The Next Vinnie Pasquantino is Hiding in Plain Sight
Why I'm Buying Kyle Manzardo in Dynasty Formats
As often as I can this offseason I’m going to be posting extended write ups on prospects/players I find myself having thoughts on. I’m keeping the intros brief, however, in order to maximize the amount I can write. Let’s get to it.
The more I play dynasty fantasy baseball, the more I find a certain type of prospect to be under valued. Of course, I’m referring to strike zone-disciplined, power-hitting first basemen.
Triston Casas was the poster boy during his early-career days, before reaching the majors this past September. While he was a former first-round pick, and always considered a Top 100 type, he never felt appropriately valued by my dynasty league mates.
The reason, I think, is that Casas took a while to become an elite prospect in the eyes of Baseball America and MLB Pipeline. And to be clear, I’m not blaming them. BA and Pipeline aren’t fantasy-focused prospect rankings. They do, however, play a significant part in the prospect value conversation.
Take Gabriel Moreno, for instance. I don’t think it was right to consider him a top-tier prospect for fantasy. And yet BA’s final ranking of 2022 had him as the No. 3 overall prospect in baseball. This keeps his dynasty value afloat as he’s been consistently referred to as “one of the top prospects in the game.”
Moreno’s high-end prospect status in the eyes of BA/Pipeline is due to playing a premium defense position. Meanwhile, first base isn’t considered to be high on the defensive spectrum — unless you’re asking Ron Washington.
The idea is that first base prospects can have more value in dynasty leagues than your go-to (real life) prospect ranking might suggest. This is especially true if said first baseman is a well-rounded hitter, like Vinnie Pasquantino.
Vinnie P — the Italian Breakfast, no, the Italian Nightmare — whichever we landed on, wasn’t on any top 100 prospect lists to begin 2022. This was despite him posting over a 150 wRC+ in each of his minor league stops entering the year, but again, he’s a beefy first baseman so there’s limited real life value.
Pasquantino began this year at Triple-A and just. kept. mashing. He became a darling within the fantasy community for multiple reasons. For one, his nickname is THE ITALIAN BREAKFAST (or the Italian Nightmare, whichever you prefer).
The other reason was due to his hitting profile looking…flawless?
This wasn’t a situation like Nolan Gorman, who has prodigious power but an inflated K% that makes him a more volatile option when first joining the bigs. Austin Riley was a power-hitting prospect with strikeout problems when he first came up in 2019. He initially crushed. Then the swing-and-miss issues grew bigger and he had to adjust.
Conversely, when a hitter joins the majors with good plate discipline, the floor — and thus their ability to contribute right away — is naturally higher. This helps players stay in the majors, and more importantly, remain in the lineup.
When you combine strong plate discipline with power, you get Vinnie Pasquantino, who hit a quiet (?) .295/.383/.450 with 35 walks and 34 strikeouts in his first 298 appearances with the Royals. This is why we all love him. His Backyard Baseball Prospect card is one of my all-time favorites that I’ve made:
Remember, this was a player who wasn’t even on Top 100 prospect lists at this time last year. Could there be other Vinnie P’s out there? In order to find out, let’s reverse engineer things. Below is every minor league hitter from 2022 with at least a .270 ISO, a 12% walk rate, and less than a 17% strikeout rate:
Vinnie Pasquantino
Kyle Manzardo
Interesting! Manzardo was the 63rd overall pick by the Rays in 2021. Here’s BA’s midseason write-up on him, when he was ranked as their No. 6 prospect:
Midseason Update: Manzardo has to hit, because there's little other value he provides on the diamond. He's a below-average defender at first and he's a well below-average runner. The good news is Manzardo is quite the hitter. In the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season, he hit .435/.500/.694. In the full 2021 season, he hit .365/.437/.640 and that combination of high on-base percentage, high batting average and solid power has carried over to his brief pro career. Manzardo has been one of the best hitters in the South Atlantic League, having skipped over Low-A. He is hit-over-power with a plus hit tool and average power, but the 21-year-old may grow into more power as he ages, and his ability to make consistent hard contact is noteworthy.
They cut right to it — Manzardo’s first base defense isn’t even considered average. This rightfully puts all the pressure on his bat to reach the majors.
Yet by the end of the season BA must’ve really started believing in him as a hitter, because he squeezed into their late-season Top 100 list at 96 overall. That’s significant.
If he keeps hitting like he did this past year, it’s certainly warranted. Manzardo reached Double-A this summer while turning 22 in July. He posted a 184 wRC+ in 63 games at High-A and a 148 mark in 30 games upon his promotion. The full-season slash line reads as .327/.426/.617 with 22 homers in 93 games. We’ve already highlighted the strike zone awareness. The swing looks pretty too:
We should also note the Tampa situation, which can be a blessing and a curse for fantasy baseball purposes (usually a curse).
The small-market Rays are always seeking cheap offense from the minors, especially when a player has a particular skill set (in Manzardo’s case, his high-floor bat, particularly against righties). This could help accelerate a chance in the majors.
But playing for the Rays also means he’s at risk of serving as a platoon option early in his career. The Royals haven’t historically been as analytically disciplined as a team like the Rays, but they at least played Italian Breakfast everyday and let him develop as a middle of the order hitter.
This is the biggest risk factor with Manzardo. He has to hit in order to bring value to his real life team. He also has to hit right away for Tampa to give him consistent chances. If he was in another organization my enthusiasm level would be a lot higher. Adding it all up leaves him as a “buy” candidate in dynasty leagues if he isn’t already valued as a top-50 prospect. Otherwise, most of the profit potential has already been sucked up.
This was ultimately too many words on why to target Manzardo in dynasty leagues, but I wanted to explain the process of why he could be the next Vinnie P hiding in plain site. It was a quick find via a helpful Fangraphs query, but elaborating as to why this move was recommended is what interests me as a baseball writer.
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