Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros MLB. This is the Fantasy Baseball podcast. It does be Joey p Joe Pisapia with me as always, my best friend the Welsh and you hanging out here on our channel. Don't forget to subscribe to Fantasy Pros MLB so you don't miss any of the content we've got going on all draft season, all in season. Leading off is going to be back in just a couple of weeks if you can believe it.
Pictures and catchers are arriving to spring training. We are getting started here, and it's time to look at some guys that are undervalued on the hitting side. Now, just as a precursor to this show, this doesn't mean they're sleeper.
These are guys that you've had on your teams. You already know they are going outside the top one hundred currently as of recording this though, and as guys that we think might be just a little bit undervalued based upon the consensus ADP, which by the way, you can find over at Fantasypros dot com right now, so go
do that. Also, while you're at it, make sure you're checking out Draft Wizard because Draft Wizard has the expert and they are ready to go right now for download, where you can start working your draft simulations, start practicing to draft strategies, start practicing with what teams look like, get your different rosters. If you don't like a pick, you can go ahead and undo a pick, you can use the pick predictor you can make your own cheat sheets.
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That way, you make sure you're using Draft Wizard for your actual drafts as well. You can download it wherever you get your apps. Right now, we're going to fancypros dot com slash MLB Draft Wizard. All right, let's talk about some underrated hitters right now, Welsh, and the first one is a guy that a lot of us had expectations for last year, and I feel like this happens a lot right We get our expectations up, we get very excited about a player, and then injuries or issues
or underperformance kind of all of a sudden stymy that excitement. Well, Tristan Cossas of the Boston Red Sox, there's still a lot to get excited about. This Boston Red Sox team is on the verge of a rebirth year with some of these prospects they've got coming through the organization last year and this year, we expect more and it seems like things are finally on the upswing in Boston. When you watch Casas, he is a big guy, power hitting, slugging, old school kind of first base and there's a lot
to like here when it comes to Cassas. Currently, he's going around player one POH one in the consensus ADP thirteen homers last year in just sixty three games. Again, that's the problem, just sixty three games. So I think we expect some bumps here and there from Tristan Cossas in twenty twenty five. But the power and also the top heaviness of the position at first base to me makes him a really intriguing player in twenty twenty five.
Yeah, and he is, I will say he is sandwiched in kind of an area where there's a couple of really good play. But the problem with that is having a few of those players usually pushes somebody out. And it's kind of been Tristan Kassas, who in many years past has been somebody that everyone want to jumps in on. But you know, as you mentioned, in a short period of time last year, it was still fine, Like he missed a bunch of time with injury and then his return,
it was okay for most people. But when you look on the underlying you still see, you know, some elite pieces that are being put together. Thirteen percent barrel rate last year with a forty five percent hard hit rate. Those two, especially the barrel rate, really elite stuff. With a big, fast bat you're talking about, he's just this like big dude. Well, he registered well above and the top like fifteen to twenty percent tile of the league in bat speed. And this is for like a six
foot five, almost two hundred and fifty pounds two first babe. Yeah, huge first baseman. It was almost around seventy five seventy five miles per hour on the fast track swing, which is well above He just barrels of ball generates, you know, such incredible force to it that he's a thirty home
run threat really at all times. Problem was the the bat of ball like quality kind of dissipated last year thirty one percent strikeout rate, which was an over six percent increase from the year before, and is expected batting average from his two forty actual it's expected was under two twenty. So like, those are the worries, and that's
what's suppressing some of the value. But you know, you come back to it and you see a healthy Cansis, You see a healthy lineup by the way of Devers and Jared Durant has taken that next step, and you see RBI opportunities through the roof. Projections are in a really interesting spot too. I'll just pull up all the big dogs are out.
I see the atc ones right now. Twenty seven homer, seventy four runs, seventy nine RBI for him. I think that's as a pretty strong baseline, especially when you consider he'ything third in this lineup projected. That's to me, what's so appealing to is that lineup projectability in the third spot, there's a lot of runs, a lot of rbi, all those countexats that you're looking for in fantasy.
Well, what is the batting average on ATC, Because I've got the bat up from Derek Cardy, so those are too good to bounce.
Out of the ATC batting averagesement two forty two, which is all right. If he could somehow get up to two fifty two fifty five or something like that, I would dance a jig. I'd be very excited about it.
Well see, and that's a great point. So on eighty on the bat looking at Cossas, it's excuse me. Also two forty two, twenty seven homers, eighty four rbi in around one hundred and forty three games. So the suppression is some of that batterball quality. It's like the strikeouts were there, the XBA wasn't there. But Barrel hard hit great, big fast bat speed and hopefully health is the thing that's going to push him into like a much much
better direction. And he's one of those guys. Even from last year he hit better against lefties as a lefty, struggled against righty's. I think there's a lot of things that are working in his favor. He also did, they are small sample sizes, but in a first half registration of the end of the year he was better. You know, he was hitting two forty two. So if he's a
two forty hitter, thirty homers are in tow. But if he bounces back up, and this is what makes him truly underrated, if he's closer to let's say the year before, is a two to sixty hitter, legitimately might be a thirty plus homer. So back to the first thing I said was he is sandwiched in this range where you do have the Cody Bellingers of the world. You've got
Christian Walker, who I really like. But when he pushes outside the top one hundred, I do think he is one of those guys that, whether it's first or even corner, if you want to build a little bit of a stockpile on that big power corner infield, he is a value. I think he's a good choice to put on the undervalued conversation because there's a lot of other people that we're talking ourselves into and it really isn't cost us at first base right now, Well.
The next guy I want to talk about it. I have him higher in my overall ranks than I do Causus and another player too that we had high expectations for. He was a darling of mine. Last year, injuries really just kind of derailed him. He did get up there for forty three games with the race, but unfortunately fell little short. It's Junior Caminaro coming in at one five
overall in the current consensus ADP and Fantasy pros. This guy is only twenty one years old this year, So let us pump the brakes and let us just step
back for a moment and take a breath. Because when you go back and you look at the minor league track record of Junior Camonaro three oh seven, three seventy four, five forty eight slash with a nine to twenty one ops in two hundred and eighty two minor league games as a child as a child, basically, okay, he is turning twenty one, and I think this is the value. This is the buy back in and another position here
in the corners where you're looking for more help. You're looking for a guy who's got huge upside and I think is just a better pure hitter than Cosses. Cosses might have a little bit more power this year, ready to go. I understand that. I get that, But if we're talking about total package overall of hit tool, it's
Junior Camonaro. And I'm also super excited to see what he looks like getting out of that Race ballpark because now that they're gonna be playing in that Tampa situation and there, I imagine some of that humanity is going to make that ball fly a little bit more. Sure, there's gonna be some weird rain delays and some issues and some other stuff they're not used to dealing with. I can't imagine what that's going to be like in Tampa and Florida where it goes well like every couple hours.
It's going to rain at some point in time. But I think it's gonna be fascinating to see because historically speaking, that has not been the greatest ballpark for hitters. The batter's eye has been a problem. So hopefully this opportunity, now that they are outside of that venue could even push Kamana up further than our expectations.
So I think on the surface, this is like fantastic name. I think the only thing that pops up is there might be an argument to like, is he really going to be undervalued because there is a camp of people that have been involved in drafts and whatnot, you know, for over the last month or two that would that would probably argue the phonetics of it, like, well, are you sure you know I'm not undervalued because people are seeing him go in some instances inside the top fifty
and some NFBC drafts. Yet the ADP across the board, still in an early state, really hasn't caught up with Junior Camonaro. Because I mean, as we're pointing out, the consensus ADP on Fantasy Pros taking multiple sites is outside the top one hundred, So by that virtue it is I do think this is one of the dicey ones. Again, we're not calling him a sleep or anything like that.
Or it's undervalued for the player. He is ninety four right now on Fantasy Pros by the way, an NFBC on the consensus there.
Okay, yeah, so he's even moved up a little bit more. So I just give that caveat to people. But in like a total sense, Junior Camenaro is a prime example of this. It's just we know that young rookies are going to boost up. He also is just coming off of playing in the Dominican Winner League where they won a championship. He's getting interviewed. He got interviewed yesterday about how like what was it? I think it was a
foul territory. He was interviewing Camonaro and his agent saying like, do you think you alone just created this opportunity where Poolholst wants to now be a manager because he was managing the team in Camonaro this monster homer. He was phenomenal there. So he's got a lot of buzz that's going on, and it's warrant. He hit two seventy six in the miners last year. He's had his stint in the majors, which you know, it didn't blow any doors off, but he almost hit right around two fifty. He had
an expected batting average in that general area. And then when I talk a lot about that, like just you know the underlying metrics eleven percent almost twelve percent barrel, forty five percent hard hit rate. Those two things are phenomenal while also striking out a pretty low amount. He's going to get the ball in the air a little bit more Cam and arrow is. If he was like prospect eligible, he would be your al favorite rookie of the year. I think right now, I don't even think
that's a good question. Projections are a little torn on him. I believe I don't have ATC up. I believe ATC is very aggressive on some of the offensive projection sides. The bat is a little bit suppressed. They've got him at two sixty four, twenty two homers, five stolen bases, around one hundred and thirty games. I want to say there is a projection system or two that's got him closer into the thirties. But he has just a really.
Really murr is at twenty nine. I think that's the one you're thinking, Okay, what is ATC Adam on Fangrafts. ATC has but twenty two. So ATC is actually a little bit more on the conservative side for him.
Yeah, they're light of the bat.
Again, I think sometimes with those younger players, the ATC tends to be a little bit.
More like Yeah, And the last thing I just say is like throughout the minors he has been a guy that does not have big strikeout problems, makes a lot of contact. This is another one of those. Just like big fast bats. He registered one of the fastest overall bat speeds in baseball. It didn't register last year, So like you go and take that with that pure raw power, thirty home run potential at a corner endfield spot when it's going around one hundred, and also sky's the limit
with a young player, Yeah, he is undervalued. I do think looking into the future March type of things, if people are watching this after he might not be so much anymore. But we're telling you right now he is and it's going to jump.
Yeah, I do believe that. But look, this is if you're doing best balls early. Things like that take advantage, right because still people want to see what it looks like. And I think there's a little also question mark about okay, how does the ballpark play? You know, we know what it looks like in spring, but we don't know what it looks like in June, July, August. We don't, so it could be fascinating, just like we don't know with
Oakland too. Necessarily we have but major league players into that kind of environment what it exactly looks like in Sacramento. Let's get to another guy who is a perennial twenty twenty guy, four straight years of twenty twenty, yet he's going outside the top one hundred. And I understand the concerns because you know that study that came out about
the Mariners ballpark. He started diving in and saying, Oh, maybe the Mariner's ballpark between the humidity issues, slash, the weather concerns there at times the batter's eye there, people are saying, oh, maybe this Mariner's ballpark is just really tough to hit it, and that's why Julio struggling, or it really just didn't have a line a lot of protection, and they haven't had a lot of great hitting period in the last couple of years, and that could also
be why some of these numbers are extremely down. It does feel a little chicken and egg. But Randy Rose Arena, regardless, is still a twenty twenty guy. And I think when you you know, you look at this yvon Page, he's still above average in exit velocity above average, and hard hit rate above average and walk right by a country mile. I know it was a down year for him. I get that the Babbitt was to two seventy five. That's the lowest he's ever had. He's never had a Babbitt
in his career, by the way, under three hundred. So I'm looking for a bounce back from a Rosa Raina regardless, And I think it's a perfect time to buy on a guy where you know what the baseline is well. But at the same time, if you could just kind of get that batting average back to at least respectability, Arose Arena is absolutely gonna crush this return on investment.
Yeah, I think he borderlines like I think he has the potential to be a massively underlying undervalued player. Is he quite in the like screaming undervalued? I'm not one hundred percent sure yet. But to your point, he's had three straight twenty twenty seasons. He did it last year with just a really really bad average, and every think
he's got worse. Essentially, when you go to Seattle, Seattle's worst ballpark factor in all of Bay Ball, and when you talk about the jump from like you know, four to five or one two to one has the same difference of thirty to twenty nine right now, which is crazy. See, and so you know the number one ballpark to the worst Seattle is bar none. The worst kind of across the board. So that's not good necessarily long term for
a rose Raina's offensive upside. But you see still in his game that one massive thing kind of carried him down and pushed him down and struggled with his expected batting average was fastballs. He hit like one seventy two against forcing fastballs last year. That's a little bit of anomaly. Something I've done a lot of looking on is when you see extreme struggles or uh just domination against forcing fastballs,
that usually doesn't carry over. A guy that hits like three point fifty against forceeams all year, that's going to regress, but also guys that hit like one seventy one sixty that's also going to positive. He regrets the year before he had hit two fifty four against forcing fastballs. He hit one seventy two this past year. So you're locked in. You got a little bit of a better lineup. Maybe your home run power isn't going to quite be there.
I'm hoping he sells out for a little bit more average, because he did have a depreciation in his barrel and his hard hit, but he walked a little bit more. He's gonna be at the top of the lineup, and he's a twenty twenty guy. So Randy A rose Arena I'm in. I do think he floats in the undervalued but it's kind of a little bit yet to be seen of what this batted profile we saw last year in Seattle's gonna look like we just need some major changes.
But maybe that's gonna pop with you know, playing with guys like Victor Robliss at the top and playing with Julio Rodriguez. So for twenty twenty, like lock twenty twenty guys that you get outside the top one hundred, he is that. So by virtue of getting twenty twenty, Yeah, Randy rose Rein is undervalue.
One hundred percent degree. And look, even if he repeats what he did last year and that's what it looks like, it's still pretty good for what you're getting outside the top one hundred. So I'll take that, and I'm hoping and looking to a bounce back. I'm hoping that's the anomaly because the things it's not like he is an old player by any stretch of the means or something like that. Right, he's twenty nine, he's in his prime. Actually,
these should be his best seasons coming up. Next guy on our list coming in at one, twenty six Washington National second baseman Luis Garcia, who is starting to become I don't know this year's Jaron Duran for me, like last year, so that player or.
Talked about player he is, I think he is.
Well, I mean, what's not to like here? I mean, we're talking about a guy who is, you know, entering his twenty age twenty five season, right, he always had good contact goes in the minor league's two eighty five batting average there. Now i'd like to see the OBEP be a little higher. But he's got good speed, right,
So twenty two bases last year, eighteen homers. I'm just I just can't wrap my mind around a situation where, you know, when people were drafting jose A l twov to try to hope for let's I mean we had twenty twenty and two eighty Well, okay, that sounds great, but that also sounds like basically the season Garcia gave me last year, one hundred picks later, Lily, one hundred
picks later. And I don't get it. So and you're talking about a younger player, you're talking about a young team that really is starting, I think, to emerge this year. And of course young teams will have peaks and valleys. But while right now this player is at one twenty six, second base is rough. It's rough out there at the second base streets. I think, so, yeah, that's the guy that I keep coming back to and keep landing on because I would like to see him move up in
the lineup, potentry a little bit. I know there's some questions of where he might hit this year, but what you saw last year, to me, I don't think was a fluke. When you look at the minor league track record, a guy who makes good contact, got batting average, GOP speed, He's got all that that you're looking for. And I think, you know, once again you're talking about twenty twenty players like a rose arena. Well, here's a twenty twenty guy
in the infield. That's a nice thing to have post one hundred.
Yeah, and this is another one of those guys. You know this This video is also going to serve as like a time capsule of players that are going to rise in value. We're going to talk about that throughout the year of like, who are players that have been on the rise and experts are drafting. Everybody loves Luis Garcia because of the twenty twenty potential. And the wildest thing too, is, you know, I saw him years ago in Arizona Fall League, and this was at the height
of him being this very slap hit ory guy. He had a swing that just came across his body, had no launch angle whatsoever. Yet I remember I was in some sessions of BP and he was crushing stuff in the Surprise Stadium over on the pull side, or actually was in Peoria. It's very impressive what the power was.
And then he did make the change. It's one of those things we look at those high contacty type of guy, the Louis Rises, maybe the Jacob Wilson's and we go man, if they just had this concerted effort to get the ball in the air, that maybe they could do something. He did that. He changed his profile. He upped his barrelry to eight percent, his launch angle almost doubled from last year. His hard hit was over forty percent by
the way, strikes out sixteen percent of the time. And he just decided, I'm now going to be a runner. So it's quality contact kind of across the board. He doesn't have a pitch type. He struggles against. He's learning to get the ball in the air. I have like a preconceived this is who Luis Garcia was when I watched her in the miners, and again it was that guy that you know, I just let the ball travel. I'm going to hit across my body opposite field and
that would suppress power. But he turned so that's kind of in my brain. But he's turned it around into being No, I'm more of an impact hitter. Eighty six percent zone contact rate with that barrel and that hard hit. If he progresses a little bit, he legit could be a twenty twenty five guy. I do not believe he will. But when you're floating around twenty twenty and you have a good batting average, that is the big key for me. Give me these guys this year that are gonna have
solid batting averages. He hit two eighty two with a two seventy eight expected batting average, and those numbers you don't we touch talk about Randy Rose Rain in twenty twenty. Well, guess what, he doesn't come with a good batting average. Luis Garcia in some instances like this has an ADP that's lower than him. Luis Garcia goes twenty twenty with a great batting average, and that is extra valuable this year, more than ever.
Yeah, and look, you look at the savon page, a lot of red. You know, we'd like see him walk a little bit more, sure, but that's just never been the guy he is. He's just more of a swing and make contact kind of guy. And again, the guys who put the ball in play have a chance to be on bass. And when you have a chance to be on bass, you have a chance to score runs. You see, That's how baseball works, kids, And I feel
like people forget that. You know, you go back to the age of the Tony Gwinns of the world, and those guys who just didn't strike out, put the ball in play, good things happen. You know, That's how you win batting titles. I'm not saying Garcia's a bating title. I'm just saying like it's a lost art for him, and I'm here for it. Also, everybody who knows who's watching the show's last couple of years knows that I
am not a guy that likes to chase catcher. But I also think that there's some value here with certain catchers at certain moments. And Logan will Hopy to me is another guy at one five currently that I don't think we've seen the best version of yet. And the Angels are kind of a weird, funky team where there's a lot more than I like now on the Angels
than I have in a very long time. And I know that sounds of bizarre because we've had Trout, we've battle Tani, but the Trout situation every year, with the price you had to pay and the injuries, was always difficult.
You look at the rest of this lineup, you know they brought in so layer Chanall is an interesting playow Netto's an interesting player, Rangifo certainly has some talent to health is going to be crucial for this roster, but there's value here on it too, and Logan O Hoppy if you look at some of those projections right now,
he is absolutely a twenty home run catcher. I think there's a world you know, you look at the three eighteen Babbitt last year, Okay, you look at the ISO was a little low last year, but I feel like the stop start of you know, sometimes with the injuries that he's had, it was good. He had one hundred and thirty six games last year, had five hundred played appearances. I think that's what he needed to get under his belt, and now I feel like he's in a position Wels
where he's finally ready to take another step forward. I think that twenty twenty two oz runs could easily become twenty eight or twenty nine this year. That's what I think is possible for him, especially if a guy like Trout says healthy in the lineup and there's a lot more going on offensively there. What do you think of OHAPI? Because I know we kind of it's funny that I was like, yeah, let's put this catcher on the list me of all people, and then of course there's you
shooting it down. So what's the downside of ohapi here? And is it just a matter of when you are comfortable taking catchers?
So oh Happy? The biggest negative is he's a catcher, so that would be like the biggest thing for me is just he has that catcher position. I'm always looking for the latest catcher possible or getting a massive value on a specific target. So will Smith falling oh happy? If he fell really far. Wilson catreros would be one this year. But if we look at like the actual profile of a guy like Ohapy, first off, he checks
a lot of the boxes that we're looking for. Under five hundred bats, he hit over twenty homers, great barrel rate, great hard hit like that's all there. Gets the launch angle, sweet spot over forty two percent, gets the ball in the frickin air, like you love that stuff. Well, you don't like is bad strikeout rate. And he had a decrease in his own contact percentage. And then they bring in Travis Darnelt. That's the other thing why, Like, if this is your guide, let's play him every single day
as much as possible. Don't know what that is going to be yet. Maybe it's going to be more DH than anything else. But I would say inside the top one fifty, it's still really not my area for a catcher. I do think he's got the potential to up on that power department, probably not be the top guy. That's Kyle Raley or Shee Langaliers. So I guess I pushed back overall that finding undervalued catchers doesn't exactly exist, especially
if it's one fifty. But Ohapi could push back a little bit more, and if he has a positive regression in the strikeouts, that comes down and he gets back to getting in the zone a little bit more. He has the potential to be a twenty five plus home run hitter for sure. So I don't see him in the valued range, but I think it was important to talk about it because you love him, You love this as a catcher, you love you some logan o'hapi.
I do like him, I do, I do, and I think there's value with the Angels this year. Again, something I did not think that I was gonna have my Bengo car for twenty twenty five. I was looking ahead, actually, or should I say, looking backwards at last year's show before we look ahead to more guys and some of the names on last year's undervalue player list Willia domas Uh. We had Bailey ober On there, Ti Oscar ornandez Joe Ryan.
That's a pretty good list there. We had some pretty good guys, had a couple.
Of I get us in there, but I'll take those this.
Is duds in there. I mean, I don't think Nick Pavetta was a dud. I wouldn't say he's a. Xander Bogart's was a dud. But I think I think the the you know, the thought process I get there. The process was good, the productivity was not good. Uh, Candelario, I was one of your guys. I feel like Candelario was a Welsh guy last year.
Come on.
Oh and and also on this list. It's definitely one of my guys. Showta Imanaga definitely on that list. So actually pretty good. I would say nine.
By the way, you like Jamer Candelario, You dumb idiot.
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can dream it up. Fan Tracks can make it a reality, and you can bring your fantasy baseball league to fan Tracks right now for an unbeatable user experience and a chance to win a sign Vladimir Guerrero Junior Jersey. Sign up today at fantracks dot com slash Fantasy Pros. That's fantracks dot com slash Fantasy Pros. All right, next guy on the list. This is a Welsh guy. I'm saying it right now. I don't like it. He's not on my og list. I woke up this morning and all
of a sudden, Paul Goldschmidt is in my cereal. Get out of my cereal, Paul Golgman one fifty five. Look Welsh. I think mindset that you're taking. Let's see, if I'm correct, is the Yankee Ballpark cures all ills? And maybe it does for some guys, But this is a guy in declined for three straight years. He is thirty seven years old.
I know there's still some red on that Savon page in terms of hard hit rate and batrel rate, and that gets you excited that I get that, and certainly the Yankees are gonna be a much better offense than Saint Louis was last year. But I just keep seeing a player in decline who was once great and into your late thirties. I just don't know if a complete rebound rebirth is in the cards for him. I get it, it's cheaper, it's undervalued, so I guess I'll give you
undervalued on it. But man, I have a tough time getting excited to draft him. I feel like Alec Bohm is around the same place, and I think I would rather just take him or another guy. We're gonna talk about this lists coming up pretty soon.
Yeah, that guy maybe, but not Bom, Absolutely not Bum.
Yeah.
This is like clearly about it's a phenomenal ballpark to go. The ballpark factor is waited a bit, obviously by Judge, but it's like number three, I think in all of baseball and right handed home run factor. Again, Judge kind of waits out a little bit, But from an overall perspective, you love the offense, you love the ballpark. Goldie, even in his age, like he has declined, he's not that same player anymore. We didn't see, you know, some big
uptick and stolen bases. His averages kind of depressed a little bit, but like you said, it's still ten percent. Barrel hard hit was around fifty percent, which we love to see last year. He's still hitting the ball on average ninety one point two average exivelocity, so he's still putting quality contact in there. He's just again depressing a little bit, like he can round two forty two to
fifty against fastball and breaking pitches. So I'll take that in that ballpark with the potential run support, I just think it works really well. And what you said before, it's undervalued. That's all that this is. He's going outside of the top one fifty for a first baseman with that pedigree, with that profile. Because this didn't work out for Anthony Rizzo one hundred percent agree with that. It's
not even just work out for anybody. But I think this puts him in a really good spot where he is super cheap, and this is one of those guys that he doesn't even have to be your first base and he can be a corner infielder. I think there's a legitimate, like ninety RBI opportunity with twenty five ish homers, and if he's twenty five to ten and he's like even eighty eighty, that would be I just don't think we're getting one fifty.
I don't like it. Let me just put that out there. But I don't. I like him more than Goldman. Look I like Bolm. We can say what you want. He's a guy's gonna hit two eighty every year and driving ninety plus runs. And he's got at two years in a row, ninety seven runs driven in two years in a row. Goldschmit's not sniffing that number last couple of years. So I mean, I know you gotta have guys get on base. I get that in front of you. Hopefully the Yankees can fix that for him, but I'm just
not sold. I am sold, however, on the next guy at one sixty four Jerks and Profar who last year really kind of changed his profile in a lot of ways. And I love the landing spot with the Atlanta Braves. I mean, this is why the Braves are the Braves, and I hate it as a Mets fan, but like I saw that signing and I literally just threw my hands up and went, well, that's quick essential Land of Braves. You let the market kind of come to you, you
find a terrific value and in you crush life. And Profar last year playing for San Diego, had a great season. Scored ninety four runs, hit twenty four homers, eighty five RBI, stole ten bases for good measure. At two seventy nine, it was all there. It was a career year, the best we've seen from him. And it's funny he's been around for ever Welsh, but he's only thirty one years old, so I don't think he is past the prime. I think he's still kind of in it. Do I expect
a complete repeat? I gotta be honest with you, I do. And I think that this is a tremendous value for a guy that not only can give you some power and average, but also is going to give you some run score depending on where they hit him in the lineup. And I think there's gonna be some opportunity for him to move up in that lineup too, if he stays hot, a little, stolen bases, to a little of everything. And I don't know. I think at this point I'm just
in on Jurreks and Profar, especially at this value. How where are you at with him? Yeah?
One hundred percent agree. I mean, you were talking about the Bati profile, which I'm always like, I always go to, but they were like career highs across the board. Barrel hard hit was career highs, close to career high in K percentage, and a walk percentage career high. Expected batting average he hit. His expected batting average was better than his actual batting average, which is really incredible for him. Great eighty seven percent zone contact rate. This profile just
feels so good. And then guess what hitting both rightis and lefties well, and you're getting out of one of the worst ballpark factors in general, and you're going to Atlanta, where, by the way, he hit like two ninety seven at home past year in San Diego with fifteen of his homers. So now you're going to go into a better environment in Atlanta, tons of run support, a team that loves to run as well. I love love this move for profile.
I think he is the I'll tell you this when you put this list together, and then I made some adjustments to some of them. This was the one, Well, there's one other guy, this guy, and then a shortstop we're going to talk about in a little bit. They were exactly what I thought about when we were thinking
about undervalued hitters, and they were the quintessential players. I think Profar is that he might, like you said, hit a little bit lower in the lineup, but I legitimately think we are in the twenty ten baseline area for his stats, and maybe the average ticks up a little bit. I really really do love this signing, and I love this pick.
Here three eighty OBP last year and if you look at the fifth percentage, you know, the walk percentage, Okay, all that stuff, it is bright red. I mean we're talking to the ninetieth percentile there everywhere. If he maintains that level, Welsh, he is not gonna be hitting in
the bottom of that lineup all year. I'm telling you right now, people up towards the top, especially especially to start the year, because Akunya is not going to be at the top of that lineup, probably in the opening, and if Profar is up there and they have success with that, they might step back and go, you know, let's leave Profar somewhere into the top. We could drop a Michael Harris down, we could drop somebody else down. Don't be shocked if that happens. The May.
That point is actually key because of what I was gonna say was the Braves are not afraid to make those moves. They've moved Albe's up and down the lineup, They've moved Harris up and down the lineup. I mean, profile has been to be like a number two hitter. Don't be shocked if he was a number two hitter. And I mean, you know, Michael Harris would be great for that spot as well or Alby's, but I just wouldn't be shocked if Profar they wanted to throw him into that spot. So I really like this pick.
Okay, a couple more guys love to talk about one seventy five Mason Win of the Saint Louis Cardinals at shortstop. This is the guy that Welsh and I both like quite a bit. Last year. You started to get a taste how good he was, just twenty two years old, fifteen homers, eleven steals at two sixty eight. They played one hundred and fifty games, So it was a really strong full season for him, his first full season in the big League's player again, who's got so much ahead
of him? So this one puzzles me of why he is so low here because of the profile. I don't know if people are just expecting the Cardinals to be bad, which okay, that's fair, But there's also a world where Aeronatto bounces back and Jordan Walker, who is still much younger than people realize, maybe starts to turn things around, and all of a sudden, maybe the Cardinals offense isn't quite as bad as people might project it to be. What do you think about Mason Win?
Yeah, I think the reason that he's still down is like in that entire season last year, it was still fifteen eleven, you know, so, like as much as like some of the profile is fun, he didn't put up this big counting stats season. He's been working all off season building more body masks. I mean, you know you always want to hear like were they a drive line? You know, that's your where did they go to?
Jared?
It's did they go to drive line? That's what you're looking for, And he's one of those guys. He's been working on that just physical build body mass, which you know would generate more power, and that's what we're absolutely want to see out of him. The profile is still a little bit like really low barrel rate that's usually two more contact based hitters, not a great hard hit rate. He actually went down year over year. But the reason to get excited is he gets the ball in the air.
And we have seen a ton of hitters be able to just maximize c. J. Abrams, Hassan Kim. They've been players that you know they don't have like great barrel and hard hit, but if you get the ball, you know, you square up the ball and you get it in the air. Mookie Betts has done that for a decent amount of time. Then all of a sudden, you can just start, you know, getting fifteen twenty homers. Win can also steal and that that's the thing I think could
take a big jump up as well. As this team is completely retransforming who they are, I will say as well, he is actual like hitting profile eighty to eighty six rise in his own contact percentage, So now getting into elite zone contact, he's generating more that body mass, which I am hopeful is going to put some more power up. I think most people see him as like a fifteen to fifteen guy. I think there's twenty twenty upside, especially if he gets a hit higher on the lineup is
there just getting rid of all their pieces. Mason Win and Jerkson Profar with the two guys that jumped out to me as like prime candidates. One seventy five consensus ADP right now is crazy. He is like my number one middle infield target across the board. Pair him with a Corey Seeger or a volatile like if you call Ellie volatile, apparently whoever you want, you're getting a little bit of everything. And I think there is upside for
Mason Win. And I do think he could be one of those guys that his profile as a hitter jumps up this year.
Next guy might be a little bit of a leaf of leap faith. At one eighty four, Estak paradis now with Houston and I'm here for it. He is one year removed from a thirty one home run season where he had two fifty Last year just to thirty eight. The home runs dropped to nineteen, the lowest total in the two previous years, for sure. And I know, you know, you dig deeper, and some of the deeper numbers aren't good. I keep coming back to the same thing, which is
certain organizations. I always perk up right when Atlanta goes after somebody. When the Tampa Bay Rays sign a pitcher that's kind of, you know, cast aside from somewhere else. They see something. And Houston's one of these teams too, so they have a really good eye for what they look for, and I think their scouting departments very good identifying players are going to play well in this environment,
and Parades does. Now. We're still waiting to hear on Bregman as of recording this and seeing how all that shakes out. But in the meantime, right now, Paradis looks like a guy that if you take those numbers and you copy and paste them to Houston last year, that home run total is not nearly as over underwhelming. So I look at this guy is a value at the corner spot. Again, not a guy I want to start as a third baseman, but as a corner guy. I'm
very intrigued by him in this situation with Houston. What do you think of Paritis in twenty twenty five?
Well, check this out. Baseball Savant has a category you can check where you can see if this player played all their home games in a home ballpark, what their home what would the actual homer in total be that's misleading a little bit, but it tells you about the ballpark. He hit nineteen homers last year. If he were in Houston, Houston represented the number one most homers he would have
hit in a single place, twenty six for Houston. No other ballpark would have been more beneficial for East sac Praidies. So I think the reason you throw him in here. There's a lot of things that are not great about profile. But remember what I just said about Mason winn It's like, oh, it doesn't hit the ball hard. He doesn't really barrel up the ball. Sometimes it's more of a contact approach. How can you maximize it? Pull fly balls, that's Pradies does.
He has one of the highest launch angles twenty two degree launch angle. And the way we get to extrapolate this is just look at what he did in Ten Bay, where he was able to pull those fly balls and had a little bit of gimme. In twenty twenty three, he hit two fifty with thirty one homers with a not great profile. He went to the Cubs. He's stunk. Now he's going to the best place that's built for him.
We have a baseline for what that would do, and that baseline is thirty homers in the two fifty range. You hope that continues. He's got tons of support around him. Listen, this is about undervalued guys. If we get ninety percent of what he was in Tampa Bay, mind you, this is a better ballpark for him, with incredibly better offensive pieces around him exactly, then there's no doubt that him going around one point eighty four right now and is
overall ADP. He is not the most most undervalued, but he is close to it if that ballpark really does push.
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Fantasy Baseball draft season is here, and of course don't forget to download the Draft Wizard app today for MLB. Last guy in the list is a guy I actually drafted yesterday, Jeremy Pania of the Houston Astros. It's funny because the NFBC number for him is like one to sixty five. I looked at it before one ninety and some other spots. They're depending on what you believe and our expert consensus rankings. Right now him at two seventy eight, which is absurd.
It's because there's one site that doesn't have him registered or we're not picking up. So yeah, I put this note in here. The ADP is two seventy eight. It's incorrect if you just take let's.
Go on two hundred. Let's let's with the difference. Let's call it two you know, you know what, Let's call it one ninety. I'll even go there. Let's call it one ninety. Still absurd, still ridiculous, Still a value coming off a season last year where uh, this is the player that honestly you were in before anybody else a couple years ago so I want to give you credit for that, and I hate giving you credit, but I have to because you were like the og Jeremy pinya
guy twenty two one runs in twenty twenty two. Then the home runs ticked down a little bit to ten, came back up to fifteen last year. He also had a twenty steals, establish a good basemine of two sixty six. He's just solid. He's going to probably score eighty runs again. And I'm looking at him and saying, well that late. If I'm looking for a middle infield guy, he fits the bill of exactly the kind of player I want, strong benchmark, room for more, and I know he's not
going to hurt me necessarily either. Well.
Listen, Also, they lost Kyle Tucker and I theoretical Alex Bregman, so that changed. I mean, obviously they brought in you know, Parades and Christian Walker and whatever, but like it opens up potential in the lineup. If you remember, they were toying around a lot with Jeremy Pania hitting in the leadoff spot. They wanted to see him as a leadoff hitter because you were starting to see and last year, by the way, I wanted to look here at he Yeah,
he really. They took him out of that. His primary spots were at five and six, but he was hitting out of the one and two spot that could come back up. And the reason behind that and why they had put them there before is he does make a lot of contact. This is another one of those guys eighty seven percent zone contact, so if the balls on
the zone, he's making quality contact. While his strikeouts have gone down seventeen percent strikeout rate last year, while some of the hitting profile was starting to increase just a tiny bit. But really I think the key is like he is becoming a better hitter. He is still stealing bases, which is something I wasn't sure if he was going to do. He has increased his stolen bases for three straight years fifteen twenty two sixty six batting average this past season. Now he could be put in a few
more prime spots he expected batting averages two sixty. What I'm getting at is if you can get fifteen twenty five or twenty twenty and he has a high batting average, that could be worth exponentially more than a one ninety eightyp A two hundred adyp A one to sixty EIGHTYP a position that can fall off a little bit outside the top fifteen. Jeremy Paine is one of my prime targets for middle infield, or if I really really screwed up, I think the baseline of what he does makes a
ton of sense, and he is. He is very undervalued because of no huge, big breakout. But I really do like Jeremy Payne, and you know Luis Garcia talk about Louis Garcia and everyone's excited. Luis gars the marker between Louis Garcia and Jeremy Peneas statistically it's not that far off.
It's not eighty eighty p is adp is. And he's a little older too, so maybe you will see a jump. He's twenty seven years old right turning twenty eight, Like you're in that spot where if he is going to make a jump and become something else or build off of what he's been. This would be the window of time typically where you're going to see that a couple of years into the league. So we'll see if Jeremy
Payne is ready for a jump again. The undervalued guys in our list Tristan Calasas Junior, Caminaro, Randy Rose, Arena, Louis Garcia, Junior, Logan O Hoppy, Paul Goldschmidt, Jerks and Profile, Mason winn Esak Parius and Jeremy Pina. Who is your most underrated player coming into twenty twenty five? I want to know? Drop the comments bowl on the YouTube channel, subscribe to the YouTube channel, ring the bell to let goes dang on the YouTube channel and enjoy all the
amazing fantasy baseball content here at Fantasy Pros MLB. That'll do it for us, but the story of the game goes on for the Welsh. I'm Joey p. We'll see you next time. Kids. Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Baseball podcast. If you love the show, the best freeway to support us is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, Follow us on x, Instagram and TikTok at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros MLB.