As the saying goes, “There are two types of baseball players. Those who have been humbled by the game and those who are going to be humbled by the game.”
There are no exceptions to this rule. Every player struggles at some point in their career. Now more than ever, those struggles come at the start.
I recently did something crazy and thrust one of my dynasty teams into a massive rebuild. It was a rash decision because the team had been dominant in recent seasons and was off to a strong start this year as well. Typically, I try to go against the grain in dynasty leagues and trend older because that’s where the best values lie. However, having just lost Chris Sale and Pablo Lopez to injury, it seemed the writing was on the wall for my aging squad.
Rebuilds can be fun, but they also teach you a lot about the perils of building around unproven young players and prospects. They typically struggle, early, often, and badly. This makes evaluating their performances and picking who to keep and who to discard for fantasy purposes very challenging.
There is also a small sample size issue that is inherent with evaluating young players. We often form judgements based on a few dozen at bats, labeling these kids busts or the second coming of (insert superstar).
As I dove deeper into the early phases of this rebuild, I did a ton of research on young players. Particularly struggling young players, I felt I could acquire at a discount, who could eventually play a prominent role in my team’s resurgence in the league. In some cases, these players did not come at much of a discount. It is a 30 team league, and managers are stingy with their assets, particularly young and talented ones.
The three players profiled below are largely the product of that research. I targeted and acquired all three players, despite their early struggles, and have high levels of confidence they will break through at the big league level and make good on their lofty upside and expectations as top prospects.
DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I would’ve loved to have landed Roman Anthony, Jasson Dominguez, etc. But those guys haven’t struggled badly enough, and none of their managers were close to including them in deals. So, I’m sticking with players you actually can get in a deep dynasty league, though you’ll likely still have to pay up to get them. In more shallow formats, they will be easier to come by and still worth your time if you’re willing to be patient.
Dylan Crews, OF WAS
One of the most decorated college hitters in recent history, and the second overall pick in the 2023 draft, it seemed like destiny that Crews would be baseball’s next big superstar. While he more than held his own during a relatively brief stint in the minors, that explosive bat that defined his assault on the college baseball landscape hasn’t quite shown up yet. At the big league level, it has seemingly all but disappeared.
Crews has logged a total of 305 plate appearances over the course of two partial seasons. On the surface, he’s batting a paltry .206 with a .629 OPS and .279 wOBA. Those numbers are, of course, NOT good.
But, dig a bit below the surface, and you’ll find that Crews is actually striking the ball pretty well. This season, he has a 90.1 Exit Velocity and 14.5 Barrel Rate, both are well above average. While his Whiff Percentage is a bit high at 13.4% (roughly on par with Jo Adell, who is currently crushing), it’s not so high that you’d expect him to be hitting .196, which sadly he is this season. This speaks to really poor luck, which is supported by his tragically low .233 BABIP.
Crews is one of the faster players in baseball (he is 95th percentile in Sprint Speed this season according to Baseball Savant), and his contact quality is above average. He should be posting above average BABIPs (.300+), not among the lowest in baseball.
Despite his poor fortune to start his career, Crews is on pace to hit 20+ HR and steal 40+ bases over his first 600 career at bats (essentially a season). That’s pretty remarkable when you consider just how poorly things have gone for him.
To be fair, it hasn’t all been poor luck for Crews. His Pitch Value data on FanGraphs shows he has struggled mightily both seasons against sliders and this season against fastballs. He still has some adjustments to make. But if and when he does, he has the upside to be one of the better players in baseball from a fantasy perspective.
This is not the profile of one of the worst hitters in baseball (from Baseball Savant):
It’s not elite either. But for a player who is still only 23 years old, with tools for days that seemingly give him a 20-40 floor, it starts to point a rosier picture of a young player who still has plenty of room to be great.
Dalton Rushing, C/OF LAD
Rushing, too, is off to an inauspicious start. He’s currently batting .226 with a 43.5 (!) strikeout rate in 69 plate appearances while only playing a couple times a week. Very small sample size for sure, but his .284 wOBA and .285 xwOBA don’t exactly inspire confidence either.
What does inspire confidence with Rushing is the way he’s crushing the ball. He has a borderline elite 92.4 Exit Velocity and a Barrel Rate just south of 10. There is no problem with his contact quality.
Contact quality is such an important measure for any hitter. It runs second in importance only to maybe contact itself, which is where Rushing has struggled.
His current 15.5 Whiff percentage is admittedly problematic. We’re not in Michael Toglia territory or anything (17+%), but we’re not too far off.
Fortunately for Rushing, there are some silver linings in this area. He was never a huge whiff guy in the minors, running whiff rates below 10% at nearly every level. And, his approach is generally excellent, albeit at times bordering on passive.
I think his early whiff issues are tied to irregular playing time, adjusting to the majors, and early struggles against sliders. None of this is rare for a young player taking his first stab at the big leagues.
This is a very impressive Statcast profile (from Baseball Savant) for a young slugger:
Rushing reminds me a bit of another stocky slugger with an elite approach, strong contact quality, and a propensity to whiff: Kyle Schwarber. That’s the outcome I’m hoping for with at least, especially if he moves off the catcher position and into the outfield long-term.
Cole Young, 2B/SS SEA
Young is the outlier of the bunch. While he has certainly struggled like Crews and Rushing, he doesn’t have the above average contact quality and tantalizing speed of Crews or the prodigious power potential and elite approach of Rushing. There are no sexy tools to dream on here. I’m not even going to share his Baseball Savant page because it does not excite or inform in a way that makes you think better days are ahead.
Instead, what I like about Young is his youth, solid tools, and positional value.
Young has been a top 50 prospect for years, it seems, and while he has started to give off boring vet vibes, it’s important to remember he’s still just 21 years old.
Not known for his power, Young has an 88.2 Exit Velocity at the big league level this season, along with a very respectable 110.3 MaxEV. For a guy known for making contact, that’s pretty strong contact quality, especially for a 21-year-old. As he continues to age and add muscle, that bodes well for future power, even though he’s not expected to grow tremendously in that area.
This gives me confidence that Young will be more of a 15-18 HR hitter than 8-12, a big boon for his fantasy outlook, especially at 2B.
Young’s early struggles adjusting to big league pitching have also masked his above average approach. He’s walking just 3 percent of the time so far, despite minor league walk rates above 10 percent. He’s also whiffing more than he did in the minors (10 percent vs 7). All of this is to be expected for a 21-year-old getting his first taste of big league pitching.
I’m betting Young combines his surprisingly solid contact quality with the above average approach he’s known for to become one of the better options at 2B for a very long time. He will probably need some more reps against big league pitching to get there, but take a minute to queue the top options at the position and you’ll see .280, 15 HR, and 8-10 SB can go a long way at the game’s most shallow position.
I’m expecting a rich man’s Brendan Donovan, or at worst, Donovan with a few more steals. Young might not be a league altering player, but I’ll happily sign up for that for the next decade.
