Fantasy Baseball Draft Prospects: Jackson Chourio, Max Meyer, Colson Montgomery, Pete Crow-Armstrong (2024)

These prospect rankings are based on FANTASY value, not real-life value. Considering such, hitters generally weigh a bit heavier for me due to the injury risk and higher volatility of prospect pitchers. Proximity to the majors is also prominent in these rankings since we are looking at guys for only 2024.

Rather than getting into writing little bios on all of these hitters, I’ve decided to keep my rankings simple. I’ll provide the 2023 stats of each player across all levels, a player comp, a small blub on the player’s prime skills for fantasy, and an explanation of my ranking with expectations for 2024 with ATC projections and my thoughts on these projections. I’ve also included fScores for any players I expect to debut in 2024, which highlights what my fScore projections believe the player is capable of at the pro level for immediate impact.

If you are curious about the fScore ratings, you can check out my fScore rankings and information on the fScores by following THIS LINK.

NOTE: Rookie status is determined by 130 ABs or 50 IPs at the Major League level. I did opt to include the foreign imports in this equation but did not include Shane Baz (who would be ranked 5th behind Chourio) or Mason Miller (who would rank 14th).

Top Prospects to Target for Redraft Leagues

Jackson Chourio (OF – MIL)

2023 AA/AAA: .283/.338/.467, 22 HR, 44 SB

Age: 20

ETA: Opening Day 2024

fScores: 93 fContact, 73 fDiscipline, 104 fPower, 144 fSpeed, 66 fDurability

Comp: Luis Robert

Prime Skills: Chourio has a really quick bat, which leads to way more power than you would expect by looking at his frame. The speed came to life in 2023, and he has superstar potential if he can get the plate skills under control. Right now, he’s already trending to a 20/25 bat as a 20-year-old rookie.

Projections (ATC): .252/.303/.421, 16 HR, 17 SB (116 games)

Ranking Explanation: Chourio signed the big pre-debut contract to all but guarantee him a roster spot on Opening Day. The ATC projection has only 116 games, which means they expect some struggles and a demotion, which is more likely in Chourio’s case than Carter and Langford, because not only is he younger, but his plate skills are not nearly as developed, which is going to lead to some volatility. I think the slash projects are about right on with ATC, as are the homers (even though I project more games played), but the steals, I think, are a little conservative – I would project more like the 25-30 of the Fangraphs and Zips DC projections.

Pete Crow-Armstrong (OF – CHC)

2023 AA/AAA Stats: .283/.365/.511, 20 HR, 37 SB

2023 MLB: .000/.176/.000, 0 HR, 0 SB

Age: 22

ETA: Debuted in 2023

fScores: 93 fContact, 75 fDiscipline, 102 fPower, 159 fSpeed

Comp: Cedric Mullins with a better glove and more consistent power

Prime Skills: PCA has superstar potential with insane power/speed potential. However, his lackluster contact skills and his plate discipline in high A leaves a lot lacking. He could definitely end up as a 20/30 guy, though, if he can make enough contact and avoid Ks.

Projections (ATC): .247/.312/.405, 9 HR, 18 SB (113 games)

Ranking Explanation: PCA is an interesting one because he could break camp if the Cubs fail to re-sign Bellinger, but if they bring Bellinger back, there’s a pretty solid chance he’s not up until there’s an injury since the rest of the roster is filled out with Morel unlikely to be starting at 3B. I’m going to agree with the projections on games played, but I think there’s a little more power in the bat right now, and we see closer to 11-13 homers over that span, which increases the slug somewhere around .415-.420.

Colson Montgomery (SS – CWS)

2023 A+/AA Stats: .287/.456/.484, 8 HR, 2 SB

Age: 22

ETA: Early 2024

fScores: 96 fContact, 140 fDiscipline, 98 fPower, 60 fSpeed, 44 fDurability

Comp: Lefty Carlos Correa

Prime Skills: Montgomery has fantastic plate discipline, which, by now, you know I love as a projecting skill toward future fantasy baseball stardom. He should grow into significantly more power as he builds muscle onto his 6-4 frame, and even though he’s not slow, I doubt we see steals from him in the future.

Projections (ATC): .226/.325/.359, 5 HR, 1 SB (52 games)

Ranking Explanation: While the White Sox brought Paul DeJong in to play SS, I doubt they want him starting for them the majority of the season, and the team would prefer it if Montgomery can outright beat him for the job in the spring. My bet would be closer to .245/.360/.425 with 12-15 homers in about 115 games.

Max Meyer (SP – MIA)

2022 AAA Stats: 58 IP, 20.1% K-BB rate, 3.72 ERA, 1.00 WHIP

2022 MLB Stats: 6 IP, 15.4% K-BB rate, 7.50 ERA, 1.50 WHIP

Age: 25

ETA: Debuted in 2022 (TJ)

fScores: 21 fPDurability, 108 fStuff, 104 fControl, 118 fERA

Comp: Shorter John Smoltz

Prime Skills: Meyer has a super nasty slider that might be one of the best pitches in baseball. He projects more as a solid #2-3 SP (or top 40 for fantasy) than as an ace because he’s more of a two-pitch guy – but he’s shown in the minors he can be stretched out to start once he comes back from TJ.

Projections (ATC): 84 IP, 78 Ks, 31 BBs, 4.39 ERA, 1.35 WHIP

Ranking Explanation: The Marlins are still looking to move a starter prior to ST (likely Cabrera or Luzardo via rumors), which means we could be looking at a competition between Meyer, Weathers, and Puk for a fifth rotation spot. It sounds like Meyer is unlikely to win the spot out of camp, but I expect we will see him up by June, and he will likely pitch a similar workload to Ricky Tiedemann. He’s coming off TJ, so we will see how the control looks in spring, but if Meyer gets back to where he was pre-TJ, he should be looking like a 14-16% K-BB rate guy in 80-100 innings. The projection is about what I would expect, but I would think he can log more than a K/9, and I think he is likely closer to a 1.25 WHIP.

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