The fantasy baseball community loves the shiny new toys. However, those shiny new toys basically always come with an ADP bump from the race to first place and the bragging rights that accompany hitting on a breakout. Not all prospects find immediate success, though, and the greater draft value (or in-season value via waivers/free agency) comes in the form of hitting on previously hyped players who gamers overlook in favor of the next big thing.
Hype can come in varying degrees, and a player can actually have some buzz while still qualifying as a post-hype sleeper if said buzz falls well short of their previous loftier expectations. To put names to what I’m talking about, Trevor Bauer had a bit of hype after a strong finish to 2017, but he still carried some post-hype sleeper appeal as a player more significantly liked in previous years. He delivered the goods and made the leap to a top-of-the-rotation (TOR) pitcher. Mike Foltynewicz’s level of prospect hype wasn’t as great as Bauer’s, but he was a top-75 prospect across multiple reputable publications prior to the 2014 season. He failed to deliver until breaking out last year. He fits a more universally accepted definition of a post-hype player. Who qualifies as a post-hype sleeper is debatable, but in order to set some kind of guideline for this piece, I’ll require they have an ADP north of 150.
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Yoan Moncada (CHW – 2B): 163.7 ADP
Moncada’s the only player in this piece with an ADP in the top 200. Universally a top-five prospect prior to the 2017 season, he’s a .234 hitter with a 33.6 K% through 901 major league plate appearances. The strikeouts are a legitimate concern, but Moncada won’t turn 24 until the end of May. Furthermore, he has already logged 540 more plate appearances than at the Triple-A level before his accelerated path to the bigs. In fact, he had fewer than 600 plate appearances in the upper minors (Double-A and Triple-A) before being thrown to the wolves.
The fact he’s been just a pinch below average hitter (97 wRC+) while showing off some pop and flashing growth is promising. Moncada had a 45.6 GB% in 231 plate appearances for the Pale Hose in 2017, and he whittled that down to 37.3% last year while bumping up his line drives (19.2% to 22.7%) and fly balls (35.2% to 40.1%). He also dramatically reduced his infield fly-ball rate (popups) from 11.4% to 6.9%.
Moncada’s patience belies his youth. His 23.3% O-Swing% was 18th for qualified hitters last year and helped fuel his 10.3 BB%. Additionally, his strikeout woes (33.4 K% in 2018) aren’t attached to an alarming rate of swings and misses. His 12.2 SwStr% wasn’t gargantuan compared to last year’s MLB average of 10.7%, and it’s possible he could take a huge bite out of his strikeout rate by attacking more pitches in the strike zone.
I wouldn’t bank on the batting average moving from a liability to a strength in 2019, but there’s growth potential. His increase in fly balls and continued physical maturation should bode well for more power, though, and I fully expect him to best 20 homers this season. Also, he probably has more stolen base upside than one would expect from a player with 15 steals (in 23 attempts) in big league 211 games. He stole 17 of 25 attempts in 80 games at Triple-A in 2017, and he has plus wheels. Moncada’s 28.8 ft/sec sprint speed measure at Baseball Savant tied Jose Peraza–the owner of 23 stolen bases in 2017 and 23 in 2017–for 70th fastest out of 549 players. A 20/20 season with some average growth is well within Moncada’s reach this year.
Byron Buxton (MIN – OF): 201.0 ADP
Yuck. That sufficiently summarizes Buxton’s 2018 campaign. He dealt with injuries, but his 94 plate appearances were ugly. He posted a negative wRC+ (-3, to be exact). He’s also just a season removed from going 16/29 with a .253/.314/.413 slash and tons of buzz after hitting .298/.342/.541 with 11 homers and 13 stolen bases in 225 plate appearances from August 1 through the end of the 2017 season.
Buxton topped Baseball Savant’s sprint speed leaderboard, and he’s not totally punchless, as evidenced by his 16 homers in 2017. Buxton might also have a little extra power this year after reportedly adding 21 pounds of muscle to, in part, help protect his body when aggressively playing fly balls against the fence. This is the time of the year when everyone is in the best shape of their life, and adding muscle won’t fix Buxton’s contact woes. At this year’s cost, though, a bounce back to 2017’s form would be an acceptable outcome. As a 25-year-old player with less than two full seasons of plate appearances in the bigs, there’s potential for skills growth.
Tyler Glasnow (TB – SP/RP): 205.0 ADP
Glasnow’s not entirely being slept on, but he was once a top prospect viewed as a potential TOR pitcher. He didn’t reach that lofty ceiling while battling control issues in Pittsburgh, but he made huge gains after moving to the Rays last year. I hyped him once this offseason, and I’ll continue to pound the drum for him at every opportunity.
Tyler Skaggs (LAA – SP): 237.0 ADP
Skaggs’ ADP appears to be entirely a product of recency bias. He was knocked around to cap off a 2018 that started tremendously. An adductor strain caused him some problems near the end of the season and sent him to the disabled list twice. In his last start prior to hitting the DL the first time, he was tattooed for 10 earned runs in 3.1 innings. In his only start back before hitting the DL a second time with the same injury, he coughed up seven earned runs in 3.1 innings. If you knock those two disastrous starts off of his season-long ledger, his ERA drops from 4.02 to 2.96 and his WHIP drops from 1.33 to 1.22. Skaggs should be going in the top-200 picks.
Jesse Winker (CIN – OF): 243.0 ADP
Last July, I wrote about Winker as an under-the-radar pickup as part of a Featured Pros piece. Shortly after touting him, his season ended prematurely as a result of a shoulder injury that required surgery. As I noted in the linked piece, Winker was on a heater just before his season came to a close. You can read a little bit more about just how hot he was to close out his 2018 campaign in Matt Kelly’s piece for MLB.com.
New Reds manager David Bell voiced a desire for a now-healthy Winker to contribute as an everyday player. The left-handed outfielder creamed right-handed pitchers to the tune of a .321/.418/.455 slash and 137 wRC+, but he wasn’t a total disaster against lefties despite his .211 average. Winker walked in 16.9% of his plate appearances against southpaws and kept his strikeout rate against to 19.7%. The overall results against lefties were a 96 wRC+. Fantasy gamers who have alternatives should sit him against top-flight lefties until he shows further growth against them, but there’s certainly promise in last year’s work against same-handed pitching foes.
Lucas Giolito (CHW – SP): 375.5 ADP
Giolito is the longest shot to put things together this year, and he doesn’t need to be drafted in anything but extremely large mixed leagues (think bigger than 16 teams) or AL-only formats. The righty’s 6.13 ERA was the highest among qualified pitchers in 2018, and Dylan Bundy’s second-highest qualified ERA was more than a half-run lower at 5.45.
The reasons for avoiding him are obvious, but he’s also one of the most highly regarded pitching prospects of my lifetime. He has a Tommy John surgery on his resume, though, and his fastball has lost lots of zip since his prospect peak. There’s probably no chance he’ll hit his once lofty ceiling, but he was more than a heater-only prospect. It also can’t be easy for a guy who once had premium cheddar to put things together at the game’s highest level without it, but Giolito was tasked with trying to do that last year.
The primary reasons I hold out hope for him turning into a useful fantasy starter are his slider and changeup. According to FanGraphs, the pitches had a 15.9 SwStr% and 58 wRC+ against as well as a 16.7 SwStr% and 86 wRC+ against, respectively. With a pair of put-away pitches in his arsenal, Giolito could be a sequencing or pitch-usage mix away from making a monumental leap. The odds are against him helping gamers in standard leagues this year, but don’t dismiss the possibility entirely.
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.