Welcome back to my annual off-season series that has a quick-and-dirty review of all 30 minor league systems around baseball. This feature began way back in 2008 and wraps up with the 30th and final piece with the 2019 baseball season now upon us.

If you were perusing this series in late 2017 you would have read:

The Sleeper: Myles Straw, OF: I’m a sucker for hitters like Straw. He’s one of those speedy guys that understands he just needs to get on base to be valuable and sacrifices the power to make contact. He also uses what the pitchers give him and will constantly pepper the opposite field. He’s no threat to hit even five homers in a season but he still has pop in his bat; he produced a 22.5% line drive rate in 2017 and was at 26% in Low-A ball in ’16. Straw is a threat to hit .270-.300 as a big leaguer with the ability to steal 20+ bases as a full-time player but he’s probably best suited for a fourth-outfielder role. And he has a chance to be a very good one.

Now on to the new stuff:

First Taste of The Show: Josh James, RHP: A former 34th round pick, James saw his fastball velocity trend upward over the past year and so did his fortunes. He can now overpower hitters to make up for his modest command, and he’s also shown improvements in his secondary offerings. He may end up with three average-or-better offerings. James still has some detractors because of his iffy command/control but another strong season in 2019 will quiet talk of him ending up in the bullpen. He’s been mostly durable as a pro and could provide at least 150-160 innings during the coming season — much of which should come from the Astros rotation.

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I’ve been considering this article’s concept for a while and am going to try it out for a couple of weeks and see if it is useful. I’ll spend three hours catching an hour of three different games and writing my thoughts and diving into deeper into areas of fantasy interest. Here is take #1 and let me know your thoughts.

Orioles at Yankees

• It was an easy choice for taking this game. Scherzer versus deGrom sounded like a 1-0 game with the Mets bullpen letting deGrom down (I was close but wrong).
• The top of the Orioles lineup could steal a few bases nothing to play for and Cedric Mullins, Dwight Smith Jr., and Jonathan Villar as those first three. I had to examine Smith and determined why I didn’t know more about him. He’s kind of boring with a projection near 10 homers, 10 steals, and a .240 average. Maybe it will be just Mullins and Villar stealing bases.
• Like it’s going to matter but Andrew Cashner’s velocity was up a tick.
• Luke Voit with a bomb (113 mph) to straightaway center. His power is legit and needs to be in the Yankees lineup every day.
• Additionally, Luke Voit possesses some 80-grade hair.

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As the regular season nears, I’m trying to stay on top of any lineup changes. It’s the National League’s turn to go under the microscope.

Arizona

• The Diamondbacks lineup is in flux with Steven Souza Jr. possibly having a messed up knee. Adam Jones may have stumbled into some full-time reps and possibly Jarrod Dyson if Jones’s defense is subpar.
• Ketel Marte has not been playing in the outfield, so the center field experiment may be over before it even started. The problem is that there aren’t enough infield spots to go around. The biggest issue is that Nick Ahmed has played shortstop in five of the last seven games. Eduardo Escobar seems entrenched at third. So the Wilmer Flores experiment may be over at second base (Marte’s spot) and Flores and Jake Lamb will platoon at first.

Atlanta Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to my annual off-season series that has a quick-and-dirty review of all 30 minor league systems around baseball. This feature began way back in 2008.

First Taste of The Show: Danny Jansen, C: Jansen couldn’t have been more under-the-radar as a 16th round draft pick out of an obscure Wisconsin high school. But he showed promise with the bat pretty much right away, although he battled through inconsistencies, which eventually led to glasses and to a breakout season in 2017. Jansen has become a threat on both sides of the ball and has shown solid make-up and drive. He may still be scratching the surface on what he’s capable of, especially at the plate, as he’s shown a solid eye, good bat-to-ball skill, and promising gap pop.

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No matter how poor your draft(s) went this year, at least you are not this guy:

When you are going to set a queue before a draft, don’t start with your sleepers in case you show up late: (via: @GBFantasyBB) pic.twitter.com/2U7pvosXxa

— Justin Mason (@JustinMasonFWFB) March 27, 2019

Or this guy:

Some have asked to see the draft board of my Main Event from Vegas this weekend that @Jeff_Erickson and I detailed on the Pod. Here are the first 10 rounds with names removed (since there are still Main Events going on the next 2 nights). pic.twitter.com/foFIeFgnse

— Scott Jenstad (@ScottJenstad) March 26, 2019

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It’s easy to dismiss Spring Training stats. Heck, I used to vehemently deny they had ANY value. They are small samples against a wide variety of competition so how valuable can they truly be to what’s about to take place in the upcoming season? Pretty valuable it seems, if you’re looking at the right ones. Many studies have been conducted on spring stats and they have found that certain stats are indeed useful. The consensus is that strikeouts, walks, power, and stolen bases can be meaningful. With that in mind, here are five stats that stood out to me from the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues.

Jung Ho Kang: .548 ISO in 45 PA

Kang is back in the States and grabbed hold of the 3B job with a massive spring. His .548 ISO was an MLB-best among the 250 players with at least 41 PA. Of his 10 hits, seven left the yard and two others were doubles. He did fan 18 times (40%) so he seemed to sell out for the power and maybe he ups his 21% K rate, but I’d gladly take a 25-27% K rate if he’s going to chase down 30+ HRs.

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It’s time to overly exaggerate some of my pre-season hunches and create some BOLD predictions.

Note: For the rankings, I will use our auction calculator. For ADP, I’m using the NFBC ADP from 12 Main Event leagues which drafted from March 22nd to March 25th.

1. Jung Ho Kang will be a top-10 starting third baseman by season’s end.

He is being drafted as the 26th third baseman off the board this past weekend. This prediction was easy. In 2015, he was the 15th overall third baseman in 467 PA. Why not the same production in 600 PA?

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3/25/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 20, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER20!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Co-Host/Producer

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Miami rotation – Wei-Yin Chen to pen; Dan Straily optioned (6:15)
• Atlanta rotation – Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright and Max Fried make it (22:30)
  • Kevin Gausman on IL

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I’m experimenting with a new article format this year. Instead of concentrating on the most added players, I’m going to concentrate on those poor souls owners are throwing in the towel on. Most of the discarded players will have been demoted to the minor or dinged up. It’s the few who don’t fit into either of these two categories who I will focus on. Sadly, there aren’t many this first week.

To find which players are being dropped, I’m going to use the NFBC Main Event leagues. They are 15-team roto leagues which have some depth and most of the owners will be trying since each posted a $1K+ entry fee. The league will contain active owners making overall trends easier to spot. This week, I have the adds and drops from only 18 leagues since some leagues haven’t drafted yet and included my top-three choices at the end.

Injured List

Jason Kipnis: 7

Kipnis and the scrubs the Indians are using in the infield should be monitored closely. Kipnis should get his job back once healthy and he could be a reasonable buy a week early for a team needing infield help.

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3/24/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

Follow us on Twitter

• @justinmasonfwfb – Host/Producer
• @jasoncollette – Co-Host

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

Notable transactions, injuries, rumors

• Scooter Gennett out 8-12 weeks
• Eloy Jimenez gets paid

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