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Even though the Winter Meetings are now behind us, there’s still plenty of offseason left when it comes to baseball news and rumors – especially with a number of the offseason’s top free agents still without a team. And that’s all without mentioning potential trades as there hasn’t been an overabundance of deals made so far. The reports and rumors of free agent interest and trade interest, combined with actual free agent signings and trades, will continue to have significant ramifications for fantasy managers ahead of drafts this Spring.
The aim of this column is to provide you with the latest fantasy analysis on both rumors and reports, as well as official signings and trades, and how it pertains to redraft fantasy baseball leagues this Spring. Moves, or rumors and reports, tabbed as “Buying” are obviously good moves or potentially good moves from a fantasy standpoint. Moves or potential moves and reported interest that are filed under “Selling?” Not so great.
So, without further ado, let’s dive into the news with a look at a pair of recent trade acquisitions.
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Buying For Fantasy Baseball
Cole Irvin Traded To Baltimore
Since the start of the 2021 season, Irvin has developed into a solid rotation option for the A’s, pitching to a 4.11 ERA and a 4.25 FIP in 359.1 innings spanning 62 starts, including a 3.98 ERA and a 4.21 FIP in 181 innings last season. He’s also become a decidedly quality streaming option when he’s pitched at home in Oakland the last two seasons.
Cole Irvin At Home In The Last Two Seasons
- 2021: 87.2, 1.28 WHIP, 3.90 ERA, 4.11 FIP
- 2022: 105.2 IP, 1.02 WHIP, 3.07 ERA, 3.11 FIP
Now, obviously, Irvin won’t be pitching in Oakland for half of his starts anymore, as he’s been dealt to the Baltimore Orioles. And while Camden Yards isn’t the same exact ballpark as the Oakland Coliseum, it graded out in a fairly similar manner in a number of park factors, per Statcast.
Camden Yards Park Factor Numbers In 2022, per Statcast
- Overall Park Factor: 97
- Home Runs: 77
- Doubles: 65
- Triples: 86
Oakland Coliseum Park Factor Numbers In 2022, per Statcast
- Overall Park Factor: 96
- Home Runs: 71
- Doubles: 110
- Triples: 115
The switch should only benefit Irvin, whose expected home run number at Camden Yards was four fewer than his actual home runs allowed metric in 2022. Elsewhere, given his propensity to allow hard contact (Irvin’s 39.5% hard-hit rate finished in the 32nd percentile last season) the fact that Baltimore’s stadium is a bit more pitcher-friendly in terms of doubles and triples shouldn’t hurt either.
What’s more, despite the A’s getting decidedly worse at the Major League level between the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Irvin only logged one fewer pitcher win, going from 10 in 2021 to nine this past season.
That bodes well for his arrival in Baltimore, where he’ll play for a much more competitive O’s team that could help him easily eclipse the 10-win mark.
It is worth noting that Irvin’s road numbers aren’t anywhere near as aesthetically pleasing as his home splits. The 29-year-old’s ERA and FIP on the road have both finished above the 4.40 mark in each of the last campaigns.
Given those road splits, he’s likely to once again be a fantasy starter who’s primarily a streaming option for home starts, but now with the Orioles, he’s in a much more fantasy-friendly situation.
Buying (And Selling) For Fantasy Baseball
Matt Barnes Traded To Miami
On one hand, Barnes being traded out of Boston, where he was likely to receive little to no save chances, is good for his fantasy potential in 2023 where saves are concerned – especially going to a team like the Marlins who operated with something closely resembling a closer-by-committee approach this past season.
Unable to fully recreate the form he showed in the first half of 2021, Barnes pitched to a 4.31 ERA, 3.87 FIP, 34 strikeouts, and 21 walks in 39.2 innings for the Red Sox, logging eight saves and four holds in the process, though those numbers did include a 1.59 ERA and a 2.80 FIP in 22.2 second half innings.
At any rate, he saw just eight saves in 2022 with the likes of John Schreiber, Tanner Houck, and Matt Strahm also seeing ninth-inning work.
Even with Strahm joining Philadelphia as a free agent, it was unlikely that Barnes would have received a significant number of save chances due to Houck and Schreiber’s respective emergence. Then the Red Sox signed Kenley Jansen and any hope of Barnes even getting ancillary saves vanished.
Now in Miami via a trade for fellow reliever Richard Bleier, Barnes could see an uptick in save chances for a Marlins club that saw both Tanner Scott (20) and Dylan Floro (10) finish with double-digit save totals last year.
Still, while that helps Barnes’ fantasy prospects a bit for managers who take a late-round flier on him – especially in saves+holds leagues – it’s nowhere near ideal for the respective save potential of Scott and Floro. Scott may have finished with twice as many saves as Floro, but the duo had eight saves each in the season’s second half.
Now with Barnes in the mix, it’s very possible that this bullpen ends up like the 2022 iteration of the Minnesota Twins bullpen, where saves are spread around among the top ninth-inning candidates and there isn’t really a clear-cut closer.
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