Fantasy Baseball Prospects: David Festa, Carson Whisenhunt, AJ Smith-Shawver, Ricky Tiedemann

Welcome back to my weekly prospect report at FantasyPros! The goal of this column is to give you the most fantasy-relevant prospect information throughout the last week, all in one place.

The format of this weekly prospect report will be by level and we will go through players in order of their placing on my latest Top 150 Prospect Rankings. I won’t be hitting every prospect every week, but I will focus on the most relevant throughout the week and follow up on other notable players post my top 150. This article will not focus on any AAAA-type players or veterans in the Minors who have outlived their prospect status. Below we dive into a few notable names.

NOTE: Rookie status is determined by 130 ABs, or 50 IPs at the Major League level | All stats are as of Sunday, April 14.

Fantasy Baseball Prospect Report

#21 Ricky Tiedemann (SP – TOR)
- - Season: 8 IP | 2.4 K-BB%, 13.2 SwStr% | 5.63 ERA, 2.00 WHIP
  - This Week: 3 2/3 IP | 7 Ks, 3 BBs | 4.91 ERA, 1.64 WHIP
  - Notes: Ricky Tiedemann continues to get roughed up, though he was definitely better this last time out. I’m concerned about him, both from a short-term production standpoint for 2024 fantasy and long-term for his ability to be an effective starter.
#55 AJ Smith-Shawver (SP – ATL)
- - Season: 3 IP | 10.5 K-BB%, 16.5 SwStr% | 18.00 ERA, 3.33 WHIP
  - This Week: 2 1/3 IP | 5 Ks, 1 BBs | 11.57 ERA, 2.14 WHIP
  - Notes: Skenes, Tiedemann and AJ Smith-Shawver are all getting this short stint-type treatment, which means the MLB teams are planning on a good amount of use later in the season for each of them. These starts are more like an extended spring or rehab than them needing to show they’re ready for the call.

#59 Carson Whisenhunt (SP – SF)

- - Season: 8 IP | 11.9 K-BB%, 13.8 SwStr% | 13.50 ERA, 2.37 WHIP
  - This Week: 1 1/3 IP | 2 Ks, 5 BBs | 47.25 ERA, 6.75 WHIP
  - Notes: The Giants aggressively promoted Carson Whisenhunt to AAA to start the year. I love it and am looking forward to a debut at some point in 2024 (probably in the second half). Whisenhunt was rocked this week, but this is the PCL, and the K-BB is more important than ERA. The walks were obviously a problem, and hopefully, it was a blip, not a trend.

#85 David Festa (SP – MIN)

- - Season: 8 1/3 IP | 2.6 K-BB%, 13.7 SwStr% | 2.16 ERA, 2.04 WHIP
  - This Week: 2 2/3 IP | 4 Ks, 4 BBs | 3.37 ERA, 2.62 WHIP
  - Notes: David Festa is the seventh man in the Twins rotation, clearly still behind Simeon Woods Richardson.

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