Chris Tillman is going to be a very popular pick at the end of most drafts this season. Every year, there are a couple of guys that get touted all offseason, causing other owners to make a fuss when a team finally drafts them. In my experiences so far, Tillman is one of those guys. In an experts draft I participated in, Tillman’s selection caused the most “nice pick” messages from other owners. And in the RotoGraphs early mock, at least two other league members told me they liked Tillman where I took him. The love that Tillman has received already is going to make him a sleeper that virtually every owner knows about going into your draft. The fact that he had a 2.93 ERA is going to attract even the most basic fantasy owners. While he might not turn into a superstar this season, Tillman deserves the sleeper hype.

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The pre-season prediction reviews continue this week and today I recap my bold hitter league leaders. Since these players were meant to be bold choices, I purposely did not pick any of the obvious guys or anyone I thought might not be considered very bold. Though I expected to hit a couple of my bold predictions, it would have been quite a surprise if I actually hit on any of these league leaguers. Let’s see how I did.

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When scouting we get a snapshot of a player. The hope is, the player we see today evolves into the player we envision him to be. Ideally, we can watch this progression and alter our perspectives as time passes. That brings me to today’s prospect, Oakland’s Addison Russell. Twice this year I’ve had the chance to see Russell with the Vermont Lake Monsters of the New York – Penn League. But, a year before I was able to see him live, my Bullpen Banter colleague Steve Fiorindo scouted Russell at the Perfect Game Showcase in San Diego. After several weeks and a promotion, Stephen Kuperman was able to see him against more advanced pitching in the Midwest League. It is my hope that these three individual looks at Russell demonstrates that prospects evolve over time and while we can learn a lot in a single look at a player, scouting in small sample sizes can be problematic if we aren’t open to new information and making adjustments. Of course, I’ll also talk about his fantasy outlook, but you’ll have to humor me for just a moment.

Before I begin, take a brief look at Steve’s video of Russell at the Perfect Game Showcase. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, I took a look at the hitter BABIP leaders and tried to determine how sustainable those marks were for 2013. Today, I will check in on the bottom dwellers in the metric. This could be your initial list of undervalued hitters in next year’s fantasy drafts.

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Spinning off of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ promotion of Tyler Skaggs to the majors earlier in the week as they try to make a push for a playoff spot, it seems fitting to do a rundown of all the National League contenders and their prospects who might be in line for a call-up down the stretch, especially once rosters expand in September. Some of these players might seem to be another half-season or so away, but many are are on the verge of getting a shot, just like Skaggs was.

As for fantasy implications, the focus remains on 2012 impact, but this also will help any keeper and dynasty league owners whose settings require a player to debut in the majors before they can be acquired in fantasy.

You can find the American League version here.

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Spinning off of the Baltimore Orioles’ surprising promotion of Manny Machado to the majors last week as they try to hang onto a playoff spot, it seems fitting to do a rundown of all the American League contenders and their prospects who might be in line for a call-up down the stretch, especially once rosters expand in September. Some of these players are on the verge of getting a shot, while others appear to be another half-season or so away — but then, so did Machado, and look how that’s turned out so far.

As for fantasy implications, the focus remains on 2012 impact, but this also will help any keeper and dynasty league owners whose settings require a player to debut in the majors before they can be acquired in fantasy.

Next time, we’ll examine the National League.

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Leading up to Tuesday’s trade deadline each of Major League Baseball’s teams had to decide if they were buyers or sellers. At some point fantasy owners will need to make the same determination and while it’s lovely to be in the money, it’s important to move your assets quickly if you’re not. If you’re selling or have a minor league roster spot open, target Cincinnati’s Robert Stephenson before the rest of your league catches on.

Stephenson joins Californian starters Aaron Sanchez, Taijuan Walker and Joe Ross as one of several high upside pitchers from the area who slipped in the draft in recent years. Now, teams who past over these highly regarded arms are kicking themselves now; their stocks have boomed and each ranks highly on the Bullpen Banter Mid-Season Top 100 and similar lists. Due to his promotion I was able to catch the rising star’s debut with the Dayton Dragons on Minor League Baseball TV and I couldn’t have been more impressed with his development. Read the rest of this entry »

There are so many ways to evaluate the trades over the past week or so, up to and including trade deadline day itself. In the interest of being as niche as possible, let’s look solely at the fantasy values of prospecty types whose roles for the rest of 2012 only could be — or already have been — impacted by the wheelings and dealings.

The players listed below are ranked in a very rough order of how much fantasy relevance they have from today through the end of this season only, based on a combination of their individual talent and their potential opportunity that opened up in the wake of a trade. Given that there’s only two months’ worth of games left, there’s a considerable skew toward players who have already been called up (or who could be soon), even if their current or future skillset rates behind some of the players below them.

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Domonic Brown is back in the bigs. He was once projected by Bill James to go 30/30, so obviously he has the tools to stick in the major leagues. But just as obvious is the fact that he’s not the same prospect he once was. He’s probably the most interesting position player that finds himself with an everyday job after the trade deadline, nonetheless.

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Lucas Duda has now been demoted to Triple-A Buffalo. His work so far can still demonstrate some lessons for all of us.

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