Not every top prospect immediately plays at an all-star level during their rookie campaign. Not every former top prospect improves each and every year in lockstep until their big breakout. Sometimes prospects take at least a season or two before it all clicks. Sometimes it clicks, but then pitchers or hitters adjust, and they regress before rebounding. Sometimes prospects simply need some additional time in the minor leagues to iron out their kinks before returning with a bang. Every player is different, so it would be silly to write off former top prospects just because they didn’t meet expectations immediately.

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We’re getting close to 50% completion of the 2024 season, so I thought the time was right for a midseason update to my projections-based prospect ranks. You can find more methodological detail, along with the preseason lists here (bats) and here (arms).

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The Prospect episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: James Anderson

Prospects

• The top prospects already in the major leagues
• Has the new incentives for rookies changed the timing of prospect call-ups?
• Prospects to make an impact in 2024
• Prospects to make an impact in 2025

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

Strategy Section

• Hit rates for prospects
• What translates to short term success for prospects?
• What translates to long term success for prospects?
• How much FAAB should you bid on prospects when they come up to the majors (NFBC)?
• How early should you pick up prospects off of the waiver wire (home leagues)?
• When should you trade for/away prospects in keeper leagues?
• When should you cut bait on a prospect in redraft leagues?

Waiver Wire

Pitcher Preview

Mailbag

Injury Update

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This article ranks the game’s top projected hitting prospects by peak wRC+ heading into 2024 (it does not incorporate any 2024 data). It is a counterpart to this February piece on baseball’s top projected pitching prospects. I only just got done with my offseason methodological updates for hitters–please forgive me for publishing this one week into the season!

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This is Jordan Rosenblum’s debut at Rotographs. 

I’ve spent the last couple of seasons building out a fully-fledged projection system. You may have seen the StuffPlus-fueled version of them, ppERA, published by Eno Sarris over at The Athletic, or else variations of them elsewhere. Like most projection systems, mine includes aging curves, major league equivalencies, park factors, league run environment adjustments, historical performance, and regression to the mean.

My pitching projections performed well in terms of predictive accuracy in 2023, generally holding their own against other more established projection systems, with my rookie projections performing especially well. I must, however, concede that Steamer dominated the field overall—all hail! This article unveils my top 10 projected pitching prospects for 2024 and beyond, highlighting names worth breaking the TINSTAAP pledge for.

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Prospects have become increasingly important to winning re-draft fantasy leagues. Of course, they have always been major in-season acquisitions, but now they’re making their presence felt at the draft table, too. With more fantasy managers aware of the prospects who are likely to have an impact in a given season, the battle for their services has become much more fevered, leading some managers to stash desirable prospects for a month or two rather than try to pluck them off the wire once they are called up and risk missing out.

These guys aren’t draftable in every format, but I cast a wide net so that the list has utility across many formats and can be revisited when those who don’t break camp on a big league roster are called up. All of them should be in the majors for a substantial portion of the 2024 season. It is worth familiarizing yourself with them so that you’re ready to bid on the ones who aren’t draftable in your particular league.

These rankings are now available on the 2024 Fantasy Rankings tab of The Board, where you can also see the Top 150 Dynasty Rankings!

This year, I’ve added fantasy profile comparisons for each hitter to give you an idea of what to expect from them upon arrival. Remember, these are for the 2024 season; some of these players will develop beyond these specific comparisons in future years. I tried to stay as current as possible with my comps, but sometimes I reached a little further back in the vault when the fit was just too good to pass up. There might also be some handedness switches, as I focused more on the statistical output than a perfect 1:1 on their look. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re still a month from the Ottoneu trade deadline, but trades aren’t the only way for rebuilders to, well, rebuild. There are hundreds of prospects across baseball and only a small handful are regularly rostered in Ottoneu leagues, which means you can often find interesting names sitting out there as free agents. Today I am going to look at some prospects I like who are available in at least half of Ottoneu leagues.

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In yesterday’s Hot Right Now, I noted that Paul Skenes and Wyatt Langford are the two players with the most live auctions in Ottoneu leagues. I also gave only high-level thoughts on the two of them and then promised I would be back with more today. Today we will look more broadly at recent draftees and whether or not they have value in Ottoneu.

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Recently, I had to write up Luis Matos and saw he raked in AAA to the tune of .398/.435/.685 in 116 PA. Luis played for the Sacramento River Cats. in the Pacific Coast League (PCL). So far in the PCL, the league-wide OPS of .839 OPS while it is only a .728 OPS in the majors. The league-wide difference can’t be used because not all the hitters get promoted and many who do are only up for a short time. I just ran a quick test to have an idea of how much of a production drop should be expected from AAA to the majors. Read the rest of this entry »

The Prospects episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Eric Cross

Strategy Section

• Taking stock of Rookies
  • 2023 Pans and Busts
• How much do organizations play into the success of prospects?
• Is there a difference in time to success for prospects between hitters and pitchers?
• Do speed prospects pan out more than power prospects?
• Is the sophomore slump a myth or reality?
• Which prospects skills are most translatable right away to the majors?
• Rookie playing time
  • Where is there more opportunity – on good teams or bad teams?
• Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
• Cost / Benefit of drafting prospects who are set to come up later in the season
  • Balance of time to callup vs. upside
• How to value trades in keeper / dynasty leagues
• Dynasty rankings
  • Where to get dollar values?
  • Multiple time horizon rankings

Top Prospects for the rest of 2023

Top Prospects for 2024

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