Ottoneu: Chad’s Keep or Cut Decisions at MI

As always, I am just following the footsteps of Lucas and Jake, who already covered their tough MI keeper decisions this week. They covered a few guys I also have to make calls on, but we’ll turn our attention to some new names for today.

Will Wagner, 1B/2B
Salary: $6
Average Salary: $4
2024 P/G: 4.43
Proj 2025 P/G: 4.90

Roster Resource wants me to believe that Wagner is set to be the Jays DH and cleanup hitter to open the season, and that alone is enough to make this price intriguing. But it is early in the off-season and there is plenty of time for Toronto to make more moves and push Wagner to the bench. Then again, he may not belong on the bench. It’s easy to scoff at his .359 BABIP and expect regression, but a .357 xwOBA driven by a 50% hard-hit rate is hard to ignore.

Wagner also looks like a guy who should show improved walk rates moving forward. He needed that high BABIP in part because he only walked 4.7% of the time once he was up in the big leagues, but his minor league track record paints a very different picture, which goes a long way to explaining why his Steamer-projected walk-rate (10%) is more than double his MLB performance to-date.

The challenge with Wagner is that his profile doesn’t suggest a ton of power, the great hard-hit rate aside. He hit eight homers in 441 plate appearances in Triple-A and MLB last year, and that set a new career-high for homers in a pro season. If he, in fact, enters April with a job, and piles up a full-season of PA, he looks like a high OBP, limited power bat, with 10-15 HR. Think Jonathan India without the stolen bases. That isn’t a bad player.

Keep or cut?

I’ll keep if I think he is starting and playing nearly every day. The profile lacks the upside for me to want to wait on him, but if I can plug him in right away (and get an early read on how well he will produce for me), I am in.

 

Curtis Mead, 1B/2B
Salary: $4
Average Salary: $5
2024 P/G: 4.11
Proj 2025 P/G: 4.63

Like Wagner, my starting point is “where does Mead fit in?” He qualifies at 2B, plays 3B, could be a 1B, but the options in Tampa may not leave much room for him. Yandy Diaz, Junior Caminero, and Brandon Lowe hold the three spots Mead fits best, with Jonathan Aranda currently slated for DH. And that assumes that Carson Williams doesn’t take over at SS, pushing Jose Caballero into the same mess as Mead. Others could fight into that mix, as well, both internal options and anyone the Rays pick up as a FA or via trade. With Christopher Morel slated for the OF, even another OF bat could create issues for Mead. And he appears to be on the outside looking in already.

Which brings us to Mead himself and, more importantly, his bat. In 787 Triple-A PA, Mead has looked every bit the fantasy darling. He doesn’t strike out a ton, he has 26 homer runs, he’s even flashed some speed. But that hasn’t translated as he has just 2 HR in 224 MLB PA, with a .274 wOBA. And that is propped up by his first look in 2023 – his 2024 season was even worse.

Mead has shown that he can hit the ball hard, as evidenced by his 112 max EV, but he doesn’t do it often enough, running 30.8% Hard-hit rate and 3.8% barrel-rate in his young career.

Is Mead toast? No. He’s still young. Am I excited about what I see? Well…

Keep or cut?

I think the answer is cut, but if I am rebuilding, I could see holding him to see what he does. The problem is what he is most likely to do, barring more off-season changes, is start the year in Triple-A without a clear path to playing time.

Juan Brito, 1B/2B
Salary: $2
Average Salary: $2
2024 P/G: 5.91 (In Triple-A)
Proj 2025 P/G: 1.86

Ok, so that projected P/G is a pretty big red flag, huh? Steamer sees Brito getting a cup of coffee, and nothing more, and so it’s worth taking that projection (over 24 games) with a grain of salt. Especially because Brito’s minor league results look so good. That doesn’t mean Brito will be a star (just look up at Mead for an example of a player whose major league performance doesn’t match their minor league numbers) but it does mean Brito is likely to do one of two things:

1. Get a look, struggle, get sent down
2. Get a look, show he can hang, and get way more than 24 games performing at a much higher level than sub-2 P/G

Brito will get a shot this year, but the question is when, and I don’t think it will come immediately. So is he a good enough prospect to justify waiting on?

Keep or Cut?

I think I’ll cut. I really like Brito’s profile, but he sliding down the defensive spectrum and while he did show more power last year (21 HR was a big step forward), he’s still much less attractive if he doesn’t hold 2B eligibility.

 

Nico Hoerner, 2B
Salary: $10
Average Salary: $10
2024 P/G: 4.58
Proj 2025 P/G: 4.82

Hoerner took a pretty big step backwards from 2023, but it’s not super easy to identify the specific thing that dropped him back. He hit two fewer HR (though given the drop in PA, it was more like 1.5 fewer HR). He stole 12 fewer bases (and was caught stealing one less time). Those two things combine to explain less than half of his lost points. He also walked less, had a lower BABIP, hit fewer triples, and was hit by fewer pitches. None of those things are individual disasters It’s just a slew of small drop offs that add up to a pretty significant decline, overall.

So which is the real Hoerner? Not surprisingly, his Steamer projection splits the difference, and that is probably the safest bet. But there is one caveat to that, at least for me.

Hoerner’s wOBA, which should closely mirror his points per game in Ottoneu leagues, has moved basically in lockstep with his BABIP. And his BABIP plummeted and stayed very low for a big chunk of the first half of 2024. It could be that he’s going to consistently go through stretches of 2-3 months with a BABIP around .275 and often dipping much lower, but I doubt it. And based on that, I think there is some good reason to think he can put up a full season that looks like his 2023 and the second half of his 2024, and that would push him back up over 5 P/G. But it’s not a given and there is a reason the first projection we have seen this off-season expects him to dip below that.

Keep or Cut?

I am probably going to cut, but I am very curious what other projections say about him. The biggest reason to cut is that $10 is paying for him to get back to that 5 P/G threshold and that feels more like a ceiling than an expectation. I don’t think there is enough power in that bat for him to make a leap to another tier, and I don’t want to pay for ceiling.