MLB Daily Notes - March 4th
Looking into a bunch of ADP risers and fallers and reviewing some weekend news.
Three more days of spring baseball in the books and we’re now just 3.5 weeks away from [the real] Opening Day! There were plenty of names popping up this weekend that are interesting for fantasy drafts, so I have a good list of guys to talk about here.
Another thing that was developed Friday and refined a bit in the few free minutes I had over the weekend was the MLB DW Live Game Tracker. If you follow me on Twitter, you saw it, but if not - check it out here.
What it does is constantly scrape the Statcast data from all games and then refresh a Google sheet with stats that I chose every three minutes. Here’s just one look at it:
So throughout the day that’s just refreshing every few minutes, it’s pretty cool if I do say so myself. You can get all of that live data on Baseball Savant, but they don’t have a page that puts everybody together like this.
It’s not useful in spring because a) it’s spring and b) less than half the games are even captured, but I’m using the spring to develop, test, and refine all of these tools. So bookmark that if it’s interesting to you. I think it’ll run during the regular season, but I still have some concerns about if Google and MLB will let me make this many requests on their data… time will tell.
I thought this tweet from Rob DiPietro was really interesting over the weekend.
It’s always really interesting and useful to track ADP changes during the spring, so we can look into some of these names.
Cole Irvin
We talked about him right away in these spring daily notes as he came out ripping fastballs and striking out Pirates. His second start wasn’t in a Statcast park (cavemen…), but the reports were that the velo was still up. So that’s good news, and I yeah I do think that warrants people being more aggressive on him in drafts since the previous ADP was 650. He’s still not a standard league target, but he is someone to watch closely in his first few regular season starts, he could be one of those key early season waiver wire adds.
Jackson Merrill
Write up from the Padres team preview here. I wrote there that he doesn’t have a position in San Diego, but the Padres had that handled and they moved him to the outfield for this spring. There’s serious talk of him making the big league team. Pretty surprising for a guy that won’t be allowed to buy a case of delicious Hamm’s Lager until April 19th. All 21 year olds drink Hamm’s on their 21st birthdays, right?
![Hamm's Beer Price & Reviews [4.7 Stars] | Drizly](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21892ca4-cd9e-4966-a1f1-530cd464b140_400x600.jpeg "Hamm's Beer Price & Reviews [4.7 Stars] | Drizly")
As a 20-year-old last year he put up a .770 OPS with an impressive 12% K%, 15 homers, and 15 steals. His line from the league adjusted minor league stats:
.281 AVG, .327 OBP, .460 SLG, .787 OPS, 12.3% K%, 7.1% BB%, 17 HR
Very impressive. Note that he has not even reached AAA yet, so it’s a big step up in competition he’s going to attempt to make. So far in spring he has 22 PAs with a 9% K% and a .679 OPS.
If he does make the team, I’m personally still not drafting in standard leagues, but it’s fine to take a speculative add on him. It seems like he’ll have the strikeouts under control (the K% will go up, but it’s hard to imagine going from 12% to 26% or something like that), and the power-speed is okay. I think he’ll be an underwhelming power bat, but maybe 15 homers and 20 steals? That’s pretty good for your last pick, so he’s worth a shot - just don’t be afraid to cut him if it’s not going super well early on.
Tylor Megill
He seems to have the inside track to the last spot in the Mets rotation. He’s been good this spring with a 37% K% and a 0% BB%. He was really bad last year, so don’t get overly excited here or anything, but he’s been throwing the slider harder and throwing a cutter and stuff, so he’s a work in progress here and he has shown some upside in the past.
Going way back to the beginning of 2022, before getting hurt he was off to a fantastic start with 36 strikeouts in 33.1 innings and just eight walks. The injury derailed that season and he never got back to those heights. It’s foolish to think that this six-game stretch from two years ago is more indicative of who he is rather than what we saw for the entirety of 2023, but hey it’s there. Megill is a guy to #monitor.
And I guess that’s the end of the names I’m interested in from Rob’s list, but some other guys I noticed over the weekend.
Bailey Ober
Ober was incredibly good on Saturday with a 28.9% SwStr% on 38 pitches, striking out SEVEN. It was the best outing of anybody this spring. He has more velocity, new pitches and different movement and all of this stuff going on.
But that’s not why I care about Ober. I already loved the guy, and you know that if you’ve been following along this off-season. So in that sense it kinda sucks that he pitched that well on Saturday.
His ADP is climbing. We were able to get him after pick 160 early on, but now it seems like he’s someone to target around pick 120-130 if you really want the guy.
Over the weekend drafts (8 of them), he was the #36 SP off the board in the average draft, so that’s an SP3-SP4. I think he’s a really great SP4 for a team, and there’s still potentially some value there as an SP3 but we’re losing the edge in a hurry here. But hopefully your league won’t be as sensitive to this stuff and you can still grab him as an SP5 like we could early on, that would be a smash.
Hunter Greene
I’ve talked about him too much already, but just know that he did throw that splitter on Saturday.
It wasn’t a good outing, but who cares, it’s really exciting to see him with the splitter and curve now (although don’t be surprised if they get scrapped by the time we get to real games because they just aren’t good enough).
Shane Bieber
It wasn’t a Statcast game, but the report was that yes, Bieber’s fastball was between 93-94.
Some 2021 and 2023 comparison’s on his fastball velo:
Big losses along the way, and also huge differences in his strikeout rates. So if that velo is truly back (I have my doubts that it can continue), he could be a really nice get at this current ADP (130-140).
Orioles Outfield
We talked on Friday about the Kjerstad/Cowser competition, but now Kyle Stowers has entered the chat. He’s homered thrice this spring to match Cowser. Very interesting competition there. I liked Stowers as a sleeper last year, but he only made 33 PAs in the Majors as the Orioles just didn’t need his services. He also had some injury issues, making just 283 PAs in AAA with a .245/.364/.511 line, homering an impressive 17 times. So don’t forget about this guy, he’s a legit power bat, albeit with a high 26% career strikout rate in the minors.
Nick Lodolo
He’s not healthy right now. He threw a bullpen yesterday but it seems unlikely that he’ll be in the rotation out of the gate. I would not draft him.
Byron Buxton
He’s moving up draft boards in a hurry with a 212 ADP in the last seven days. He’s played centerfield three times for the Twins already, so that big discount is a thing of the past. I’m still somewhat interested in him in the mid-200’s, but if the ADP gets into the 100s I think you’re better off with someone else. But it’s really good to see him healthy and playing the outfield again.
Shota Imanaga
Drafters are also excited about him, moving his ADP up to 182 the last seven days. I suppose that’s just because we saw him with the five strikeout performance in spring. It’s good to see that, but he’s still probably not a guy I’m overly interested in just because we don’t have much information on him at all.
But that said, as an SP4 or SP5 pick, he can’t hurt you too bad, and the upside is certainly there.
Ronald Acuna Jr.
The biggest news of the weekend was this meniscus thing with Acuna. We don’t know much right now, but hopefully we’ll hear more today. He could be fine for Opening Day, or miss a significant amount of time. It’s all speculation right now.
He went 2nd and 3rd once each over the weekend, so it’s been enough to scare some people off of him. I have first overall pick in the MLB Data Warehouse league tonight, and if I had to make the decision right now I don’t think I’d take him. Hoping for more news today. Having the #1 pick went from a blessing to a curse real, real fast.
And I guess that’s all I have for you today! The 2024 Draft Guide will come out later today. It will be for paid subs only, but I think I might make a PDF version of it for sale for like $5 for regular subscribers. So keep an eye out for that! It will be the culmination of all my main thoughts and strategies for 2024 drafts.