Is Vlad Jr. still the top future star in baseball?
We are still weeks away from most re-draft leagues starting up for the 2020 MLB season but if you play in dynasty leagues, which is why I assume you are here, we are just days away from many drafts taking place. Perhaps you have already drafted or your draft isn’t for another month, but as you know in dynasty leagues, trading season is always open. Every year, I get bombarded with the same type of question from eager dynasty owners, “How high would this sophomore be ranked if he was still a prospect”. Today, I’m going to answer that question. Eighty times. The table at the bottom of the article will show you where I would rank last year’s rookies if they were still eligible prospects, because let’s be real, they essentially are still prospects. Now that we have more hindsight from a year in the majors, their futures are a bit easier to forecast. In some cases, however, 2019’s surface-level performances might not tell the full story, so first, I’ll tell you about five players I believe in much more than you would expect.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (3B – TOR)
There is no one who could deny that Vlad Jr. was among the most disappointing players in all of baseball last year. He was inconsistent, didn’t post strong numbers and frankly, didn’t even have the underlying numbers in his favor. But then there is this: Only 16 players in baseball had multiple exit velocities the entire season above 115 MPH. Vlad Jr. was first on that list with 8 of them, or as many as Yordan Alvarez, Mike Trout, Christian Yelich and Pete Alonso combined. The fact of the matter is that although he has some way to go towards his potential, we are still looking at a 20-year-old with Hall of Fame potential if he can put it together. I’d take him moving forward in fantasy over Luis Robert and Wander Franco without hesitation.
We are still weeks away from most re-draft leagues starting up for the 2020 MLB season but if you play in dynasty leagues, which is why I assume you are here, we are just days away from many drafts taking place. Perhaps you have already drafted or your draft isn’t for another month, but as you know in dynasty leagues, trading season is always open. Every year, I get bombarded with the same type of question from eager dynasty owners, “How high would this sophomore be ranked if he was still a prospect”. Today, I’m going to answer that question. Eighty times. The table at the bottom of the article will show you where I would rank last year’s rookies if they were still eligible prospects, because let’s be real, they essentially are still prospects. Now that we have more hindsight from a year in the majors, their futures are a bit easier to forecast. In some cases, however, 2019’s surface-level performances might not tell the full story, so first, I’ll tell you about five players I believe in much more than you would expect.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (3B – TOR)
There is no one who could deny that Vlad Jr. was among the most disappointing players in all of baseball last year. He was inconsistent, didn’t post strong numbers and frankly, didn’t even have the underlying numbers in his favor. But then there is this: Only 16 players in baseball had multiple exit velocities the entire season above 115 MPH. Vlad Jr. was first on that list with 8 of them, or as many as Yordan Alvarez, Mike Trout, Christian Yelich and Pete Alonso combined. The fact of the matter is that although he has some way to go towards his potential, we are still looking at a 20-year-old with Hall of Fame potential if he can put it together. I’d take him moving forward in fantasy over Luis Robert and Wander Franco without hesitation.
Dylan Cease (SP – CWS)
Speaking of disappointments, which will be a common theme in this article, Cease struggled in his 73 inning MLB debut. His ERA ended up a 5.79 thanks to 15 homers and 35 walks in 73 innings. In fact, his Triple-A numbers weren’t all that impressive either, but much like Vlad, this has more to do with raw ability and what is likely to come with increased opportunity and seasoning. Cease has tremendous velocity which should be deadly paired with a slider that allowed a .243 wOBA and a changeup that allowed a .183 wOBA. In fact, three of his breaking balls generated 27% or higher whiff rates. Pitchers with that type of stuff don’t often struggle for long.
Danny Jansen (C – TOR)
While Jansen’s on-paper numbers were horrendous, much of it was a misunderstanding. He hit the ball hard more often than most hitters but he suffered from a case of a 384 plate appearances worth of bad luck. Smaller sample sizes like that can return a huge dip in production compared to what they should have produced. He was among the five most unlucky hitters when you compare his actual wOBA to his quality of contact expected wOBA on BaseballSavant.com. The 39 points it was off is the difference between hitting like Mallex Smith and Brandon Crawford to like Eric Hosmer and Matt Carpenter. While still not great, that would look much different from a dynasty perspective after one year in Toronto.
Josh James (SP – HOU)
Much like Dylan Cease above, James still has legitimate ace upside if he can harness his arsenal and find his way into Houston’s rotation. There is a chance this fireballer breaks camp in the rotation and if he does, we may just be looking at 200+ strikeouts in 2020. After all, his on-paper ratios may not seem great from 2019, but his xWOBa was above the likes of Mike Clevinger, Stephen Strasburg, Blake Snell and Walker Buehler. I don’t need to tell you that this means he has ace stuff. But folks, he just might be the best pitcher in the Astros rotation this year if they give him the ball in the first inning.
Isan Diaz (2B – MIA)
This is one case where the underlying metrics look just as abysmal as they do on paper. There is no dismissing his .173/.259/.307/.566 line but there is still hope. After all, how many raw prospects have we seen struggle as rookies only to bounceback after the hype has faded? That could very well be the narrative for Isan, seeing as though he batted just .222/.334/.376/.710 one year after being praised as a super prospect, only to jump back up to .305/.395/.578 in Triple-A afterward over a 100 game sample. There is a chance we are looking at a .270 hitter with 25 homers and a dozen steals as soon as this year. Don’t give up on his skills quite yet.
All players listed below are ranked as if they are the only sophomores to be ranked as prospects so both Yordan and Vlad would be ranked #1 ahead of Wander Franco and Luis Robert, but Yordan would be the higher than Vlad (as their displayed ordering is the tiebreaker).
