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Michael Grennell's fantasy baseball prospects who are risers and sleepers entering Week 3 of the MLB season. Keep an eye on these rookies and call-ups for fantasy on the waiver wire.
There is no shortage of prospects getting off to good starts this year. This is the third column of the year and yet again we have four completely different rookies who are putting up big numbers.
These are all new guys to appear in this column this year, but one of them has gotten the chance to shine as an injury replacement for one of the prospects in our Week 1 list. When Ke'Bryan Hayes went down two games into the season, the Pirates turned to the relatively unknown Phillip Evans, who has gone on to put up the same numbers that Hayes was expected to have by this point. We've also got a former No. 5 overall pick on this week's list, and not one but two pitchers that both have a 10-strikeout performance under their belts early into the season.
It's all National League prospects this week. Let's check them out!
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Phillip Evans - 3B, Pittsburgh Pirates
12% Rostered
2021 stats: 9 G, 13-for-32, 2 2B, 3 HR, 5 RBI, 6 R
Like I said in the intro, Evans moved into the lineup after Hayes landed on the 10-day injured list with a wrist injury and has flourished since then. He leads the Pirates in nearly every offensive category, including home runs (3), batting average (.406), on-base percentage (.457) and slugging percentage (.750). The big key for Evans right now appears to be a more disciplined approach at the plate, as he currently owns a 5.3 percent swinging-strike rate and has a 16.3 percent O-Swing rate — both of which are significantly lower than his career-best marks from 2017 when he posted a 10.6 percent swinging strike rate and a 25.9 percent O-Swing rate. He is also making solid contact when he does swing, with his 61.5 percent hard-hit rate the 15th best mark in the majors, putting him ahead of guys like Aaron Judge, Pete Alonso and Rafael Devers.
The best part of all this is that his numbers look to be legitimate. His .348 BABIP to start the year is right in between his major league career .370 mark and his minor league career mark of .295. And no, Evans is not going to bat .400 and slug .700 for the entire year, but his Statcast numbers suggest that those numbers are pretty close to what he should be hitting, as he owns a .329 xBA and .634 xSLG. Now when Hayes returns from the IL he will slot back in at third base, but fortunately for fantasy managers, Evans seems to have earned a shot at consistent playing time. He's gotten five starts at third, but he's also started a game in left field and in right field. With the continued struggles of Gregory Polanco, it's not hard to imagine that the Pirates will give Evans more playing time in the outfield upon Hayes' return. Bottom line: Evans is a guy that managers should be grabbing off the waiver-wire right now.
Jonathan India - 2B, Cincinnati Reds
63% Rostered
2021 stats: 9 G, 11-for-29, 1 2B, 1 3B, 11 RBI, 4 R
The No. 5 overall pick in the 2018 draft, India made his major league debut by getting the start on Opening Day and followed that up with a six-game hitting streak to open the 2021 campaign. He has yet to really show off his 15-homer, 15-steal potential that he's displayed in the minors, but in 22 games in Spring Training he hit three home runs and stole two bases while slashing .313/.441/.604. A third aspect of India's game that has yet to show up early is his ability to draw walks, as he currently has zero walks to seven strikeouts so far this season. But he has shown in the past that he is capable of being one of the better second basemen in fantasy when it comes to getting on base, with a 15.2 percent walk rate in 2018, an 11.5 percent walk rate in 2019 and an 11.9 percent walk rate in Spring Training this year.
India has pretty much been just a singles hitter to start his major league career, but even so, he's still been able to get results at the plate. Some of his metrics suggest that he's currently getting somewhat lucky at the plate, as he sports a bloated .458 BABIP and a .243 xBA and .389 xSLG early on into his career. Along with that he's ranking low in his quality of contact metrics, as he sits in the 11th percentile in average exit velocity (84.6 mph) and is in the 35th percentile in hard-hit percentage (37.5%) while also having a 7.4 degree launch angle. But as he continues to get more major league at-bats, he will continue to improve and he should soon be drawing walks, hitting home runs, and stealing bases at the rate that he's shown throughout his career. I'll be the first to admit that India's performance so far is closer to "slightly above room temperature" as opposed to being "hot," seeing as how most of his metrics show he should be putting up worse numbers than what his .379/.394/.483 triple-slash line suggests. But I think India is going to start putting things together here very soon, and when he does, he'll be one of the better fantasy options at second base — especially in OBP leagues.
Trevor Rogers - SP, Miami Marlins
61% Rostered
2021 stats: 2 G, 10 IP, 1-1, 1.80 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 16 K
Rogers has been overshadowed for some time now in the Marlins' farm system by Sixto Sanchez and Braxton Garrett, but he has done a great job in 2021 of making his name known in fantasy. After going 3-0 with a 2.84 ERA and 29 strikeouts in 19 innings during Spring Training, Rogers had a so-so performance in his first start against the Cardinals, allowing three runs — two earned — while striking out six and walking four in four innings of work. But in his second start going up against the Mets, Rogers had a stellar performance where he tossed six scoreless innings, allowed three hits and two walks and struck out 10 batters. The high strikeout totals should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed his career, as he has never posted a single-season strikeout rate below 26 percent, and he has a career 32.4 percent strikeout rate in 38 innings in the majors.
Several of my fellow Rotoballer staff writers had Rogers pegged as a breakout candidate in 2021, and I have to say that I am buying into it. He is posting elite numbers with his strikeouts, ranking in the 90th percentile in strikeout rate (40%) and the 98th percentile in whiff percentage (46.8%). The only concern I have with Rogers at the moment is that batters are making hard contact off of him early on. His 95.2 mph average exit velocity and 61.1 percent hard-hit rate rank him in the seventh and eighth percentile respectively, and while his .180 xBA does look good (81st percentile), if batters continue to make hard contact off him it will eventually cause him some problems. But honestly, I'm willing to take that risk because of those great strikeout numbers. At this point he's rostered in the majority of leagues, but managers should act quickly while there's still a chance to grab him off waivers or trade for him before his value gets higher.
Huascar Ynoa - SP, Atlanta Braves
12% Rostered
2021 stats: 3 G, 2 GS, 12 IP, 0-0, 0.75 ERA, 0.67 WHIP, 15 K
Alright I called a last-minute audible here. As I was writing this column, I got to the final spot and I was going back-and-forth on whether I'd write about Josh Palacios or Dom Nunez. But then I happened to see the box score for Monday's Braves-Marlins game, and I just knew I had to drop what I was doing and talk about Ynoa instead. Yeah, I know technically he's no longer a rookie/prospect because he has spent more than 45 days on the Braves' active roster, but come on, he's still basically a rookie with just 36 2/3 career innings pitched. Cut me some slack here. And I mean, how could I not write about Ynoa tossing six innings of one-run ball while striking out 10? Especially considering this comes on the heels of his first start of the year in which he tossed five scoreless innings with five strikeouts against the Nationals. He has now allowed a grand total of six hits and two walks over 12 innings of work this year. I've had my eye on Ynoa for a couple years now, and this is the kind of performance I've been waiting to see from him.
One of the big keys behind Ynoa's early season success appears to be his slider. He's ranked in the 85 percentile in chase percentage, as he boasts a career-high 32.6 percent chase rate to start the year, and his 35.7 percent chase-contact rate is the best mark of his career. Opposing batters have yet to get a hit off his slider, and he currently sports a 50 percent whiff rate and 27.8 percent put-away rate with his slider — both of which are career-bests.
Ynoa looks like the real deal to me. He's been boosting his strikeout numbers each year in his career, having posted a career 23.7 strikeout rate across five seasons in the minors — including a career-best 25.8 percent rate as a 20-year-old playing between Single-A and High-A in 2018. If you're looking for a high strikeout guy and Rogers is already rostered in your league, you should have little trouble finding Ynoa on the waiver-wire still, and he should be able to put up numbers nearly identical to Rogers.
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