Archive for Josmil Pinto

Woof! That’s all there is to say about my preseason bold predictions as a whole. The idea was to take players at each position that I had ranked just outside starter territory in 12-team leagues who I thought could beat my ranking. Let’s break them down one by one.

Catcher – Josmil Pinto will be a top ten fantasy catcher.

The biggest problem with my Pinto projection was that I projected him for 450 PA. Pinto didn’t come close to that, finishing with just 194 PA because the Twins gave Kurt Suzuki 502 PA. The one thing my projection did get right was Pinto’s power as he hit 12 home runs in limited work. Had he maintained that pace and received the 450 PA I projected, he would have hit 16 home runs, which would have easily surpassed the 12 I projected. Pinto’s power would make him interesting if he could get regular playing time, but Suzuki is signed through 2016 in Minnesota. Read the rest of this entry »

The San Francisco Giants’ backstop is who his fantasy baseball players thought he is when they drafted him, it turns out. It wasn’t always as apparent as it’s been in the past month and a half or so: He’s batted .342/.391/.565, with eight home runs, in 174 plate appearances since the All-Star break. That is why he was (presumably, at every host) the leader among crouchers in average draft position this past March. He’s the only catcher to remain in the first tier all season. At no point did we waver. Right, folks?

My favorite hip-hop act, De La Soul, is supposed to be dropping a new LP by the end of this year. I don’t get excited for many things pop culture, but for this, I am a little. Your definition of pop culture probably doesn’t even include the trio also known as the Plugs, at least not since like high school or something, so just take it easy on me, please. Read the rest of this entry »

This year doesn’t look like a promising one for the promotion of catching prospects, at least those who could make a positive impression in fantasy baseball leagues. The San Diego Padres’ Austin Hedges may prove to be the exception to make his debut. Andrew Susac could allow the San Francisco Giants move Buster Posey to first base in September if circumstances called for it. Christian Bethancourt may be back with the Atlanta Braves to grab some pine. The Boston Red Sox may even want to give Blake Swihart a taste of The Show in September. But these youngsters probably aren’t ready for the bigs.

I decided to hold off on August catcher tiers until after the non-waiver trade deadline. There shouldn’t be much movement at this position, but a few extra days in the potential aftermath can’t hurt.

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Unless you play in a one-catcher league (bo-ring, to me, but I totally get why some people do it) or subscribe to a strategy that purports the selection of two top-rated catchers, you’re faced with the prospect of ownership of some serious crap at the position in at least one of your two C spots. We can’t all draft Devin Mesoraco. (Those who did may want to see what he’d fetch in a trade.) Some of us ended up with Alex Avila’s .175/.283/.250 and 58.3 contact rate through 47 plate appearances. (The Detroit Tigers tell us that he’s working through that awful start. Fingers crossed. At least he’s practically assured playing time.)

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Happy Opening Day to you all. Hopefully you were able to enjoy at least some of it and didn’t spend your entire day sweating managerial decisions, pitcher blow-ups and closer changes too much. Obviously if you have a chance to pick up a player like Matt Lindstrom or Francisco Rodriguez, then fine, make your move, but looking back and playing the ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’ game with your draft because Cliff Lee gave up eight earned runs to the Rangers does nothing positive for you. It’s the first day. Just relax. It’s a long, long season.

As a result of it being so early in the year, we have limited things to discuss with regard to the catcher position. Rather than try to force something out of one day’s worth of numbers, we’re just going to look at a few catcher situations that will probably require more of your attention than just the cursory glance. If you are using one of the following backstops on your roster, you may want to take note. Read the rest of this entry »

My bold predictions article from last year was summarily found to be not bold. The very first commenter said it wasn’t bold and 63 people gave that comment a thumbs up. Another commenter sarcastically chided me saying “You mean Rickie Weeks won’t have (a) career worst season again?” As it turns out, Weeks did have his career worst full season according to wRC+. Not sure if that makes me or the commenter dumb. Probably both.

What I did in last year’s bold predictions was take guys from each position that weren’t being drafted as starters who I thought would be starters.  Only three of my ten predictions came true, which is the same batting average Eno thinks is normal for these bold predictions articles. Of course that could just mean that I’m so bad at this that I couldn’t get more than 3/10 right with such obvious calls.

But I’m getting back on the horse this year with a slightly different saddle. The mistake I made last year was discussing players I had ranked as starters in my preseason ranks. This year I’ll be discussing guys that I have ranked just outside starter territory that I think could end up beating my projection and ranking. This means that all players discussed will have an ADP that is, on average, lower than that of the players I discussed last year (all ADP from ESPN). I guess technically that makes the predictions more bold.

If you still don’t think the predictions are bold enough, sorry. My real goal here is to simply identify some guys around the diamond that I think are undervalued in drafts. The ‘bold’ in the title is there on mandate from the higher-ups. If it was up to me, this post would be titled something like ‘Undervalued Players at Each Position.’ If you happen to think some or all of the predictions are actually bold, that’s all the better. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago in this space, I discussed five sleeper first base prospects.  Read the rest of this entry »