2017 Fantasy Baseball: Five Prospects to stash
Who are five prospects for you stash on your 2017 Fantasy Baseball rosters?
As we get closer and closer to the 2017 fantasy baseball season, I’m going to give you all the tools that you need to dominate your league. Our positional rankings will be coming out in the coming weeks. Earlier in this space, I talked about prospects to target. Now I’m going to give you five prospects that you should stash on your roster.
One of the strategies I like to employ for standard leagues is using the last pick to stash a top prospect on my bench who may come up and help my team during the season. As I said in the previous rankings, prospects that come up and excel can really help you win your league.
Some of these guys may have had a little taste of the majors last season and could see an increased role in 2017, while others are close to making it and could even be on their team’s opening day roster depending on how Spring Training shakes out for them.
These rankings aren’t in order, these are five different options. You also won’t see guys like Lucas Giolito or Yoan Moncada. Instead, it’s a little deeper dive, though does include some of the best prospects in the game.
The sport has a bright future and guys like Moncada, Giolito and the players on this list, should help the sport moving down the road.
So who are five guys to possibly use as players to stash? Let’s take a look.
Oakland A’s pitcher Jharel Cotton
Cotton was one of three pitchers that came to Oakland from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the deal for Rich Hill and Josh Reddick. Cotton should compete for the fourth or fifth starter spot for the Oakland A’s this season.
Cotton got a taste of the majors, making five starts and going 2-0 with a 2.15 ERA, striking out 23 in 29.1 innings and possibly more importantly, only walking four batters. The Virgin Island native was rewarded for a pretty good minor league season. After Cotton arrived in the A’s organization, he went 3-1 in six starts with a 2.82 ERA. Combined in AAA, Cotton went 11-6 with 155 strikeouts in 135.2 innings and a .219 BAA.
Cotton currently ranks 15th on the A’s prospect list according to mlbpipeline.com.
Although some scouts project him a reliever according to his pipeline report, Cotton is someone you can target late in drafts to stash. He hits 96 MPH with his fastball and can give you some nice additional strikeouts for your team.
Cincinnati Reds pitcher Amir Garrett
The Cincinnati Reds rebuild continues on as they continue to give some of their young players a chance and load up on prospects for the future. That was evident when they traded Dan Straily this week to the Marlins for three prospects, including two more pitchers to add to their arsenal.
While they have prospects already on the 40 man roster like Cody Reed and Robert Stephenson who could man a rotation spot, I want to turn your attention to a young lefty who isn’t on the 40-man roster, but who’s minor league performance could put him there during the season.
The Reds took Amir Garrett from playing Big East college hoops for St. John’s and brought him into pitch. It’s worked out quite well for both Garrett and the Reds so far.
Garrett reached AAA last season and is now the Reds second best prospect according to MLBpipeline.com. Garrett went 7-8 with a 2.55 ERA between AA and AAA last season. He struck out fewer than a batter per inning in AAA, but that may have been because of an adjustment period.
The Reds have to see who of their stable of prospects can be major league pitchers and it would not shock me to see Garrett in the show at some point in 2017.
San Diego Padres outfielder Manuel Margot
As the Padres pulled a reverse pivot last season and dealt away most of the haul of players for prospects after trading their prospects for those players, one of the key pieces that got was speedy outfielder Manuel Margot.
The 22 year old has a bright future ahead of him, as he and Hunter Renfroe should be patrolling Petco Park’s outfield for years to come. However, I’m not so sure that Margot will be in the Padres plans in center at first during the 2017 season.
The Padres do have former first round pick Travis Jankowski who stole 30 bases in his first full season of big league action.
Margot got called up for the final few games after AAA El Paso lost the AAA National Championship game. He hit .243 in just 10 games. In AAA, he hit .304 in 127 games, with 21 doubles and 30 stolen bases.
One thing Margot is going to have to work on drawing walks. He only had a .351 OBP.
I don’t doubt that Margot will be playing in the majors in 2017, it’s just a matter of when. When he does, he’ll be a source of some cheap speed in fantasy.
Kansas City Royals 3B Hunter Dozier
The Kansas City Royals are going into a bit of a transition phase after this season. Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Excobar and Mike Moustakas will all be free agents. In the cases of Hosmer and Moustakas, both are Scott Boras clients and are unlikely to stay because they will most likely go to the highest bidder.
In the case of Moustakas, the Royals have a couple of replacements within the system. Cheslor Cuthbert could see a good amount of time at DH this year, but the eventual replacement could be Royals top prospect Hunter Dozier.
Dozier made his debut in the majors last season, after hitting .296 with an .899 OPS between AA and AAA last season. Dozier’s defense may be a bit of a question mark. He made 22 errors in AA last season, but there’s no reason why he can’t work on it and improve.
If the Royals fall out of it and trade Moustakas, Dozier could be on the team sooner rather than later in 2017.