Greetings all, and welcome to that special time of year we call draft season. No, not fantasy baseball draft season, but it’s much more popular (yet much more boring in my humble opinion) cousin, fantasy football draft season. The reason I mention it, is that it always seems like the first week of August or so, which may coincide with time spent prepping for the football season, there is a particularly big drop off in folks paying attention to their out-of-it-in-2024 baseball teams. I don’t judge anyone who has abandoned a team that’s fallen out of their league pennant race because I often have to do it myself in order to have enough time to properly manage my teams that are still in the thick of things. Anyhow, just a reminder that if you are still fighting for every point you can get in a roto league, why not take advantage of the malaise of others as you figure out which teams and in which categories you can gain ground in? Hopefully, there will also be less competition when it comes to the waiver wire as well… maybe a rare deep league gem surfaces over the coming weeks. On that note, let’s get to our weekly handful of names that might be worth checking in on for those of us in NL-only, AL-only, and other deep leagues.
NL
Victor Scott II. Remember back in spring when it looked like Scott, one of the faster humans in baseball, might break camp with the Cardinals and be an immediate rookie of the year contender? He was instead demoted on April 19th with a .085 average. Scott is back up with the big club for now, though, and while he doesn’t have a steal since his recall, he did hit his first major league homer. He is said to have changed his swing/stance while on the farm, and evidently the new version includes a step that he likened to a dance move, which he thinks will help his hitting. I’m pretty skeptical after watching him early in the season and we’ll see if he even stays up with St.Louis, but it’s worth noting that he was aware that something rather major needed to change if he has any hope of surviving let alone thriving against major league pitching.
Nick Martinez. I don’t want to make too much of Martinez’s recent accomplishments since they were against some weak competition (in three of his last six appearances he was facing the Marlins). I will note that in that last appearance against Miami, though, he went a full five innings with 5 Ks and no walks. I haven’t had too many pitchers do that in the last week, or even the last month for that matter, against anyone. Martinez doesn’t and won’t have a great K rate, but his K/BB ratio is stellar (68/10) and his WHIP sits at 1.11 on the season now. Worth monitoring in deeper leagues, I think, as we see how the Reds deploy him from here on out.
Joey Bart. At 10% owned in CBS leagues, Bart is certainly rostered in your garden variety deep NL-only league, but I’m giving him a shout out here for those in slightly shallower formats who may not have realized how solid he’s been lately. Whether it’s just a tear or we’re seeing actual progress from yet another post-hype prospect is yet to be determined, but he has an OBP of .458 with 2 homers for the Pirates over the last week as I write this, and he’s up to a not-awful .265 average with 8 bombs on the season. (Look at that; Bart hit a homer Thursday after I wrote this… dude is kind of scorching right now).
Jerar Encarnacion. I avoided bidding on Encarnacion in even my deeper NL-only leagues as I expected him to be a strikeout machine, but am now wondering if I should have given him a closer look based on opportunity alone. He still has at least a tiny bit of prospect shine on him from his days on the Marlins farm, but began 2024 in the Mexican league, followed by the Giants triple A team, and now is a full-fledged member of their major league squad. What looked like the short side of a platoon has turned into some DH starts and more at bats than many expected, and Encarnacion is off to a nice start hitting .333 with a homer in his first six games. I’m still worried about those Ks (he has 6 strikeouts and nary a walk) but, as always with young players, once pitchers make adjustments to him, it’ll be about whether or not he can adjust back and stay in the majors and/or on fantasy radars.
AL
Addison Barger. Barger comes up as one of the more-added deep league players this past week, going from 2 to 5% owned in CBS leagues. He qualifies at 3B and OF in most leagues and has been getting lots of ABs for Toronto against righties since the trade deadline. His average is hovering right around .200 but he’s hitting .300 with 2 homers over his last 5 games, so if nothing else we may have a deep league hot schmotato with a path to continued playing time here.
Romy Gonzalez. Speaking of deep league hot schmotatos with a path to playing time, how can we not mention Romy Gonzalez? He’s already played all four infield positions plus OF this year, and I actually had to stop and take a look at Wednesday’s box scores to confirm that he hit third, started at second base, and hit a three-run homer for the Red Sox that day. That’s a little ridiculous in and of itself, but what’s really ridiculous is that I’m rostering fellow Red Sox infielders David Hamilton and Nick Sogard in my deepest AL-only league, and now need to think about bidding on Gonzalez this weekend to add him to the team. It’s a dilemma only a true deep leaguer could be faced with, or understand.
Rob Refsnyder. We’ll stay in Boston to mention Refsnyder, as the Red Sox really have been cobbling together lineups full of part-time, not very good hitters that are kryptonite in standard leagues but the very bread and butter that can help complete a deep league roster. Well, maybe more like a piece of lettuce or slice of overripe tomato. Anyway, we should all be so good at capturing lightning in a bottle from mediocre hitters, as Refsnyder had a two-homer game recently and now has seven on the year in around 200 at bats, while maintaining an average hovering right around .300.
Drew Rasmussen. A heads up, if you missed it, that Rasmussen returned from his elbow injury with a successful appearance for the Rays this week, pitching two scoreless relief innings. He’ll remain in the pen this season and one would assume will be penciled into the rotation next year if all goes well, so in the right league he could theoretically be of a little help now and/or a lot in the future.
