MLB Daily Notes - March 5th
The draft guide is live, a draft recap, and more spring training news and standouts.
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MLB DW League - Draft Recap
We had the first annual MLB Data Warehouse fantasy baseball league draft last night and man did it go terribly for me.
First, I took Bobby Witt Jr. number one overall, and it took all of 12 hours for that to prove to be incredibly dumb. The news on Acuna came out this morning and he’s likely to be ready for Opening Day, which means there’s no huge issue in the knee and it’s not something to move him down over. We still aren’t out of the woods entirely there, because clearly his knee isn’t 100% and that could end up being an issue again, but yeah if I had a do-over I’d be taking Acuna at one without a thought. So that sucks.
After that, I had to let 15 other scrubs that don’t even have a sick fantasy baseball blog pick TWICE, which is just an injustice to me as the leader of the league. I’ve done some 15 teamers in the past but this thing just hit differently. I felt good about getting Luis Castillo at my first turn, but all of the other guys I really like early on were gone, so I ended up with Adolis Garcia just kind of playing the projections there.
And then another brutal wait hit. My Yahtzee scenario was that Glasnow/Yamamoto/Skubal would come back to me but that didn’t happen at all. I looked at the available SPs and just couldn’t do it, so I went with two upside hitters that had fallen a bit in Nolan Jones and Matt McLain. Busted a quick Google on McLain’s injury news and they told me he could play in spring games this week so I clicked the button.
I’m not going to go through this whole thing. I like the offense I built but the pitching staff just makes me want to puke and I’m hurting over the Acuna decision. My staff is
Castillo/Steele/GWilliams/ERod/Cortes/Bello/Flaherty/Montas/Gasser
There was also a part of the draft where I went to hit “queue” on Robert Gasser and as I was clicking it I went on the clock so the “queue” button turned into “draft”. So then I did an immoral thing and used my commish powers to undo it. Which was a messed up thing to do, no doubt, since I’m the only able to correct that mistake. I will blame the Zombie Dust IPA I had drank, of course, always blame the mind-altering substances rather than your own flawed judgment. I ended up taking Gasser later anyway, which was probably really dumb, I imagine he doesn’t even make it to Opening Day on my staff.
So I don’t think I have much of a chance here, but maybe we’ll get some luck cutting my way.
The thing I expected to happen that did happen was that I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on any of the “My Guys” I wrote about yesterday morning in the draft guide. I knew I’d have to reach on them, but with the #1 pick and all those picks between my selections, it just wasn’t going to happen. And a few of these dudes went nuts on me. Jarren Duran went in the top 90, Griffin Canning went at #185, Bryce Miller at #147, Bailey Ober at #101.
So hopefully, for the sake of this team and my home league team, Acuna will retire tomorrow and all of my favorite players will bust this year. I hate this team, hate it so much - but it was a lot of fun to do a live draft like that, what a rush on a 60-second clock.
Spring Studs
Tarik Skubal is on a different level this spring. He has a 28.6% SwStr% on his 70 pitches with a 50% K% and a 6.3% BB%. He’s throwing his heater at 97.5 miles per hour on average and adding a sinker/changeup/slider to the mix all above 15% usage. We could be in for a special season for the guy, and he’s someone you can draft outside of the top 10 SPs right now. I would prioritize him in the 3rd or 4th round in drafts right now. Strength of schedule wise he’s faced 10 big leaguers and six AAA players, so not the best but it’s not like he’s blowing away college lineups.
JP Sears is another name I’ve written about as a solid late-round SP target. I was hoping to grab him last night for some SP relief but as soon as I queued him up someone grabbed him like 150 picks ahead of his ADP. He has a big 31.4% SwStr% this spring with a 53% K%. Of course that doesn’t matter much, but just remember that he did have a pretty decent season last year with a 12.7% SwStr%, 22% K%, and 7% BB%. There’s upside for a 24%-6% K-BB% and that should work really well for him. Nobody wants him because he’s an Assletic, but yeah he’s way better than he’s given credit for.
Yu Darvish is also healthy and striking guys out in spring (20 batters faced, nine punchies). He’s hard to love, but he does function as a late-round SP pick that possibly has one more really nice year in him. Even with the decline he’s undergone in the last few years, he still settled at a 24.6% K% and 7.3% BB% last year, pretty solid.
The three home run club in spring is now
Wyatt Langford
Luis Matos
Kyle Stowers
James Wood
Henry Davis
Forrest Wall
Elehuris Montero
David Bote
Colton Cowser
Andy Ibanez
Who cares, right? But I do think we should be moving Henry Davis up a bit from where his ADP began. The catcher eligibility is coming and his performance is likely to result in everyday reps when the regular season comes. I would think he’ll catch about half the time and DH at least 75% of the time when he’s not catching. No catcher will ever play 155+ games, and the Pirates will probably be more careful than we want, but I could definitely see 70 starts at catcher and 60-70 more at DH/OF. Don’t forget that he was a highly-touted catching prospect because of his bat not because of his defense. The catching thing is icing on the cake, and it’s quite likely that he does end up as an outfielder down the line.
Injury News
Kevin Gausman has shoulder discomfort although we already know there’s no structural damage. I can’t draft him as my ace with that news though, so I’m dropping him to around SP20. That makes the group of Wheeler/Burnes/Lopez/Castillo all the more appealing to me after I fade Strider/Cole.
Sonny Gray left with a hammy and there will be an MRI on it today. I don’t know much about the hamstring, mine have always worked well, but we already hated Sonny Gray here at MLB DW so this doesn’t help his case. Although sometimes injuries can push guys so far down in the draft that they go from guys I hated to guys I like.
Cedric Mullins did the same thing, leaving the game with a hamstring. That could be big fantasy news with the trio of young O’s outfielders looking for reps. If he hits the IL at the beginning of the year, one of Colton Cowser, Heston Kjerstad, or Kyle Stowers will take his place, and they’d all be interesting for fantasy leagues.
David Bednar isn’t throwing baseballs right now but “he hopes to be back soon”. I mean don’t we all, David? It’s bad news for him, it’s important to be able to throw baseballs if you’re a pitcher. Boost to Aroldis Chapman!
That’s it for a surprise edition of the Daily Notes, we’ll be back with more later this week!