Reserve rounds are often overlooked for their importance in fantasy drafts. In standard mixed leagues, the talent pool is deep enough so that you can acquire good players in the reserve rounds before everyone gets a shot at those players off the waiver wire.
These are some of the names that were taken in the reserve rounds during the 2013 Mixed Tout Wars auction:
- Hyun-Jin Ryu
- Chris Tillman
- Scott Kazmir
- A.J. Griffin
- Colby Rasmus
- Rick Porcello
- Justin Masterson
- Yasiel Puig
- Josh Donaldson
- Ubaldo Jimenez
Donaldson, Rasmus, and Puig combined to provide $57 worth of production, with Donaldson leading the charge at $27. The pitchers combined for $62 of free production for teams. Here are some of the names that were taken in the reserve rounds of the 2014 Mixed Tout Wars auction that could make the top ten list when we look back next offseason.
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Ricky Nolasco. He will be making his first spin through the American League, but is coming off a career-best season. His strikeout percentage has increased each of the past four seasons, and batters swung and missed at 25 percent of the pitches they offered at last season.
Sergio Santos. Toronto closer Casey Janssen has dealt with shoulder soreness this spring, and Santos is waiting in the wings. Santos came back strong last season after missing most of 2012 and the first half of 2013 dominating batters as he did pre-injury. Santos struck out 28 of the 90 batters he faced allowing just 11 hits, 4 walks, and getting batters to swing and miss 37 percent of the time. 30 percent of closers lose their job during the season due to injury or ineffectiveness and this situation is a strong case to be one of those.
Billy Burns. Burns is a minor league prospect with plenty of speed to burn. He stole 74 bases last season while playing in two levels of the Nationals farm system. He has zero power, but has posted double-digit walk rates throughout his minor league career and can hit for average. Coco Crisp is not the most durable of players and Burns has impressed many with his efforts in camp this year.
Chad Qualls. The closer situation in Houston is wide open as Manager Bo Porter continues to call it a committee. When committees form, someone eventually takes leadership and Qualls could be that guy. Qualls has improved his strikeout rate each of the past four seasons after the scary knee injury in 2009 and his swing and miss rate jumped seven full percentage points last season.
Andre Ethier. He is one of the more overlooked players in the game because his numbers against lefties drag down his overall production. Over the past three seasons, Ethier has the 15th best weighted on base average (measure of overall offensive production) in baseball against righties. His .384 wOBA is better than the likes of Matt Carpenter, Matt Holliday, Adrian Beltre, Adrian Gonzalez, Edwin Encarnacion, Aramis Ramirez, and Andrew McCutchen just to name a few. Invest in the bargain.
Robbie Grossman. He hit .268/.332/.702 last season, but it was a tale of two halves. He struggled mightily in the first half as he was overmatched, and as it turns out, unclear at the plate. He had his contact lenses corrected after he was sent down and that along with some mechanical and philosophical tweaks to his game helped him hit .322/.351/.466 after his second promotion before an injury ended his season. He impressed the Astros this spring and has been awarded the starting left field job and the second spot in the lineup hitting in between Dexter Fowler and Jason Castro.
Wily Peralta. Peralta was another split-season success. After struggling through the first two months of the season, he went 8-9 the rest of the way with a 3.48 ERA, a 1.28 WHIP, and held opposing batters to a .240 batting average. There is a lot of upside with his arm as he has one of the best swing-and-miss sliders in baseball.
As far as the rookies go for 2014, there are plenty to get excited about. Jose Abreu, Xander Bogaerts, Billy Hamilton, Nick Castellanos and Masahiro Tanaka do not belong in this conversation, as they already have jobs. For the purpose of this article, I am talking about players opening the season in the minor leagues. Oscar Taveras is the one that gets the most attention, but people may need to lower their expectations. Taveras is the best prospect in the National League and trails only Byron Buxton in all of baseball, but it would not be surprising to see both limited to fewer than 200 plate appearances this season. Both players are dealing with injuries, Taveras more so as he is dealing with upper and lower leg issues. My money on the most productive rookie hitter is Gregory Polanco of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Only three things stand in the way of Polanco in Pittsburgh: the platoon of Jose Tabata and Travis Snider as well as the service time clock. The clock is ten times more of a factor that the platoon that is currently there and Polanco should be called up to stay sometime in mid-June and should flourish. It is unlikely we see a Jose Fernandez or a Matt Harvey this season. George Springer should be up in Houston shortly thereafter as well, and has as much upside with a bit more risk due to his strikeout rates. On the pitching side of the ledger, do not sleep on Archie Bradley in Arizona, Kevin Gausman in Baltimore, and Marcus Stroman in Toronto.