RADIO
Rick Lucks examines the fantasy prospects of recent callups Teoscar Hernandez and Gleyber Torres to determine whether they will help fantasy baseball rosters in 2018.
There are still plenty of intriguing waiver wire options from the minor leagues to examine, so we're going prospecting again. Scouting produces a realistic sense of a given player's overall potential, but fantasy owners in redraft leagues are usually more concerned with the ability to make an immediate impact. This means that vanilla prospect lists are generally of little use to fantasy owners.
Instead, the prospects who are most fantasy-viable are those producing exciting lines in the minors. 25-year old Teoscar Hernandez has minor league numbers that would make fantasy owners drool, while 21-year old Gleyber Torres's would make you wretch instead.
Care to guess which one is more likely to help you this year?
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The Fantasy Jury is Out
Teoscar Hernandez (OF, TOR) 49% Owned
Hernandez is off to an exhilarating start in 2018 (.300/.375/.620 with three homers and a steal), but the sample size is too small to put much weight on. He has 15 MLB homers over 263 career PAs, but the accompanying 29.3% K% and 15.1% SwStr% give fantasy owners the jitters. To trust, or not to trust?
Hernandez's minor league performance suggests that he's a worthwhile fantasy investment. Hernandez first received an extended look in the High Minors with 514 PAs for Double-A Corpus Christi in 2015. His slash line wasn't special (.219/.275/.362), but his blend of power (17 HR) and speed (33-for-40 on SB attempts) was very intriguing in roto leagues. His home stadium inflated power significantly (1.278 HR factor from 2014-2016), but a healthy FB% (43.9%) suggested that he would have hit homers anywhere.
Hernandez returned to Double-A Corpus Christi in 2016, where he slashed .305/.384/.437 with six homers over 322 PAs. His average increase was rooted in a sharp K% reduction (24.5% in 2015 to 17.1% in 2016) and BABIP spike (.261 vs. .359). The K% improvement seems real, as a BB% jump (6.4% to 9.9%) suggests an improved batting eye. His BABIP was probably unsustainable in both seasons, so splitting the difference seems appropriate.
The power loss was concerning, but his FB% remained strong at 46.2%. The performance earned him a taste of Triple-A Fresno, where he slashed .313/.365/.500 with four homers in 160 PAs. He rarely struck out (15.6% K%) while working his share of walks (8.1% BB%), carrying over his plate discipline gains from Double-A. His homers were down, but again his 43.3% FB% suggested upside in that area. His BABIP was high again (.350), almost certainly caused by a LD% spike (25% vs. 18.8% at Double-A) never repeated in his professional career.
Fresno is a nearly neutral environment (.971 factor for runs scored, 1.013 for HR, .974 for hits), so the performance above should be indicative of what Hernandez can do. He pilfered 34 bags between his two stops in 2016, though his 17 CS weren't great.
Hernandez returned to Fresno in 2017, logging 347 PAs and a .279/.369/.485 line with twelve homers there. His LD% regressed (15.5%), driving his BABIP to .329. His walks increased again (11.2% BB%), while his K% trended toward the league average (20.7%). He still hit a ton of flies (44.2% FB%), and he finally returned to the 20 HR pace he flashed back in 2015.
Toronto acquired Hernandez midway through 2017 and sent him to Triple-A Buffalo. Buffalo is a pitcher's park (.982 for runs scored and HR, .946 for hits), and Hernandez appeared to press at the plate (.222/.294/.505 with six homers over 109 PAs). He struck out way too much (27.5% K%) while also hitting so many fly balls (50.7% FB%) that his BABIP cratered (.254).
Hernandez went 16-for-25 in SB attempts in 2017, marking a sharp reduction in his running game. However, 25 attempts are enough to show that he was still trying to be a threat on the bases.
That's a lot of minor league data, but it's necessary because it proves that Hernandez's issues at the MLB level can be overcome. His career batting average of .256 is dragged down by his excessive strikeout totals, but that wasn't really a problem for him on the farm. Statcast's Sprint Speed metric suggests that Hernandez can still run (28.3 ft./sec this year, 28.5 ft./sec last), so those minor league steal totals could return too.
The one question Hernandez's track record cannot answer is whether he can be a consistent power source, but he's always hit airborne baseballs. Statcast loves his contact quality in the big leagues (100.8 mph average airborne exit velocity this year, 27.3% Brls/BBE) and always has (93 mph, 17% Brls/BBE last season), so he should get his homers.
Toronto hits him second everyday, giving Hernandez plenty of opportunities to compile counting stats. While he has never swiped bases, hit homers, and avoided strikeouts at the same time, he has done all three for significant stretches in the past. Two out of three make him a solid fantasy asset who becomes elite if he puts it all together. That's not bad for a free player in late April.
Verdict: Champ
Gleyber Torres (2B, NYY) 61% Owned
This wunderkind is off to a fairly pedestrian start (.273/.304/.318), and his brief minor league career suggests more of the same in the immediate future.
Torres has little experience in the High Minors after a torn UCL brought his 2017 season to a premature end. He started the year at Double-A Trenton, slashing .273/.367/.496 with five homers, five steals, and four CS in 139 PAs. His plate discipline was exceptional, as he posted a 15.1% K% against a 12.2% BB%. His BABIP was average (.295) while his FB% was plus (43.8%), making him look like an MLB-ready performer.
Unfortunately, it all fell apart upon promotion to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. His K% skyrocketed to 27.1%, suggesting that he was not yet ready for advanced pitching. His two-for-four on the base-paths offered little promise of a big league running game. His overall line improved to .309/.406/.457 on the strength of a .426 BABIP, but nobody can maintain that over a significant sample size.
With no ability to look forward, we have to turn to Torres's performance at High-A ball in 2016. He hit 11 HR and stole 21 bases (13 CS) in 547 PAs split between the Cubs and Yankees organizations, hitting .254 with the Yankees (138 PAs) and .275 with the Cubs (409 PAs). He held his own, but he didn't really master the level.
That fact becomes more evident when his peripherals are considered. Torres has never displayed above average raw power. His HR/FB for the seasons above were 6.9%, 11.4%, 11.9%, and 13.3% starting with his High-A seasons. While he managed to lift the ball at Double-A, his FB% has generally been under 30% at most of his stops. This has been true in his brief MLB sample as well (26.3% FB%), suggesting that a significant swing change is needed before Torres hits for any power.
Likewise, Torres's SB success rates have consistently been terrible. He made it 61% of the time in 2015, 62% in 2016, and 59% in 2017. A contending team with an excellent offense is simply not going to ask him to run with those success rates on the farm.
The Yankees are slotting him ninth in their order, preventing him from accumulating many counting stats. Worse, that means the team's sluggers are effectively “behind” him. Would you try to steal a base with those success rates in front of Aaron Judge?
It's possible that Torres has enough raw ability to have adapted to Triple-A, but his UCL injury robbed him of that chance. Now, he needs to make those same adjustments against MLB pitchers. It could happen, but almost certainly takes a few years if it does. For now, he's a zero-category contributor who matters in only the deepest of redraft formats.
Verdict: Chump
