It’s Wednesday. You know what that means. We are back with another prospect report.
Like last week, we have had a lot of movement at the big-league level featuring prospects making their debuts or those who are going to be debuting within the next week or so.
Let’s not waste any time and get right to it.
Fantasy Baseball Week 4 Prospect Report
All stats are accurate as of Tuesday evening on April 25.
Tanner Bibee (SP – CLE)
The Guardians are calling up Bibee to their big-league rotation after suffering some injuries to the top-five arms. Bibee doesn’t get mentioned with the bigger-name pitching prospects, but he’s every bit as good.
He has a 31.1 K% in Triple-A this year, and he cruised through Single-A and Double-A last season, so his stay in Triple-A was short.
Bibee and Logan Allen (more below) should compete to stay in the Guardians’ rotation all season – even after Triston McKenzie and Aaron Civale return. He’s worth rostering in 12-team leagues and larger.
Brandon Pfaadt (SP – ARI)
The good news is that it seems like it’s almost Pfaadt time in Arizona. The bad news is that it might start in Colorado of all places.
All I can hope for is that the Diamondbacks don’t debut their top pitching prospect in Colorado, but if they do, that they don’t hold the results against him.
With Drey Jameson getting demoted, it all but guarantees that Pfaadt will be up by the end of the week at the latest. He’s worth rostering in all 12-team leagues, as he’s picked up where he left off last season.
Michael Busch (2B – LAD)
It’s great to see Busch get a shot at the big leagues finally. The thing is, it probably won’t be for long, as Max Muncy is one of many Dodgers who are on the paternity list – some people celebrate the All-Star break differently, I guess – but it will give Busch the chance to show what he can do against big-league pitching.
If Busch makes a good impression, there’s always an outside shot that he could replace Miguel Vargas at second base if the latter struggles.
Brenton Doyle (OF – COL)
The Rockies, for whatever reason, are doing Rockies-type things, as they sent down Elehuris Montero to call up Doyle.
I don’t get the decision to move Montero down and not call up Nolan Jones, but it is what it is, I guess. Doyle shouldn’t be rostered in standard leagues, but he’s slashed .348/.434/.474 in 21 Triple-A games dating back to last season. There’s some pop there, and he should be able to take advantage of the big outfield in Colorado given his spray chart.
Logan Allen (SP – CLE)
The other Logan Allen is not the other Logan Allen anymore, but he’s just the only Logan Allen. The Guardians brought the lefty up Sunday to make his debut, as he struck out eight over six innings, allowing just one earned run and one walk.
Like with Bibee and Peyton Battenfield, we don’t know how long Allen will be up, but he seems to have the inside track to earn the No. 5 spot over Bibee initially once everyone is healthy.
Matt Mervis (1B – CHC)
Mervis will probably just stay in this column every single week until he gets the call because Eric Hosmer and Trey Mancini have been absolutely atrocious for the Cubs.
#FreeMashMervis.
Andrew Abbott / Lyon Richardson (SP – CIN)
We’ll highlight a couple of Reds prospects before we head out of here. Yes, we typically look at players who just debuted or are on the verge of debuting, but that’s just because that’s the hand we’ve been dealt so far. But, ideally, we’ll look at players who are making noise in the minors at all levels.
Let’s look at a couple of pitchers for the Reds who got promoted recently. Abbott has made some noise in Double-A. So much noise, in fact, that the Reds promoted him to Triple-A. There’s good reason for that, as the 24-year-old was mowing through the competition in Double-A, striking out 64.3 percent of the batters he faced in 15.2 innings.
To replace him in Double-A, the Reds moved Richardson up, who is an arm that I have become especially intrigued with in the early going. Now, I’m not saying he’s Ricky Tiedemann, but he’s as excited about a new arm as I have gotten since Tiedemann last season. It was only nine innings for Richardson, but he, too, was overpowering the competition, striking out 54.5 percent of the batters he faced with a 3 percent walk rate.
Both are players who are shooting up the prospect ranks and should be snatched up in any dynasty league where they are still available.
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Michael Waterloo is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Michael, check out his archive and follow him @MichaelWaterloo.