dominant. We can’t believe they’re going to give this team as is to Terry Francona in what could well be his last season of managing, so perhaps they’ll sign some free agents. Meanwhile, though, everyone’s pencilling Steven Kwan in as the strong side of a left field platoon, but we don’t see why—he doesn’t look that good to us. Oscar Mercado (651) is evidently the short side of that platoon, because he supposedly can’t hit right-handed pitching, but he actually can, he just didn’t do it last year. We can imagine him taking over in left field full-time, or perhaps doing the same thing in right field, because the sad fact seems to be that the incumbent Bradley Zimmer can’t hit.

Detroit: We can imagine Spencer Torkelson having a Pete Alonsoish rookie season. We can also, however, imagine him hitting .150, striking out a lot, stumbling around at first base, and getting sent down for more seasoning. If that happens, Jonathan Schoop probably moves over to first base, leaving second base open for one of two guys: Ryan Kreidler (not taken), who developed a shiny new swing and showed unwonted power in the high minors, or (more probably) Isaac Paredes (740), who’s been overmatched so far in his major league career, but gets on base a decent amount, has a bit of power, is only 23, and has a glove that should keep him in the lineup if his bat doesn’t take him out of it.

Kansas City: We’re surprised at how good this team looks. Daniel Lynch (509) understandably wore down as he approached 120 innings last year, and he won’t get you the strikeouts you crave. But for about a month, from late July to the end of August, encompassing seven starts, including six against playoff teams, he was one of the best starting pitchers in baseball, and we think that’s who he’ll turn out to be.

Minnesota: Two years ago, Trevor Larnach (553) was deemed as good a prospect as Alex Kiriloff, by virtue of the gargantuan power he displayed in college. He hasn’t displayed it in pro ball yet. But sometimes players who hit moonshots as amateurs take a while to get untracked as pros. The guy who comes to mind is Jim Edmonds. Larnach figures to be at least the strong side of an outfield platoon, and he’s not helpless against left-handed pitching, so he could wind up as a full-timer. Certainly worth a shot at the prevailing price.

White Sox: We get that Gavin Sheets (471) qualifies only at UT, and likely won’t qualify anywhere else during the season. But we still want him before the 30th round. He’s shown real power in both the minors and the majors, he destroys right-handed pitching, he does okay against lefties, he’s hitting behind several of the best hitters in baseball, and his only real competition for a daily DH slot, if that’s what the White Sox are using, is Andrew Vaughn, who plainly needs more time in the minors, as long as the Sox don’t think their third-overall draft pick’s ceiling is as the short side of a platoon.