I wanna thank everybody out there for they click
I surely appreciate it, woo!
What you about to witness is my thoughts
Just my thoughts man, right or wrong
Just what I was feeling at the time, uhh
You ever felt like this, vibe with me
In these times, well at least to me, there’s a lot of writers trying to sound like Ralphie. I’ll help you out here’s what you do. You gonna need a wide lens 'cause that's a very big shoe. You quote Jay-Z and then immediately dive into prospect analysis. That’s it. Sorry gentlemen and ladies, the last week has been chock-full of prospect call-ups and I’m feeling like the cock of the walk. In the coming pages, scrolls, ahhhh whatever we call them, I will detail some of the top call-ups with my two cent commentary.
We’ll talk Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, Alec Bohm, Dylan Carlson and a host of others. Off we go, let the trumpets blow, and hold on, because the driver of that faucet is a pro. The Cold Water’s back.
The Ruler’s Back
Casey Mize is starting for the Tigers on Wednesday against the White Sox and the long awaited debut is finally upon us. There’s been a fair amount of debate about who is the better fantasy play in the short term Mize or Tuesday’s debutant Tarik Skubal.
Personally I rank Mize higher in the short and long term and here’s why. Control and development of his secondary arsenal. To see Mize’s slider + splitter combination is to believe. His splitter is a truly devastating out pitch. Used as essentially a changeup diving away from batters with significant vertical drop. The slider has big sweepy horizontal break and gives him a second out pitch that can generate whiffs. He throws a harder variation cutter that he added last season, and it too will show plus. There’s been some question around the fastball but it’s of little concern to me. It’s a true four-seam fastball that’s effective when elevated.
The one thing to watch with Mize is how crisp the command of his fastball is in the early innings. In his best starts he’s able to land it in all four quadrants and table his secondaries for the second time through the order. When he doesn’t he’ll bleed too much into the heart of the plate and get hit. The saving grace in these scenarios is the quality of his secondaries and his ability to pocket his fastball and just work slider + splitter for entire innings.
Cold Water: The health! It’s always a concern with Mize, when he isn’t feeling his best, he doesn’t have his best stuff and everything becomes hittable. This seems obvious but it’s a big reason he struggled late.
The other aforementioned arm to get the call to Detroit is left hander Tarik Skubal. A former 9th round pick out of Seattle University, the Kingman, Arizona product ascended through the minor leagues like a unstoppable freight train. It culminated in a nine start, 42 inning sample in Double-A that produced ungodly numbers (48.2 K%, 1.26 FIP, and a 21.5 SwStr%. He boasts a four-pitch mix, but it’s heavily fastball + curveball, making up 90%+ of his usage. His fastball will sit high-90s for stretches but settles in at 93-95 mph working effectively up in the zone, even if his spin axis is not ideal. Skubal should miss bats at the major league level though not at his Double-A rate. It will however be interesting to see how his secondaries and fastball heavy plan of attack will work.
Cold Water: How stretched out will Skubal be? He dealt with a COVID bout early on in Summer Camp and got a late start and who knows how that has impacted him. I’m also interested to see how his fastball heavy arsenal plays against the best competition Skubal has ever faced. Did I add him in a 12 team league? Yes, but Mize still would have been my first option.
Let’s stay on this Tigers kick and talk some Isaac Paredes. I’m going to be frank, Paredes is a favorite of mine. I think he’s the very definition of the hit tool guy that finds more power at the next level. The numbers don’t tell that tale, and I understand that, but Paredes can find it and he’s yet to play in a positive offensive environment. The quality of contact is good and he has excellent barrel control rarely swinging and missing. He’s also shown the propensity to walk which points to a great understanding of the zone and a great balance of patience and aggressiveness.
Cold Water: He’s hitting 8th for the Tigers at the moment and without that power coming to fruition immediately it’s a chance for an empty average. At this point, Paredes is a relevant player in 15-team mixed leagues if you’re hunting for a bench bat with upside or a CI/UTIL type.
Welp, we finally got our Dylan Carlson call-up. Of course none of us like the circumstances around all this, but it just has been a breath of fresh air to see Carlson patrolling the outfield over the weekend. He started both legs of the doubleheader yesterday but he’s yet to do much of anything in 17 at bats. But here’s the thing about 17 at bats, it’s 17 at bats… If he’s playing everyday I believe he’ll come around. With enough opportunity he should hit for power, steal some bases and not kill you in average. There’s certainly upside as well that he gets hot and goes on a tear. He has that in him.
Cold Water: I’ve been told otherwise on our Dynasty Pod this week by our resident Cardinals expert Matt Thompson. But is Carlson going to be a starter for the long run? I don’t know, especially if he struggles for another week, are they going to stick with him over Bader? I’m skeptical.
One player I would roster everywhere is Alec Bohm. He started every game at third since being called up and he’s hit fairly well. What Bohm offers is one of the best combinations of contact and power in the minors. He’s looked improved at third too. He should be owned in all 12+ team formats for the time being.
Cold Water: There’s maybe some worry of an empty average if the power for whatever reason doesn’t manifest itself. It should but there’s a chance it doesn’t in a short season.
I’m a few days late on this one but Andres Gimenez has been better than I expected thus far. He’s been perfect on the base paths and that has earned him admiration in fantasy circles. However, it’s his plus glove that will keep him in the lineup. Especially when the alternative is a geriatric Robinson Cano at the keystone. He’s made some adjustments at the plate, turning his exaggerated toe tap into a leg kick, that’s allowed him to close off more and drive the ball, getting more out of his base. We’ll see if these changes produce the desired results, because they really haven’t thus far.
Cold Water: Expanding on the above he has yet to barrel a ball, and his batted ball profile looks identical to his 2019 campaign from Binghamton. He still gets a ton of top spin on his flyballs which results in less carry. While it’s not Nick Madrigal low power it’s still only a 30 at present. Don’t get caught up in max exit velocity and focus on the larger body of work, not a single batted ball event.
The Takeover, Breaks Over…
I know hindsight is 20/20 but am I the only one a little scared of the starting Spencer Howard? I have little doubt it will click but he’s not missing as many bats and he’s not driving as many grounders as he did in the minors. He’s simply throwing his fastball over the heart of the plate too much and hitters are all over it. Take a look at the charts below and you can see why. Hitters have a .263 isolated slugging on his fastball, which isn’t great considering he throws it 55% of the time. His secondaries haven’t fared much better with a .300 ISO versus his changeup and a .429 ISO versus his slider. The redeeming quality for the slider is his 30% whiff rate on the pitch. There’s not much positivity to take away at the moment other than hoping Howard reigns in his command and makes a concerted effort to land his fastball high and to the inside part of the plate, where he’s had more success than he has with his fastball away.
Through two starts Tony Gonsolin aka the Tenderoni has been solid. Unfortunately he’s not getting deep into games. He’s yet to get out of the fifth with his highest pitch total currently clocking in at 82 pitches in his most recent start on August 12th against the Padres. He’s leaned heavily on his split-finger this season, bumping up his usage rate from 25.1% in 2019, to 41.4% this year. He’s attacking in similar spots to his fastball as well. Let’s chat on the fastball for a minute. He’s bumped up his average fastball velocity to a 94.7 mph average, while improving his true-spin to 100% efficiency. Forget the drop in whiff% at the moment, with the characteristics on Gonsolin’s fastball the swings and misses are coming. Chatting with our resident pitch movement expert Nathaniel Plotts he views Gonsolin as potential SP2 long term with elite characteristics. One interesting point Nathaniel made was that his curveball should be used more because it’s a harder curveball (82.3 mph average) with a lot of depth. It’s hard to appreciate how rare his combination of velocity and vertical drop is. It’s in the neighborhood of Tyler Glasnow and Josh Staumont right now.
Buy in on Gonsolin while you can in dynasty, there’s something here.
There’s a report floating around that we may just see Reid Detmers in the majors… in 2020?!?! Yes, former good manager Joe Maddon made a statement on Monday that we could see the Angels first round pick in 2020. Which seems wild, personally I’d stay the heck away in fantasy, but in deep enough leagues it’s worth a flier. Here’s a funny thought, will Detmers be the first player rostered in redraft before he’s eligible to be rostered in dynasty leagues.
Speaking of a possible surprise 2020 debut, but with the Padres currently in the hunt, and catchers Austin Hedges and Francisco Mejia struggling could we see Luis Campusano in the major this year? Per A.J. Cassavell of MLB.com the catcher has been read-hot at the alternate camp and has made loads of loud contact. If there’s one team willing to get aggressive with a player at a position of need, it’s San Diego. Not a bad speculative flier in a deeper league and a must add if he’s called up in two-catcher formats.
One last quick note on the Nationals Luis Garcia, since last season he seems to have made significant changes to his swing. He struggled in AA last season, particularly early, as he looked to go the opposite way on bloops and hit grounders up the middle.
He homered last night (see above) and it was a great example of the things he’s done to alter his swing and particularly his attack angle. He’s closing off more now and employees a swing that’s eerily similar to Juan Soto. Garcia has always possessed average or better contact skills and at just 20 years old and 3 months it’s reasonable to think we have just begun to scratch the surface of his power potential.