What I Got Right in 2023
Looking back at my biggest hits of the fantasy baseball season
I did this same exercise last year, and it’s a very important part of my offseason process. Too often, we (as fantasy managers) are too quick to move on to a new season, without first taking a step back to reflect.
I want to remember what my biggest convictions were leading into the year. This way I can learn from them, and be better moving forward.
ICYMI I recently wrote up what I got wrong in 2023.
Triston Casas
I also just wrote an entire piece on Reid Detmers, who was my “no matter what” player in 2023.
I talked about my process of choosing “no matter what” players, what went wrong for Detmers specifically, and who else was close to being chosen.
I never mentioned Casas.
And yet it kind of felt like he was this year’s choice.
I’ve been high on him for years as a prospect, and although I’m typically a very analytically-driven baseball analyst, the Casas call incorporated a lot of “feel.”
Casas himself has said he isn’t necessarily into all the data present in today’s game. But when you listen to his interviews or just watch him play, you can really tell how cerebral of a hitter he is.
This is a young bat who intentionally pursued an OBP approach early in his minor league career, before successfully flipping into more of a slugger.
And my goodness the kid has power.
On July 28th he hit an opposite field homer at San Francisco’s Oracle Park. Here’s how rare it was:
Through May 1st the rookie had just a 56 wRC+ in large part due to a .149 BABIP.
And he was too passive early on, dating back to his September 2022 debut.
But since I remembered how intentional he could be with his swing decisions, it always felt like he was one simple adjustment from it all clicking. In this case, just swinging more:
From May 3rd through the end of his season Casas slashed .293/.387/.536 with 21 homers and a .242 ISO.
He had the 8th highest OPS in baseball during this time, ahead of Juan Soto, Kyler Tucker, and Bryce Harper.
By September he was balling out in the fantasy playoffs while batting cleanup for the Sox. Unfortunately, he missed the final two weeks of the year due to shoulder soreness.
If that gives us any discount for 2024 drafts we’ll want to pounce. This is a player who still has room to grow production-wise, but I anticipate the market keeping him as a mid-round pick due to his youth. A slightly higher fly ball rate and the Matt Olson comp will grow even stronger.
If there’s a specific lesson to take away, it’s to be patient with rookies early in the season. Last year Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt started slow before catching fire. This season it was Casas and Gunnar Henderson who rewarded patience.
2024 Early-Round Corbin Carroll
Possibly my favorite article of last offseason was “Projecting the First Two Rounds of 2024 Fantasy Baseball Drafts.”
The exercise is something my favorite fantasy football podcast, Stealing Bananas, does before each season.
The idea is that if we play redraft with more of a “dynasty lens” — by betting on young, high-end talents — we can wind up hitting on the most profitable draft picks.
Think about what Carroll’s ADP meant before this season. He was a mid-round pick, which was bullish considering his rookie status. It was also a sign that he had ridiculous upside.
If Carroll was a “hit” in 2023, what would that mean for is 2024 ADP?
In other words, we want to target players who have a reasonable case for being drafted much earlier the following season.
We’re already seeing it with Carroll. He’s a Round 1 player now. Carroll’s 2023 ADP still had room to grow in future years, which is different than many of the players who were being drafted around him.
It isn’t as simple as just drafting all the rookies. Price sensitivity still matters. Not every young player is the same. But Carroll, a premium prospect doubling as one of the fastest players in baseball in a year where rule changes were about to encourage more stolen bases, made too much sense.
I should’ve made him my “no matter what” player.
Again, I’m not advocating to blindly/aggressively take all youth moving forward. What I’m advocating for is to zoom out during draft season.
It’s easy to view names like Trea Turner and Mookie Betts as perennial first-round talents nowadays. When possible, we want exposure to them during the season that launches their following year’s price hike.
Breakout Prospects
Prospect coverage is getting so, so good.
Minor league Statcast data is starting to trickle in to the mainstream — you just need to know where to find it. For my money, any serious prospect mind or dynasty fantasy baseball player has to subscribe to at least two places:
It’s my belief that this Statcast data combined with quality in-person scouting is helping us become more directionally accurate with our overall prospect evaluations.
There will always be busts, but especially in fantasy we just want to be right more often than our dynasty league mates.
The key is identifying buzzy names, or even big league contributors, early. I covered four last offseason:
Miguel Bleis
Bryce Miller
Junior Caminero
Tanner Bibee
Miller and Bibee weren’t seen as elite pitching prospects, but for a number of reasons they were undervalued and also had proximity on their side. There’s a huge difference in dynasty between getting quick big league information on a player and still waiting on a Daniel Espino.
Bleis suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in June, so we unfortunately never got to see that bet through but this is a reminder to not forget about him. He was already a top-100 guy last offseason yet he feels somewhat forgotten.
The real prize here was Caminero, whose season positioned him as the cover boy for my Prospect Team of the Year.
With prospects moving quicker through the minors it’s becoming more important to be early on baseball’s next star players, both for dynasty and redraft purposes.
Luis Castillo
I’m rarely the first person to take a starting pitcher on draft day. Instead, I’m always seeking ace-level production at a slight discount.
In 2022 I wrote about the growing middle class at starting pitcher.
In 2023, especially on Underdog, the low-end SP1s were undervalued.
Nobody fit this description better than Castillo.
It can be dangerous to extrapolate partial-year numbers over the length of a full season to determine a new baseline. But there was reason to with Castillo’s 2022. He entirely changed his pitch mix:
The trend continued in ‘23, with Castillo putting more and more emphasis on his fastball/slider combo.
Since the move to Seattle in August 2022 Castillo ranks top-10 in ERA, WHIP, innings, K%, K-BB%, opponent batting average, wins, and strikeouts.
If early NFBC drafts are any indication, we’ll once again be able to draft ace-level starting pitchers after banking a couple of elite bats in Rounds 1-2.
I plan to do so. For fun, here are my top-5 starting pitchers for 2024. You can differ on the exact order, but this group very much feels like they belong in their own tier at the top:
Spencer Strider
Gerrit Cole
Corbin Burnes
Luis Castillo
Zack Wheeler