NEWS YOU CAN USE
Joey Votto found a non-roster invite to Dunedin, the Toronto Blue Jays Spring home.
It’s a nice story about a nice guy trying out for his hometown team, but it’s hard to see how he can fit onto this roster. The Jays also have Dan Vogelbach in camp, so they must see a potential path, but as weak as Vogelbach’s 2023 was it was better than Votto’s. Maybe Joey will go into the Hall as a Blue Jay.
After pitching just once, and being unable to go again since, Gerrit Cole hits the imaging lab for a look at his elbow. No need to panic, supposedly this is just being careful, but if you’re drafting before the results come back there’s now a reason to stay away.
Jonny DeLuca was on my list of hitters I missed doing my position surveys. He was acquired by the Rays from the Dodgers in the Tyler Glasnow trade and was slated to start the season on the Rays active roster. But the young outfielder was hit on the hand with a pitch over the weekend and suffered a broken hand. He won’t be swinging a bat for a while, at least into May.
Devin Williams will see a spine specialist for a second opinion to address his back pain issues. The first imaging and opinion said it’s no big deal. A second opinion sounds serious but isn’t necessarily so. The new Closer Monkey has Trevor Megill next in line, but Abner Uribe has walked only one hitter in four innings thus far this Spring. If he can keep that up it would make sense for the Brewers to go to him.
I had a price on Oscar Colas, but he’s been sent down to Triple-A. He struck out seven times in 18 at-bats for the White Sox in ST games. The organization will try to help him make better choices and ideally put the ball in play more.
Burying the lede, hot-shot rookie third baseman Noelvi Marte has tested positive for PEDS and will spend the first 80 days of the season on the suspended list. Presumably, he’ll get his job back but with Jeimer Candelario shifting over to third and Christian Encarnacion-Strand taking over at first, Jonathan India looks likely to see more at-bats as DH and at various positions. If they’re all going good when Marte is reinstated he might end up in a reduced role or in the minors. If nothing else, uncertainty is added.
MIA
There are good hitters I disagree with the expert leagues about.
Juan Soto is a great hitter, a talented on-base artist, but in a league that uses batting average he’s not a $40 player. Shohei Ohtani is a great hitter, a talented on-base artist with a ton of power and good stolen-base speed, but he’s rehabbing a second TJ. It’s unreasonable to think he’s not going to be affected this year. Royce Lewis may one day be a great hitter, but so far he’s an injury-prone talent who had a great two-month run in the majors last season before going down yet again.
There are other hitters I have been wrong about.
Joey Meneses, about whom I was skeptical last year, is going for pennies on the pound in the experts' leagues and the NFBC. That’s at least in part because of the power dropoff last year, and because in leagues that use the traditional 20 games played requirement he’s a DH only to start this year. After the season we learned that Meneses played with a bad knee last season, which apparently got better as the season progressed. He played four games in the field in the first three months, when he hit two homers, and 15 in the last three months, when he hit 11. I’m not suggesting pushing up Meneses’ price, guys who lose their rookie eligibility when they’re 30 don’t often last long at the highest level, but for a dollar or five count me in.
I came out of the box with an $8 bid on Will Brennan, the Indians right fielder this year. I think. Brennan doesn’t hit the ball very hard, but he makes a lot of contact and has good enough speed to steal some bases. He plays on a team that isn’t brimming with hitting talent and his defensive prowess should keep him in the lineup, though there is now talk he’s in a battle for the job. He doesn’t walk much, making him a must to avoid in OBP leagues, but in leagues using batting average he will have value if he holds the job. So, why didn’t he go for anything at all in CBS and LABR? Too cool for school elitism, I think. You’re going to have cheap guys on your AL-only squads and guys with regular at-bats who don’t mess up your batting average have value. If he wins the job, that’s him to a T. But yes, he has no mixed-league value unless he changes up his game.
Nobody is paying for Jesse Winker either, which may be justified. He had a big year in 2021 in Cincinnati, but since then he has stunk things up. He’s a non-roster invitee with the Nationals, and they just added Eddie Rosario, another left-handed hitting outfielder as an NRI. Rosario isn’t considered as big a jerk as Winker’s teammates have said Winker’s been, but Winker later acknowledged that he had to change. Still, a bad reputation is hard to climb out from under. I’m cutting his price to $3, admitting that he could come a cropper this year.
Ty France had a down year in 2023, but mostly seemed to be doing the same things the same way as he had done in better years. Yes, he struck out a little more, and yes, he hit fewer homers, which is the opposite of what you want to have happen, but he was a solid hitter previously. I originally had him at $16, kind of in the middle of his solid years and last year’s disappointment. CBS and LABR put him closer to $11, and I think they’re right. He could bounce back, the skills looked roughly the same last year, but he’s another year older and in the best of times he’s a moderate homer guy with no steals. Better to assume he won’t rebound and go for the bargain.
And some hitters just need more attention:
A reader asked about Jonathan Aranda, about whom I’ve shown little interest. For instance, no profile in the Guide. Aranda hit 43 homers in Triple-A in 2022 and 2023, but he also collected 190 not-very-exciting major league plate appearances over those two years. Since he’s not a defensive player and is 26 years old this year, he is no longer a promising talent but is instead a struggling ballplayer trying to find a niche. That might be lefty DH while platooning with Harold Ramirez. Ramirez is a good hitter against lefties, so that makes sense, but he’s also been a better hitter than Aranda against righties. Aranda is getting the chance to show he’s up to the job. He’s got nine hits in his first 26 PA this Spring.
The same reader said: “Looking specifically at Colt Keith, he has the contract and the starting 2B job. Will you revise your projection and bid (bet).” Keith is one of my biggest divergences from the CBS/LABR bids. My $4 bid is dwarfed by CBS’s $15 and LABR’s $9. “The contract” is a six-year extension Keith signed with the Tigers in January that is assumed to mean they think he’s big-league ready. He looks to me like a young hitter with lots of skills, but I’m hesitant to give him a full season of playing time projection at this point because he’s a young hitter with lots of skills, but one of them isn’t playing defense. The Tigers promoted Spencer Torkelson, a can’t-miss prospect, aggressively, too, and that didn’t make for a good rookie season. I’ve bumped his AB to 425 and his price to $8, but as I said in The Guide: “A low price makes me more enthusiastic.”
Another player brought up was Jordan Westburg, who could be the Orioles regular third baseman this year. The Orioles have so many pieces it’s probably best not to assume any single scenario, but the key point with Westburg is he’s flexible defensively, has some power and speed, but has shown a little softness with the hit tool in the majors. That’s 228 ML plate appearances with a .715 OPS. If he does play full time he will earn more than my $8 bid price, but that is far from guaranteed.
Feel free to ask about players you think deserve more attention.
ROTOMAN’S FANTASY GUIDE 2024 UPDATE
Here’s a special sheet for folks who bought Rotoman’s Fantasy Guide 2024. A sheet updated through March 7.
It’s password-protected. The password is the last word in the Ronald Acuña Jr. profile. Lower case.
If you want to make edits you’ll need to save it with a different name.
Members here at the Substack have their own updated spreadsheet linked after the paywall. Paid subscribers, even for one month, get access.
FOR SALE
Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2024, softcover, $20, Kindle, $10.
Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide 2024, PDF, $12.
Ron Shandler’s Fantasy Expert, hardcover, $25, Kindle, $12. I wrote the foreword.
Les Leopold’s Wall Street’s War on Workers, hardcover, $25, Kindle, $23. I did a lot of the data work and some editing.
HOUSEKEEPING
When Will I See You Again Dept.: We’ll have a quick one tomorrow, looking at some of unsung rookies for 2024.
I’ve posted the Historical Top Players by Position charts after the Paywall.
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