Fantasy Baseball Today - Way Too Early 2025 Sleepers Including Parker Meadows & Andrew Painter! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Is it too early for 2025 sleepers? It's never too early. Let's discuss on fantasy baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5 on Saturday, October 12th. I am Frank Stample joined by Chris Towers, and let's talk about some way too early sleepers for 2025. I would tell everyone to sign up for the FBT newsletter where you could read about these even more in depth.

Starting point is 00:00:25 But Chris, we will start with Parker Meadows, part of the Tigers, and this fantastic postseason run. Yeah, and he's been a big part of why the Tigers have been so good in the second half of the season. Remember, Parker Meadows came into the season with a little bit of hype, and I went back and forth on whether I wanted to include him or Kerry Carpenter as a sleeper because I think there's a lot to like about both. But I think Meadows has a little more of a fantasy-friendly skill set,

Starting point is 00:00:53 and we saw that when he came back from his demotion of the minors. and then a hamstring injury. Remember, he played, I think, three games and then came back and didn't miss a beat. Hit 300 over his final 50 games, 23 homer 19 stolen base pace. And I think the biggest thing for me is he started 49 of the final 54 games that he was available for. So he was not the part-time player that we thought he would be early on in the season. There will be some skepticism about what he's done. I think the biggest thing is 233, expect the batting average is pretty alarming.

Starting point is 00:01:32 But he's got power, he's got speed. He seems to be growing into a lineup that is getting better. And I think Parker Meadows is someone that if you can get as like your number four outfielder, you're going to be in a really good spot next season. Let's talk about Christopher Morel. This one's pretty surprising, Chris. And because obviously you got traded to the raise, we thought, all right, maybe they'll work their devil magic once again.

Starting point is 00:01:53 It did not happen. Well, they're not the devil raise anymore. So that's part of why that went wrong. No, I think the problem, I've been a pretty big morale skeptic. And I think the problem was he got talked about as if, one, there was superstar upside. And two, as if he had figured a lot of it out. And I know he had a pretty solid 2023, but it was super streaking. In 2024, the hot streaks never came.

Starting point is 00:02:17 And I think the problem is there's obvious skills here. There's obvious talent here. He hits the ball hard. He's a good athlete. The sprint speed was done. down this year, which makes me wonder if maybe there was an injury that he was playing through. I know he fouled a ball off his foot a couple times early on in the season, but that was the issue for him last year actually is when he hits the ball hard, too often he hits it right into the

Starting point is 00:02:41 ground, right down the line, or even to the pull side foul and hit it off his foot a couple times. But it's not hard to see how if he just straightened things out a little bit, hits a few more line drives instead of pop-ups or grounders, hits a few more balls that aren't quite down the line, you can see how Christopher Morel could really take a big step forward. And obviously, I think it doesn't hurt giving the raise a full off season to try to work their magic with them. I'm going to pair these next two together, Chris, because they are kind of related in my opinion because they both dealt with injuries this past season. Evan Carter, season was just completely derailed by a back injury, which does worry me a little bit about his.

Starting point is 00:03:23 long-term potential. And then it turns out Nick Ludolo was pitching through an injury for quite some time. But before that injury, he actually looked like he was kind of breaking out already. So talk to me about Evan Carter and Nicodolo. Yeah, I think in both cases, it's a bet on a recent high-end prospect or, you know, highly valued young player in Nicodolo's case where they just, I don't want to say they were never healthy because in Nicodolo's case, he clearly was. He went on the aisle in late. June with a, I think it was a blister on his finger. And when he went on the IL, he had a 276 ERA, 3.37 FIP, and a 26% strikeout rate through his first 11 starts. After he came back, 754 ERA, 24.3%

Starting point is 00:04:10 strikeout rate. And he said the biggest issue was he couldn't grip his curveball, that he was, because of the blister, he was fiddling with the grip or couldn't get it quite right. And it was, was causing him to actually end up injuring the finger, which ultimately ended his season. He had trouble even just straightening it out after the game, his middle finger. So that seems like a pretty good indication that Nick Lodola's finger was the primary cause of his injury. And that's not to say that it won't be an issue in 2024, but he had a whiff rate over 50% with the pitch in each of April and May. His curveball expected was below 200 wasn't nearly as good after. that. So if he gets that curveball back, I think that Nick Lodolo can still be a high-end

Starting point is 00:04:57 option. As for having Carter, you know, the back injury is really concerning, but he was 97th percentile on sprint speed this year. So the athleticism was still there, still had very, very good plate discipline. He just wasn't impacting the ball. I think that's a long-term question about his upside. You know, how is there 25 homer power here? I'm not sure that there is, but I expect the whole rangers lineup to bounce back in 2024. I think Evan Carter is going to be a big part of that. Let's move on to DJ Hers who has this

Starting point is 00:05:29 kind of collection of pitches. I don't know that he has an elite pitch. Fastball might be because it had a whiff rate over 30%. But it kind of looks like he has at least three solid pitchers, pitches here to work with. That's the thing is he had a 27.7% strikeout rate as a rookie.

Starting point is 00:05:46 And the fastball was the biggest part of it. He had a 30.5% whiff rate like you mentioned. That was the fifth best among 110 pitchers who use their four seamers the most this season, which is weird because it's a 93.5 mile an hour pitch on average, which is about average even for a lefty these days. But there's something about the way he releases it, the way he hides it, the arm angle. It hitters have trouble picking it up. And then you look at the slider and the changeup, and they're both like 27 to 28 percent whiff rate pitches. So not great, not terrible.

Starting point is 00:06:21 but they rate out as above average by the stuff plus metric. I think there's room to grow. I think DJ Hers, the Nationals don't have the best track record of developing the young pitcher, so it's not like a super strong bet that I want to make. But I think he's going to be someone who enters the season with very little hype. Could be outside of the top 200 in 80P if I had to guess. I will be taking a lot of DJ hers there.

Starting point is 00:06:46 And lastly, Andrew Painter, who just a couple of years ago, was one of the top prospects in all of baseball. He still is, but we haven't heard from him in a while because he had Tommy John's surgery back in 2023. So he's just kind of returning now. Turns out he's going to pitch in the Arizona Fall League, Chris, where you're going to go out and see a couple of games. Maybe you'll even get to see Andrew Painter.

Starting point is 00:07:05 That would be awesome. Talk to me about what you might be hoping for in 2025. So here's the two things I want to start with. This was arguably the top pitching prospect of baseball two years ago. It looked like he, he was going to make the Phillies rotation to open the 2023 season as a 19 year old. Crazy. If you do a little bit of math there, you'll realize he'll be 21 when this season starts,

Starting point is 00:07:36 despite not pitching the last two years. Now, obviously, look, we haven't seen him pitch the last two years. There's no guarantee he comes back from Tommy John's surgery and is the same guy. Generally speaking, it doesn't, it seems to be more of a speed bump for most. pitchers these days, at least your first Tommy John. The second one's a little more iffy, but I think there is a chance for a Paul Skeen's level outcome here. I don't know if he's quite that talented, but we are talking about a similar caliber of pitching prospect. Might be even more limited in his workload in 2025, but if you get 100 really good

Starting point is 00:08:11 innings out of Andrew Painter in the final rounds, I think that's going to feel really good on draft day. All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball today and five, and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.

Fantasy Baseball Today - Way Too Early 2025 Sleepers Including Parker Meadows & Andrew Painter! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

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