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).
The Prospect episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
Guest: James Anderson
Prospects
Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week
Strategy Section
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
Top Prospects for the rest of 2023
Top Prospects for 2024
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ZiPs 2024 gives us some insight as to how prospects will perform if and when they make it to the big leagues. If we can get a general sense of how a player will perform with projections, we can get a general sense of how much they should be valued. To call this process an oversimplification is to look up at the sun and say, “Bright!” Yes, it is an oversimplification, that’s a given. First, we’re trying to predict not only the future performance of a player who hasn’t actually done it yet. Next, we’re trying to determine how much that performance will be worth without any real context. Where will they play? Who will be on their team? Are they as mentally strong as they are physically strong? Finally, we’re assuming they’ll be healthy.
This oversimplified process can only give us a sense of who might perform like a big leaguer in 2024 and since I’m writing from a FanGraphs points scoring system viewpoint, we can make comparisons with other, more established pitchers. Here’s a reminder of my process. First, I find prospect pitchers yet to debut using The Board. Next, I bring in the ZiPs 2024 projections for the players on that list. Not all of them have projections. After that, I convert their projected stats into FanGraphs Ottoneu points. Finally, I throw the prospects and their projected points into Justin Vibber’s Surplus Calculator output for 2023 and make comparisons. The result tells me how these pitchers will perform in 2024 if they are in a pool of 2023 projected players. The dollar value given assumes that next year’s player pool will be much like this year’s player pool. Here’s an example:
| Name | IP | rPTS | rPTS/IP | Dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brandon Pfaadt | 153.0 | 738.0 | 4.82 | $5-$8 |
| Jordan Montgomery | 157.3 | 735.7 | 4.93 | $8 |
Pfaadt is already grabbing the attention of Ottoneu players as his current FanGraphs points average salary is $4, or $3 Median. Will he increase in value by the end of 2024? ZiPs likes his chances and you can compare his projected points total for 2024 with this year’s Jordan Montgomery. If you pay over the average now, let’s say $6, and this projection comes to fruition, you’ll have a good chance of generating value in 2024. There is, however, another scenario where ZiPs is off the mark and he only brings in $4 in 2024. In that case, you’ll be overpaying. Here are the rest of the 2024 ZiPs projected prospect pitchers and what their value could be at the end of the 2024 season:
| Name | IP | rPTS | PTS/IP | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kodai Senga | 142.0 | 688.2 | 4.8 | $13-15 |
| Brandon Pfaadt | 153.0 | 738.0 | 4.8 | $5-8 |
| Tanner Bibee | 115.0 | 466.0 | 4.1 | $3-5 |
| Grayson Rodriguez | 121.7 | 567.4 | 4.7 | $3-$5 |
| Ricky Tiedemann | 112.0 | 513.0 | 4.6 | $3-$5 |
| Robert Gasser | 120.0 | 511.4 | 4.3 | $3-$5 |
| Gavin Stone | 108.0 | 464.0 | 4.3 | $3-$5 |
| Kyle Harrison | 112.0 | 520.7 | 4.6 | $3-$4 |
| Taj Bradley | 120.3 | 528.8 | 4.4 | $2-5 |
| Gavin Williams | 110.3 | 457.1 | 4.1 | $2-$3 |
| Andrew Painter | 112.7 | 451.2 | 4.0 | $2-$3 |
| Daniel Espino | 104.3 | 446.6 | 4.3 | $2-$3 |
| Bobby Miller | 105.3 | 421.1 | 4.0 | $2-$3 |
| Mick Abel | 105.0 | 371.0 | 3.5 | $1-$2 |
| Owen White | 104.0 | 438.1 | 4.2 | $1 |
| Ben Joyce | 56.3 | 275.9 | 4.9 | $1 |
Let’s compare these estimated 2024 values with some current (2023) average/median Ottoneu salaries:
Current FanGraphs Points Leagues Avg./Med.:
Kodai Senga – Average: $15 / Median: $15
Grayson Rodriguez – Average: $4 / Median: $6
Taj Bradley – Average: $3 / Median: $3
Kyle Harrison – Average: $3 / Median: $3
Ricky Tiedemann – Average: $3 / Median: $3
Robert Gasser – Average: $2 / Median: $3
Tanner Bibee – Average: $2 / Median: $1
Gavin Stone – Average: $2 / Median: $2
This is just one way of trying to look into an uncertain future; mashing a bunch of different spreadsheets together and then estimating a value. Is it worth doing, or would you rather just pay a few dollars now to see what happens later? I think this analysis helps us do both. Remember that the goal is to identify future value and not current value. It allows us to prospect on players because we like them or we believe in them or we saw them at a AA game and were impressed. But, it also allows us to put some kind of filter on how we are rostering and for how much. Are you rostering Taj Bradley for $7 because he was bumped up during arbitration, or you got him in a rebuild trade deal when someone else realized his salary was too high? It may be time to re-examine that hold because, by this analysis at least, he won’t reach that value in 2024. Everyone has a strategy and this is just one approach, but it’s utilizing analytical tools and projections from smarter people than myself to provide insight and that can’t be a bad thing.