It’s hard not to overreact to outlier performances in small sample sizes and highlights from spring training. It’s the human condition- we’ve been starved of this game we hold so dear, and now that it is here, we want to believe that everything our eyes are telling us is true. Alas, that’s a dangerous game, fraught with noise and logical fallacy.
Nevertheless, there are nuggets from which we can glean actionable information if we look hard enough, and those have more to do with opportunity than performance. Who is being given the opportunity to succeed in a role they didn’t previously have, and what output might that yield if that role translates into the regular season? These are the questions we should be trying to answer, as opposed to whether or not Bobby Dalbec hit yet another home run in today’s game (he probably did).
Where better to start an investigation into potential hidden opportunities than the beginning of the lineup? By definition, leadoff men have more PAs than everyone else on their team, and thus more opportunity to pile up that sweet, sweet production. Some teams have a well-established leadoff man, and so the market already recognizes their value. Some teams will use a variety of leadoff men, which can still be useful in DFS where you can adjust and react to different lineups, but is less helpful in season long where the guy you paid a leadoff price for is now hitting 8th. A couple teams have given ample opportunity to guys with particularly interesting skill sets, and that’s who we’ll focus on here.
Myles Straw
Myles Straw is incredibly fast and has shown some ability to get on base. More often than not, he has hit atop a potent Houston lineup this spring, and if he were to maintain that role throughout the regular season, it would be an absolute boon for his fantasy value. We’re talking 100-plus Runs, 35-plus SBs and if not a .300 hitter, close enough to it that he doesn’t kill you with a low batting average the way some extreme speed or power fantasy assets do (looking at you, Joey Gallo and Billy Hamilton).
He’s also in no danger of replicating what the Astros had in George Springer, as he has a total of five HR in his six years a professional. Not during his time in MLB… his entire professional career (since 2015). So if you find yourself heavily invested in Straw, you may need to plan for having a Big Bad Wolf with a lot of power somewhere else on your roster to make up for this deficiency.
Overall though, the potential for profit from Straw’s mid 300s ADP is tremendous, with him currently being drafted around the likes of Austin Slater and Adam Duvall. Just about anyone hitting leadoff for the Astros would be in consideration for top 100 output, and a player with Straw’s skill set has the opportunity to end up even higher than that.
Victor Robles
Stop me if you heard this before… THIS is the year that Victor Robles is going to break out! While we fantasy enthusiasts may be quick to label Robles a “bust” after underwhelming in his first few years as a big leaguer, we have to remember the context. He is only 23years old after all, was hitting in a less than ideal lineup spot often, and I suspect many of our expectations were incorrectly anchored by the massive success of Juan Soto. It’s entirely possible that Victor Robles will be both very good and not be anywhere near as good as Juan Soto. Almost no one is.
Robles is also leading off quite a bit this spring training, and while he is certainly more of a known quantity than Straw, this development might still be missed by some of your league mates. If you need reason to temper your enthusiasm, well, Robles doesn’t really walk. He’s never put up more than a 6% walk rate, and he also strikes out at a higher clip than you’d want from a leadoff hitter. There’s still plenty of talent, and also profit from Robles’ 150ish ADP but you’ll want to take that with a side of caution that he may not be able to maintain a leadoff role all season, especially with a more prototypical leadoff hitter in Trea Turner waiting in the wings if Robles underperforms.
Raimel Tapia
If the stars were ever going to align for Tapia to realize his potential, it probably is going to happen in 2021. The Rockies have jettisoned veteran plate appearances left and right, leaving plenty of opportunity for Tapia to see close to 600 this season, and not much competition to take over the leadoff spot if he struggles out of the gate.
Tapia is an interesting fantasy asset- he doesn’t excel at any particular thing, but he is a good enough contact hitter and has enough speed that the sheer volume created by a Coors powered BABIP (it was .392 last season across 206 PAs) will produce desirable output in multiple categories. He should also attempt to steal a few more bags, with Nolan Arenado and David Dahl’s power bats no longer in the lineup to drive him in by hitting one over the wall.
I would posit that if he does indeed lock down the leadoff gig, he has considerably more upside than most of his mid-200s ADP output, his brethren around that ranking including a bevy of middling outfielders such as Randal Grichuk, Kole Calhoun and Leody Taveras. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tapia closer to the low-200s or even break just under 200 come late March.
Josh Rojas
Could it really be? A darling of the more diehard contingent of the fantasy community, Rojas has only seen limited big league action thus far, and hasn’t been overly impressive in the time he has seen, but he is oozing with potential after putting up some eye-popping minor league numbers.
While Arizona’s lineup doesn’t strike fear in the hearts of pitchers the way some other lineups might, we’re still talking about the opportunity for 500-plus plate appearances which would likely yield something like 15 HR and 20 SB upside. That would be useful anywhere, but from a middle infielder who is being drafted in the mid 500s? That would be insane and potentially league-winning production profit.
It’s a lot to expect out of Rojas to not just maintain a top of the order lineup spot long enough to have a shot at producing, let alone produce all season, but we can (continue to) dream, and there are certainly larger gambles that are made on players with less upside, so I will be on team Rojas until he either stops being given top of the order opportunity or proves he still isn’t ready at the big league level.
