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Last season, Josh Naylor and Juan Soto defied all expectations and each stole at least 30 bases. In the previous three seasons combined, they stole just 25 or fewer bases. With such a major jump, I wanted to see how many bases players stole after such a major increase. The answer is way more than I would have guessed. Read the rest of this entry »

This year, a new projection system called OOPSY by Jordan Rosenblum joined our preseason forecasts. I decided to put it to the test by comparing its wOBA projections to those of our Depth Charts to identify the hitters it was most bullish and bearish on. With the final numbers now in the books, let’s see which system more accurately forecasted these players’ wOBA marks.

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Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

With no ADP yet, I’m going to start diving into some deeper outfielders. For the players, I used the last outfielders drafted in the first 11 rounds of the Too Early Meatball Draft. One caveat: I’m not going to feature anyone who is still playing (sorry, Addison Barger) or should be a free agent. I want as much information as possible on the player. There are plenty of outfielders to examine now and then later.

Note: I plan on using the the Final Take writeups in my outfielder rankings when they come up in little over a month.

Dylan Crews (Pick 146): There were high hopes for the 23-year-old top prospect (we had him ranked as #3 overall prospect) coming into the 2025 season. He was limited to 322 PA over 85 Games because of a mid-May oblique strain. He did not return until mid-August. Before going on the IL, he had a .620 OPS and a .643 OPS after returning. While the values seemed similar, he was a different hitter.

Before the injury, he posted a 28% K% (.196 AVG), and he was able to drop it to a 19% K% after the injury (.222 AVG). The improved contact came with a tradeoff, with all his power metrics down (.158 ISO to .126 ISO, 15% Barrel% to 5% Barrel%). He showed no signs of gaining his early-season power.

On the hitting front (I’ll get to the stolen bases in a bit), he has the deadly combination of too many Strikeouts for his limited power. On their own, they aren’t an issue, but the combination is. Here are the hitters around him in HardHit%-K% (min 300 PA).

Some upward regression is expected since he has the lowest OPS of the group. Also, it’s nice to see Greene, Robert, and Edwards on the list since they got drafted ahead of Crews. Overall though, it’s an uninspiring list.

The 17 SB saved Crews’ fantasy value, and the hope is that he’ll double them with a mid-30s total. There could even be hope of more since he stole 11 bags before going on the IL and just six after returning. Or he could minimize his injury risk and have a mid-20s stolen base total.

Final Take: As Dylan Crews enters in age-24 season, he needs to show improvement with his power and/or contact skills to take a step forward to be at least a league-average hitter (77 wRC+ in ’15). His steals can be valuable as long as he’s not a drain in other categories. If he were on a better team, there would be a risk of a demotion, but the Nationals will have nothing to play for and will keep sending him out.

Jakob Marsee (Pick 148): The one person I wrote about in my waiver wire report that I’ve got the most feedback on was Marsee. After the trade deadline, a spot opened up for him with Jesús Sánchez going to the Astros. All I wrote was:

Jakob Marsee: Just promoted to the majors while batting .246/.379/.438 with 14 HR and 57 SB in AAA.

In fairness, I didn’t care much about his overall game, but just the 57 bases he stole. At that point in the season in a Roto league, several teams could use a boost in stolen bases, and that’s what the 24-year-old provided … and more. In 235 PA (55 G), he had 5 HR, 14 SB, and a .292 AVG. While he didn’t start batting at the top of the lineup, he eventually got there by rotating through the top three spots. So, what to expect in 2026?

Starting off, here are players with similar projections to his Steamer600, where he ranks as the 144th-best option.

Not the league’s best hitters, but all provide a good number of stolen bases and a dozen or so home runs if they are given a full-time role. But those batting averages. Woof.

Our 3-year ZiPS projections agree with Steamer, non-zero power, and a good number of stolen bases, but with a near .200 AVG.

The disconnect between Marsee’s 2025 season and this projection is the 60 points or more in batting average. I’m going to go against this projection (hopefully, a clearer picture emerges once other projections become available).

I can see why the projections are not a fan of him after, in the minors, he posted a .200 AVG in ’24 and a .246 AVG in ’24. Those are over 1000 PA against weaker competition to help drag down his overall projection. On the positive side:

1. He posted a .283 xAVG, not much lower than his .292 AVG.
2. He maintains a reasonable strikeout rate and won’t need a high BABIP to keep his batting average up.
3. I have three batted ball and swing comps I can run. They average out to a .245 AVG and .280 BABIP. By increasing his rate stats by 13 points, the comps are better, but still not great.

Final Take: Jakob Marsee should be amongst the league leaders in stolen bases with double-digit home runs if given a full-time role. The biggest disagreement will be with his batting average. Will it be closer to the projections, .200 AVG to .220 AVG, or the nearly .300 AVG hitter he was in 2025.

Jac Caglianone (Pick 161): Caglianone’s 2025 minor league stats (1.025 OPS) compared to Nick Kurtz (1.090 OPS), but they were opposites once promoted to the majors. Kurtz nearly matched his minor league production with a 1.002 OPS. Caglianone was at half that number (.532 OPS).

Caglianone dealt with a mid-season hamstring strain, but the effects of it didn’t drag him down since he hit worse before going on the IL (.485 OPS) than after it (.643 OPS). No reasonable fantasy manager is aiming for a .643 OPS with an earlier round pick.

He struggled in all aspects of his game, with the main drags being a .172 BABIP and a 50% GB%, especially with a Sprint Speed in the bottom third of the league. He’s not beating out many throws to first base. Additionally, his power was good but not elite.

I hate to go with the answer (upward) “regression”, but all his comps and projections point to a .245 to .250 AVG. Say, he hits .250 with 25 HR (if he repeats 2025, he should have a high teens home run number) and no stolen bases. Those numbers are comparable to the Andrew Vaughn, Brett Baty, and Josh Bell level of batter. Not a top-10 round talent.

Now, if Caglianone can push those numbers to 30 and a .265 AVG, he’s more in the Riley Greene and Austin Riley talent level. Or he could repeat his 2025 season and be unrosterable. Nobody knows.

Final Take: Fantasy managers need to have a reality check when it comes to Jac Caglianone. Since he’s only shown the ability to hit for power in the majors, he’s just an accumulator. There is no hope for more than 1 or 2 SB, but he could be a positive contributor in batting average. Or he could repeat 2025 and be nearly unplayable. Gamble away.

Kerry Carpenter (Pick 163): As long as he’s healthy (see 2024), Carpenter is the easiest 25 HR, 0 SB, .265 AVG, and 460 PA projection. In two of his last three seasons, these numbers were almost identical, and the value wasn’t there in 2024 when he dealt with a back injury. In 2025, he came in as the 122nd-rated hitter and the 116th in 2023. A safe bet would be between the 110th and 130th hitter in 2026.

The 28-year-old sees limited at-bats because he struggles against lefties. Over his career, he has a .866 OPS against righties and a .606 OPS against lefties. He didn’t show much improvement last season with a .638 OPS against lefties.

With his consistency, the key is to find any possible upside. The most obvious would be batting against lefties, where he’d see his three counting stats go up but his batting average drop. There aren’t any other areas for him to improve unless he goes full Josh Naylor and starts stealing bases out of nowhere. He is who we thought he was.

Final Take: While a strong-side platoon bat, the consistent Kerry Carpenter is a solid bet to hit around a .265 AVG with 25 HR.

Yukihito Taguchi-USA TODAY Sports

To get an idea of a player’s production when moving from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) and Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), I compiled a list of players who made the move and their MLB results. With the results, I compiled a list of comps to get a range of possible outcomes. We have several players coming over for their debut, but also returning arm trying to make an impact after 55 uneventful innings 2020-21.

Here they are:

Note: If I missed anyone to find the comps for, let me know. I’ll add them later to this article or possibly to Mining the News.

KBO: Hitters

Baek-ho Kang 강백호 (link)

He’ll need a full-time job to be worth a late-round pick. I’m a pass for now. Read the rest of this entry »

With the season nearly complete, this article takes a final look at OOPSY’s projections-based top 60 prospects in an effort to give readers a jump start on the offseason.

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Hello, and welcome to one of the last Position Player Playing Time Changes roundups of the year! We’ve got plenty to go over this week, as usual, but before we dive in it’s important to note how the methodology makes for some large swings this late in the season.

Because we’re looking at remaining playing time and there’s so little time left in the season, even the most minor of injuries — like an IL stint for Alec Bohm that’s expected to be the minimum ten days — can lead to massive swings in playing time because the Phillies only have 18 games left. For example, if this was Opening Day and Bohm was expected to miss only ten games, his projected playing time would only go down six percent. But now even a relatively minor injury means his playing time goes down 50 percentage points. Basically, there’s an inverse relationship between games remaining in the season and the significance of an individual injury, which is why our list keeps getting longer with each week!

With that explanation out of the way, let’s get to it:

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Happy Friday, and welcome to the first Pitcher Playing Time Changes rundown of September! As always, there’s a lot to go over, with the injury hits continuing to come and teams like the Mets making significant rotation changes.

Welcome to September’s first Position Player Playing Time Changes roundup! Waiver claims and some unfortunate injuries are the highlight of this week’s summary, as well as a notable prospect recall in the Royals’ Carter Jensen.

Happy Friday, and welcome to the last Pitcher Playing Time Changes of August! We’re running out of time on the regular season, which means a lot of pitchers are running out of time to return from injuries. Others, however, like Chris Sale, will come back and at least get the consolation prize of ending the year healthy and having pitched in MLB games.

Welcome to the last Position Player Playing Time Changes roundup of August, highlighted by Adley Rutschman’s injury leading to some rearranging with the Orioles.