It never takes very long, once pitchers and catchers report to spring training, before baseball fans start saying they can’t wait for the season to start. Thankfully, the baseball gods gave us a little gift this year in the form of two games in South Korea a week before MLB’s official opening day to kick off the 2024 regular season.
As a result, fantasy baseball managers have needed to ramp up preparations for their drafts a little earlier than usual. (Fortunately, we’re here to help.)
There’s plenty to digest from over the winter before shifting into draft mode, so how about we hit some of the highlights?
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While Shohei Ohtani’s free agency grabbed much of the offseason attention, another Japanese star could be the most intriguing player in the majors for 2024. Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, like Ohtani, signed a big-money deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. But while we have a pretty good idea what to expect from Ohtani, the outcome is far less certain for Yamamoto.
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For starters, the 25-year-old’s track record in Japan is nothing short of amazing, He was his league’s top pitcher in each of the past three seasons, posting ridiculously low ERAs of 1.21, 1.68 and 1.72.
We’ve seen Japanese pitchers have immediate success in the majors before. Kodai Senga last year. Ohtani, Kenta Maeda and Yu Darvish before that. But never before has someone been this dominant.
Even though he’s struggled a bit this spring. Yamamoto is in great position to succeed, And he seems likely to get the ball in one of those first two Korea games as the Dodgers take on the San Diego Padres.
Another area of excitement surrounds the annual migration of top minor league prospects ever closer to The Show.
Outfielder Jackson Chourio (Brewers) and infielder Colt Keith (Tigers) signed multiyear contracts this offseason before ever setting foot on a major league field, essentially guaranteeing them spots on their clubs’ opening-day rosters.
Meanwhile, the consensus No. 1 and 2 prospects are generating plenty of excitement over the possibility they could also begin the season in the majors.
Outfielder Wyatt Langford, the No. 4 pick in the 2023 MLB draft, has been crushing the ball this spring as he looks to force his way onto the Rangers roster at age 22. And infielder Jackson Holliday, the top overall pick in 2022, may have just turned 20, but he shouldn’t have to wait much longer to debut in Baltimore.
And with the success many top prospects have recently enjoyed as rookies, fantasy managers seem more than willing to invest significant draft capital in Langford’s and Holliday’s immediate futures. However, we saw something similar a year ago with the Cardinals’ Jordan Walker – a highly regarded prospect who tore the cover off the ball in early spring and won an opening-day roster spot, only to be sent back to the minors in late April.
With Holliday close to reaching the majors, the Orioles were one of two teams with seemingly overloaded infields this winter. They ended up using some of their prospect capital to acquire ace Corbin Burnes from Milwaukee.
Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Reds resisted the temptation to thin their crowded infield this offseason while at the same time signing free agent Jeimer Candelario. Those decisions paid off when their top prospect – third baseman Noelvi Marte – was hit with an 80-game suspension for violating MLB’s drug policy.
For at least the first three months, Candelario and Christian Encarnacion-Strand appear to be locked in at third and first, with Elly De La Cruz and Matt McLain filling the middle infield spots and Jonathan India serving as the primary DH.
There was also an interesting development last week with the Dodgers, with All-Star outfielder Mookie Betts apparently changing positions once again. Set to make the transition this season to second base, Betts suddenly found himself on the lineup card over the weekend at shortstop.
With youngster Gavin Lux struggling defensively at short, manager Dave Roberts decided to switch them, even though Betts has played just 16 games at shortstop in his entire major league career.
If it all works out, Betts will add eligibility at yet another position and make him even more valuable as a fantasy player. As long as his offense doesn’t suffer, of course.
Developments like these are what keep fantasy managers on their toes throughout spring training. We crave any new morsel of information and overreact to the results of every March at-bat – because they represent something new we didn’t have during the dark days of winter. But not everything we see and read necessarily has significance.
Our most important task every spring is to separate the news from the noise.
A year ago at this time, fantasy managers were trying to make sense of a variety of new rules being implemented for the 2023 season. How would a pitch clock, larger bases, restrictions on defensive shifting and a limit on pickoff attempts impact the game’s fundamental numbers?
First of all, game times were dramatically shorter, just as MLB had intended.
Additionally, stolen bases were way up. An increase of nearly 41%, with a higher success rate per attempt as well. Individually, 51 players stole at least 20 bases in 2023 – compared to just 24 a year earlier. And six players – led by the amazing Ronald Acuña Jr. with 73 – topped Jon Berti’s major league-leading total of 41 steals from the previous season.
Not only did steals increase, but home runs and scoring – not to mention pitcher ERAs – did as well.
Whatever category targets you had last spring will most likely need to be adjusted upward this year to reflect the increase in offense.
Follow Gardner on X @SteveAGardner