- Draft Prep Tiers: C | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | OF | SP | RP
- Heath's Sleepers | Breakouts | Busts |
- Scott's Top 100 prospects | Sleepers | Breakouts | Busts
I've gone back and forth so many times on Miguel Sano I'm not even sure I know how I feel about him now. But with reports that he won't be suspended and a red-hot spring, I'm pretty sure I don't want to call him a bust anymore. I'm perfectly fine with his current ADP and a pick in 8th round leaves you room for upside while accounting for his risks. But I'm still not interested in the Diamondbacks hitters.
Paul Goldschmidt should fall at least to the end of the first round, but he's still the sixth player off the board by consensus ADP. A.J. Pollock's Round 6 ADP doesn't account for enough injury risk, or the likelihood that he and the Diamondbacks score fewer runs. While Jake Lamb has fallen to the 13th round, that's not enough to tempt me, as he may be the most heavily impacted by the humidor.
Here are seven more busts I'm avoiding on draft day, sorted by ADP:
The first two names on this list were a part of my earlier version of this column. I was hoping their ADP would fall enough to take them out, but it hasn't ... at all. Ozuna is being drafted in the fourth round, which implies that he's going to maintain at least one of his unsustainable metrics from 2017. I expect his batting average will drop by 30 points, his home run total will regress by 20 percent and he'll lose at least 20 RBI. He's still a good hitter, but I wouldn't draft him until the seventh round.
I don't believe in Schoop near as much as I do Ozuna. He's largely an accumulator coming off a career year. He will be a drag on your batting average, provides no steals and should very well see a dip in the other three categories. Schoop is being drafted like a difference maker, when he should be a fall-back option.
Turner's injury isn't being reflected yet but where I've seen him go, he's still not a value. He's a 33-year-old who has played more than 130 games once in his career. His career year was 2016, when he hit .275 with 27 home runs and 90 RBI in 151 games. I assume people are projecting 2017 ratios onto 2016 playing time, which seems like a reach. The projections largely agree, with Depth Charts, Steamer and ZIPS all projecting Turner below 25 home runs and with around 80 runs and RBI. That type of production is a value in the double-digit rounds, not here.
Speaking of playing time, Shohei Ohtani! The Angels are committing to a six-man rotation to accommodate their new pitcher, which hampers upside in weekly lineup leagues. Two-start weeks will be largely non-existent, and there could be a week or two where he doesn't pitch at all. If you're in a daily league, you could also get hitter stats from him when he's in the lineup, but I have a real problem expecting Ohtani to be good as both a hitter and a pitcher in his first taste of the big leagues.
Reliever stats can be really fickle year to year. Felipe Rivero had a 2.79 ERA and 0.95 WHIP in 2015. He followed that up with a 4.09 ERA and a 1.28 WHIP. Then, of course, he was awesome last year with a 1.67 ERA and a 0.89 WHIP. Is that really enough to rank him as a top-10 closer? Not for me. Especially not when he pitches on a team that could be as bad as the Pirates. I expect an ERA closer to three than two, with an above average WHIP. I'd also expect a saves total right around 30.
The batted ball data looks great for Castellanos, but we have no reason to trust batted ball data from Detroit. Instead, we need to look at Castellanos like a .275 hitter who should be in the mid-20s for home runs. I would expect his run production numbers will take a dip from last year's career high. He's not really going to hurt you in most categories, but it's really hard to see where he stands out. Like I said with Schoop, he's a fine player to fall back on, but not at this price.
We know what to expect from Marcus Stroman. Despite the wild fluctuations in his ERA, his peripherals have pretty consistently looked like a solid starter who will give you an ERA around 3.5 and a WHIP around 1.3. His value is in his relatively high floor. But now he's battling shoulder inflammation in camp and pitching for a Blue Jays team that doesn't look to me like a contender. I don't mind taking a safe pitcher in the mid-rounds, but I'm not taking a low-upside pitcher with shoulder pain in spring training.
