Playing Time Messes: Rays, Reds, Cards, & Orioles
I’ve got the draft and auction for two 12-team leagues coming. The Beat Jeff Zimmerman league is this Sunday night at 8 EST and also the mixed LABR auction in Florida. I’ve been grinding down the top-360 players (12 teams x 30 players per team). In these shallower formats, playing time is key for any mid to late-round targets. The following four teams are giving me pause when considering rostering some of their players.
Reds
The Reds have two or three too many players and several players will end up in the 450 to 550 PA range. When healthy, I believe Joey Votto, Mike Moustakas, Nicholas Castellanos, and Eugenio Suarez are safe. Freddy Galvis should be but his bat is so bad, he could lose playing time to possibly Nick Senzel.
The congestion starts in the outfield. Senzel is going to try to play center with Shogo Akiyama, Phillip Ervin, and Travis Jankowski as backup options. That leaves Akiyama along with Aristedes Aquino and Jesse Winker fighting it out for the right-field job.
I have a feeling Senzel is just going to get messed around. He could stick in center field or not. If not, does he get added to the right-field mess? Or does he go to shortstop? Or does he go to second if Suarez or Moustakas gets hurt? And what if Senzel can’t stay off the IL? Who is moving to his Position of the Month? If he struggles, does he just go to the bench? I like Senzel, but I’d like to see his position and playing time be assured.
I’ll roster the first four around their ADP but am moving Senzel to my reserve rounds.
Rays
Once a mess, always a mess.
When healthy, I feel good about Willy Adames and Austin Meadows getting full-time at-bats. That’s it. Of the other two outfield spots, Kevin Kiermaier and Hunter Renfroe, one will be in a platoon with Yoshitomo Tsutsugo. Both are below against right-handed pitching (career 65 wRC+ for Kiermaier, 90 wRC+ for Renfroe), but so is Margot (75 wRC+). The other rookie options are also right-handed. If the Rays find another left-hander to fit into the mix, the other outfielder’s playing time will drop.
Besides Adames, the infield continues where it left off last season with platoons across the board. Our Depth Charts are giving Brandon Lowe a little more love than I can. Lefty pitchers just tore him up with a 46% K%. One of the other righties will fill in for him when a southpaw starts. It’s the Rays way. Third base will likely be a Joey Wendle and Yandy Diaz platoon. And the first base and DH situation have Ji-Man Choi, Nathaniel Lowe, Jose Martinez, and the DH flavor of the day (11 players at DH last season).
None of the platoon bats are worth drafting in a 12-teamer. Since they need a platoon partner, they are borderline talents, and the playing time drop makes them unownable.
Cardinals
I didn’t see the Cardinals having playing time concerns until I really started investigating Tommy Edman. At the moment, he doesn’t have a full-time job but has an average draft position (ADP) of 138. In 12-team leagues, he is a top-12 round pick. While the double-digit steals could be nice in the projected 450 PA, the R+RBI total barely goes over 100. Carlos Santana, who is being drafted a few picks later, has an R+RBI total over 200.
The key to Edman’s value jumping is Matt Carpenter’s health which isn’t as bad as some people make it out to be. He’s averaged 589 PA over that past four seasons. Before then, he had three straight seasons of at least 665 PA. Last season, he went on the IL for a lower back strain and a bruised foot. The back could be a chronic issue since it has flared up in the past. I could see owners shying away if they need to count on him but he was great in 2018 and could lock down third base.
Edman also has the opportunity to play in the outfield where none one stands out. The three spots need to be shared between Tyler O’Neill, Harrison Bader, Dylan Carlson, Dexter Fowler, and Edman. Who out of that group has the talent to obviously demand a job no matter how much they struggle? I can’t see one. In this shallow of a league, it’s impossible to count on any of these suspect talents. I’ll gamble on Edman if he falls but someone will draft him before I can.
Bonus Call: Austin Dean will be this year’s Cardinals mystery breakout player. The ex-Marlin is projected to have the fifth-highest wOBA on the team.
Orioles
Figuring out the outfield playing time is tough. At least until Chris Davis is released or several bodies go on the IL. The playing time issues start at third base where Rio Ruiz pushed Renato Núñez to the DH. With the DH spot full, Chris Davis will need to show off his ineptitude at first. Trey Mancini is pushed to the outfield. When Ruiz and Davis fail, Mancini moves out of the outfield mix.
In addition to Mancini, the other outfield options are Anthony Santander, Dwight Smith Jr., Ryan Mountcastle, D.J. Stewart, Austin Hays, and Cedric Mullins II. They all have enough talent to be interesting, especially Hays who could hit 20 homers and have 10+ steals. I believe a couple of players out of this group will be useful by the season’s end. It’s just impossible to know who gets the majority of the playing time. I’m going to closely monitor the Spring Training lineups to get a better idea of the Orioles plan.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
The Reds invested a reasonable amount into Shogo Akiyama. He should get at least 500PA in the OF as well I would think.
Also LHB Tsutsugo should be in the mix for Rays 1B/OF maybe? More likely DH.
Jeff was probably looking at the FanGraphs Depth Charts pages for each team – those don’t show Akiyama or Tsutsugo, presumably because neither of those players has their own FanGraphs page, presumably because neither has played stateside yet. (Same goes for import pitchers like Shun Yamaguchi and Kwang-hyun Kim, they’re also missing from Depth Charts though all of those players are listed in the RosterResource team pages.)
Correct
I thought it was more of a mess and thought something was missing. I need to get on the boss to add the players.
Agree with Konoldo.
Jeff, you are light on your depth of insight on this article. Very unlike you
Hopefully, I’ll regress.
Highly Likely!
Lane Thomas will get a shot at starting LF position for the Cardinals. Personally I think its him in LF, Bader in CF and O’Neill/ Fowler/ Dean in RF. Carlson gets the call and takes over for whom ever is not producing.
Fowler proved last season that he’s still got enough left in the tank to hold down a full-time job (assuming his production doesn’t crater again like in 2018). Meanwhile, Bader did his best with the bat to show he’s not a full-time player. It’s up to Bader to win his job back in Spring Training and early in the season, not Fowler, otherwise Bader will keep losing playing time to the others (with Fowler likely shifting over to CF when he doesn’t play). Also, don’t forget that Edman will likely get plenty of OF time as well, especially if Carpenter bounces back at 3B.
You’re right that Lane Thomas was a strange omission, though. Although, I think he’s currently behind O’Neill on the depth chart.
Thomas also has a legit shot at starting in CF. His defense is nearly on par with Bader’s.
Kevin Kiermaier has a career wRC+ of 103 vRHP, 83 vLHP, not sure where you got that figure from. There is plenty to sort out there, of course. Meadows and Adames will be the only everyday guys with Meadows seeing plenty of DH days especially at home to keep him off the Tropcrete. Kiermaier/Margot seems like a lock for CF with Margot also being a great option off the bench for one of the good-OBP plodders and then going to the OF to finish the game. RF should be Renfroe and Tsutsugo with Arozarena getting everyday playing time in Durham until the first OF injury.
The infield looks like Adames at SS almost every day with Robertson filling in occasionally and likely seeing a lot of lefties at 2B for BLowe. Wendle will probably play everyday in Durham, but be the first guy up when an infielder goes down. The corners will see plenty of trial by fire this spring with some crossplay out of Yandy Diaz, Tsutsugo, Nate Lowe, who I think starts in AAA, but will get plenty of reps at 3B, Brosseau a similar story with more defensive flex, and Robertson also seeing time there. 1B will be many of those guys, but also Ji-Man Choi seeing every righty. Jose Martinez looks like a lock for nearly everyday DH, though could also be the RHB complement at 1B for Choi, though I understand he has looked quite bad over there. So has Yandy FWIW.
Spring will be informative if guys like Tsutsugo and Nate Lowe can play on the left side of an infield or at least if the bat can offset what should be a weaker glove.
The Rays are great for daily roster leagues, like Ottoneu, lets you maximize pts/ab! Especially with 20+ bench spots. And platoon’ers come cheap most of the time!
And really tough to use in weekly leagues outside of like draft n holds, cutline or draft champions with huge rosters. Love the Ottoneu setup for sure.
Kiermaier’s splits over the last 2 years are more like wRC+ of 76 vRHP, 84 vLHP and that is more representative of his batting value. He no longer hits RHP that well and that makes him vulnerable.
Kiermaier is that bad against righties? I thought he was pretty solid against right handed pitching as a lefty
Matt Carpenter’s health wasn’t that much of an issue last season. It was that he simply sucked. He’ll need a nice bounceback year to regain his full-time job at 3B, or else he’ll wind up in a timeshare with Edman (who will also play elsewhere, as well) again. His track record says to expect one, but then again he’s 34.
Matt carpenter has already burned me 3 different seasons. No more