Welcome to the Depth Chart Review! Every week we’ve been going over transactions, injuries, and lineup changes around the big leagues and how they affect fantasy baseball. This week we saw a major injury to a big-name catcher, a top prospect receive a promotion, a long-time veteran return to the place where his career began, and the World Series champions return to full strength.
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Buster Posey Out for the Season After Hip Surgery
The scuffling Giants saw their season take another tough blow this past week, as former-MVP catcher Buster Posey underwent season-ending hip surgery. The surgery occurred on Monday and the timetable is approximately 6-8 months, putting the beginning of next season in jeopardy for Posey. Posey is of course droppable in redraft leagues, and this injury puts an end to a disappointing season for the distinguished backstop. His .741 OPS is a career low, and he’ll finish with just five home runs in 448 PA. His minuscule .098 ISO is the ninth lowest among qualified hitters, and he is one of 10 qualified hitters with an ISO below .100. Posey’s power has been in a decline for the past few years, but he was still the undisputed top fantasy catcher before the arrival of Gary Sanchez. Even in 2017 when Posey hit only 12 homers in 568 PA he still hit .320 with an .861 OPS. The fact that he’s undergoing a rather serious surgery to repair a torn labrum and that Posey will be 32 by the time next season starts should be enough to lower his draft stock. Posey’s owners won’t take solace knowing that his .361 xwOBA and .462 xSLG were actually higher this season compared to 2017. Posey had a 4.7% HR/FB ratio, which is low even for a player in San Francisco. The only other qualified hitters with HR/FB ratios lower than Posey are all speedsters such as Dee Gordon and Billy Hamilton, the type of players no one expects to hit home runs anyway. He was rather unlucky in the power department, and depending on how his recovery goes and how far his draft stock tumbles Posey could be a good value in drafts next season.
Veteran Nick Hundley will take over full-time catching duties for the Giants in Posey’s absence. For a backup catcher Hundley can hit pretty well. He has more power than Posey with nine homers in 217 PA, and he also has a .159 career ISO, the exact same as Posey. The big difference is that Hundley has been trending up over the past few seasons. Since 2015, Hundley’s first season with the Rockies, he has a .750 OPS and .176 ISO. Pretty mild as far as breakouts go, but we’re talking about a 34-year-old backup catcher here. Hundley may have left Coors Field behind in 2017 by signing with the Giants, but he kept his power gains. Since joining San Francisco he has a .181 ISO and 18 homers in 520 PA. He can really rake against lefties too. Between 2017-2018 Hundley has an .866 OPS and .247 ISO versus southpaws. Not a bad player to add in two-catcher leagues or use in DFS against left-handed pitchers.
The Giants also promoted catching prospect Aramis Garcia to the majors. The 25-year-old only reached Triple-A for the first time this season, posting a .531 OPS and 29% strikeout rate in 41 PA. That’s a rather small sample size, but at Double-A he only had a .682 OPS and a 23% strikeout rate. He is the Giants number 15 prospect per MLB Pipeline and while scouts praise his power we haven’t seen Garcia hit well consistently above High-A ball. He is probably just Hundley’s backup for now and can be disregarded, despite some buzz around Garcia as a prospect.
Padres Promote Top Prospect Luis Urias, Francisco Mejia to be Promoted in September
The Padres were refreshingly forthright with their prospect decisions earlier this week, announcing both that middle infielder Luis Urias will be promoted this week and that catcher Francisco Mejia will be promoted in September. The 21-year-old Urias proved he could handle Triple-A pitching this season by posting a .298 AVG and .845 OPS in 533 PA. He will take over at shortstop for veteran Freddy Galvis, a player that could be summed up by the term placeholder. Galvis may see time at second base, especially since Christian Villanueva was placed on the disabled list last week with a fractured finger. He and Corey Spangenberg will likely platoon, but neither is worthy of fantasy consideration outside of NL-only leagues.
Urias is a must-add player for the same reason players like Gleyber Torres and Willy Adames were must-add upon promotion. He is an elite middle infield prospect that displayed a polished hit tool in the minors. The power might not be there right away for Urias, but with Torres and Adames we’ve seen these players hit for greater power in the majors compared to what they had ever done in the minors. It’s unrealistic to expect Urias to have a Gleyber Torres type of impact, and Petco Park is not as conducive to power as Yankee Stadium, but it’s always worth taking a shot on a talent like this. It sounds like the Padres are going to play Urias every day as well, so he should at least provide volume.
Mejia will probably come to the majors once rosters expand, and while it may be tempting to stash him after hearing this news, it’s probably not worth it unless your league has a minors or N/A slot in which minor league players can be stashed. His bat was fine but ultimately underwhelming at Triple-A in the Indians’ system, hitting .279 with a .755 OPS. That’s not terrible, but not overly impressive either. His bat did pick up after being traded into the Padres’ system. At Triple-A El Paso Mejia hit .300 with an .823 OPS, but some of that uptick in production should be attributed to the move from the International League to the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. Even when Mejia gets promoted it seems unlikely he will play regularly. Current Padres’ catcher Austin Hedges has been on fire since the beginning of July, hitting .277 with nine homers and a .234 ISO. His overall numbers look terrible due to a horrific start to the season, but the Padres don’t have any incentive to bench Hedges, who was once a top prospect himself not too long ago. Both Hedges and Nick Hundley are more interesting catchers to add in redraft leagues than Mejia.
Astros at Full Strength, Shaking Up First Base and DH
The Astros have been one of the most banged up teams in baseball recently. By volume they may not have the most players on the disabled list, but in terms of talent on the shelf they have been hurting. They were at one point without the trio of Jose Altuve, George Springer, and Carlos Correa at the same time. Springer sat out a week without hitting the disabled list last week but returned to the lineup on Monday, putting the Astros at full strength for the first time all month. While the aforementioned trio of players are all must-start under all circumstances, some of the fringier pieces in Houston’s lineup have seen their roles shift. First baseman Tyler White was initially called up from Triple-A to fill-in for the injured superstars, but White has hit so well that the Astros want to get him regular playing time. Since his promotion on July 29 White is hitting .342 with seven home runs and a 1.104 OPS. This stretch is partially the product of good fortune as White has a .364 BABIP and 30.4% HR/FB rate during these 86 PA. Still, over the past three seasons White has maintained an ISO greater than .225 at Triple-A. Granted White was playing in the PCL and was old for the level, but there is at least some power in his bat. He has 20 homers and a .216 ISO in 469 PA in the majors. White has been playing both first base and designated hitter, though he has played every infield position and left field at Triple-A this season. The other infield positions are accounted for in Houston, so first base seems like the landing spot for White. He’s a good hot-hand play, and even when White regresses he still has a .277 xBA and .509 xSLG on the year, which is a useful player as a corner infielder.
The two players that stand to lose playing time from White’s emergence are Evan Gattis and Yulieski Gurriel. Gattis has been horrible in August, hitting just .173 with three homers this month. Catcher and other positions seem off the table for Gattis, so he needs that DH spot to play. His lack of versatility and poor recent performance really hurt his case for playing time. He went six days between starts last week and sat on Tuesday in favor of Gurriel. It’s tough to drop Gattis since he is still catcher-eligible and ranked as the fourth catcher in Yahoo leagues as of writing this. Unless there is a really interesting catcher out there Gattis deserves at least one more week on fantasy rosters to see how the playing time shakes out.
From a fantasy perspective Gurriel is significantly less exciting than both Gattis and White. He has a .283 AVG, but his .725 OPS and .127 ISO are both miserably low for a first baseman. He also has a .297 xwOBA and .264 xBA, both suggesting that despite mediocre results thus far that Gurriel has actually overperformed. His only positive attribute is a 10.6% strikeout rate, a microscopic number by today’s standard. Even then, a .312 wOBA and 99 wRC+ doesn’t cut it in an organization as talent-rich as Houston. Gattis is the better fantasy player, and offensively the better real-life player, but the Astros are curiously committed to Gurriel. Other than Gattis’s recent struggles and Gurriel’s bloated contract there doesn’t seem to be a reason to play him over Gattis or White. But hey, the Astros won the World Series last season, so this organization deserves more leeway when it comes to lineup and personnel decisions then that of a perennial cellar-dweller.
Rockies Promote Matt Holliday to Platoon with Carlos Gonzalez, David Dahl Overtakes Gerardo Parra
The Rockies pulled a textbook Rockies move last week by sending down infield prospect Garrett Hampson to promote 38-year-old outfielder Matt Holliday. While this move understandably inspired eye-rolls of fantasy owners and fans alike Holliday’s arrival shouldn’t be written off completely from a fantasy perspective. He’s seen as an oft-injured, washed up veteran, and while there may be some truth to those criticisms Holliday has been better over the past two seasons than most people seem to think. Between 2016-2017 Holliday had a .765 OPS and .208 ISO as well as elite exit velocity. In 2016 he had a 93 MPH average exit velocity, and while it fell to 90 MPH in 2017 that is still an above average number that correlates with power. He also mashed lefties over the past two seasons for an .818 OPS and .243 ISO in 229 PA. Since Holliday will play primarily against lefties that makes him useful in daily lineup leagues or DFS. He still has good power and will be playing in Coors Field for half of his remaining games, so there will be production to mine from Holliday.
This should also help Carlos Gonzalez from hurting owners by limiting his exposure to lefties. He hasn’t been that bad against lefties this year with a .759 OPS and .168 ISO, but those numbers are still worse than his performance against righties. The Rockies lacked a natural platoon partner for him since both Gerardo Parra and David Dahl are left-handed hitters. Parra has been anemic offensively, posting a .713 OPS and .091 ISO while playing half his games at Coors Field. Parra’s .285 AVG masks his poor offensive production, and his 78 wRC+, a stat that is park adjusted, is more telling of his true skill level. That is why the Rockies finally benched him in favor of David Dahl. They seemed initially hesitant to do it, but Parra has only gotten four starts over the past two weeks. Dahl has responded well to his role as a starter, posting an .804 OPS and .206 ISO in the month of August. Dahl is only 15% owned in Yahoo leagues and is the more interesting add over Holliday for his power-speed combination and more regular playing time.
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Elliott Baas is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Elliott, check out his archive and follow him @elliottbaasbb.
