RADIO
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 175
CURRENT ADP: ~190 overall
ANALYSIS: I think a lot of drafters just view Merrifield as a guy at the end of his rope. He's 34 now and had his first bad fantasy season in 2022 when he played 139 games, hit 11 homers, stole 16 bases, and hit just .250. That was a far cry from the .285 career batting average and three 30+ steal seasons we had seen from him in the past.
A great general rule to use with veterans is to not overreact to one season. Players will get worse as they age, especially on the basepaths, but that does not mean we have to accept that Merrifield is a .250 hitter with a steals projection under 20 all of a sudden. His strikeout rate stayed elite last year (15.5%) and his BABIP came down to a career-worst .276. The expected batting average shows some bad news at .240, but it's foolish to think Merrifield can't possibly hit .290 again.
His speed also stayed steady from 2021, actually gaining 0.1 mph on his max sprint speed and seeing his home-to-first mark stay exactly the same. He was in the 84th percentile in home-to-first speed, so yes - the guy can still run.
The one thing that certainly is working against him is that he will hit lower in the Blue Jays lineup. Unless George Springer were to get hurt, Merrifield is no longer a lead-off hitter. But the projections cook that in and they still spell out a pretty nice line for him this year (65 R, 10 HR, 53 RBI, 22 SB, and .257 AVG). You can do a whole lot worse than that after pick 175, and there is still significant fantasy upside in Merrifield's profile.
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