Fantasy Baseball Player Notes

For most players, fantasy managers need to consider whether to discount a highly out-of-character dip in their numbers given the shortened season. For Abreu, it's the opposite - whether fantasy managers should give credence to an outstanding MVP season, during which Abreu vastly outperformed his numbers from every other season of his career. Everything was good for Abreu in 2020, everything. He hit the ball harder than ever and consistently. He got on base more. He had career-high paces in every category. Abreu will be entering his age-34 season, so there's no way you should expect a repeat performance, but it's worth noting that he has increased his average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage in each of the last five seasons. Abreu's cost doesn't match his numbers last year, of course, but you'll still have to pay a hefty price in drafts. Given his safety and and his newly-discovered upside, however, it's worth it.

Grandal is getting up there in age for a catcher, and there were a few warning signs for the veteran. He struck out nearly 30% of the time last season, well above his typical rate, and his expected batting average, slugging percentage, and wOBA were some of the worst of his career. At the same time, he continued to walk at a near-elite clip, and again provided plenty of power from a position where pop is hard to find. The good news for Grandal is that both his large contract and his elite pitch framing skills should keep him in the lineup as often as possible, which will help to pad his counting stats, though his recovery from a knee injury may cause Chicago to take it easy with him at the outset. He's just a tad outside of the elite range at the position, but he's a locked in fantasy starter.

Vaughn's minor league numbers from 2019 don't jump off the page, but make no mistake, he has the talent to become an instant quality hitter in the majors. He raked all throughout his college career, and not only carries plenty of thump in his bat, but also has an excellent approach that should keep his batting average and OBP well above the league average. He looks more and more likely to win the everyday DH job for the White Sox, in which case, he'd be an absolute steal if you can get him outside the top 160 or so, which you should be able to do everywhere.