Wood, Ketel, Kristian Campbell and OPS Leaders
Wood, Ketel, Kristian Campbell and OPS Leaders
Jul 1, 2024
Author: 3-1Count.com
Welcome To The Show image of James Wood courtesy of @MLB
I’ll start off with a picture from Colorado as long as we are here. It’s an amazingly beautiful state with so much to do and see. We are also both just so grateful we are not melting in the south right now!
Look across the San Juan Mountains
We’ve been talking about James Wood OF WAS most of the season. And you know I have felt he is ready for the big leagues for some time. The Nationals have had their reasons to keep him down until mid-season and it’s safe to say there were factors beyond just his development. Regardless, we are FINALLY at the point where Wood has been promoted! He will make his debut tonight in DC against the New York Mets and LHP David Peterson.
Wood is a near consensus number one overall prospect in baseball and that is where I have him. If you haven’t checked out his AAA numbers recently try this slash line out: .353/44/10/37/10 with a .463 OBP, a 173 wRC+, and 40 walks against only 42 strikeouts. It’s an elite performance and Wood should be the biggest impact prospect remaining to come up this year.
Outside of an NFBC type format it’s unlikely Wood is available in your fantasy leagues. Certainly not in any type of keeper or dynasty format. If you can bid on him with FAAB he’s the guy to break the bank for. If you are considering dealing for him you may want to be patient. Top prospect value is usually extremely high around the time they get the big league call. I usually try to take the other side and sell at this point, which is what I did with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Wander Franco for example. And I received huge returns for both, helping me to win or place in multiple leagues.
One last thought on Wood. I’m really curious to see where the Nationals slot him in the lineup. It makes sense to me to have Wood hitting second behind CJ Abrams or possibly 3rd behind Abrams and Lane Thomas. But no lower. Wood immediately changes and lengthens the Nationals lineup.
Over the last 30 days there are an impressive 16 hitters with an OPS 1.000+. For comparison, only 3 players have an OPS over 1.000 for the season. And, of course, it’s Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Juan Soto.
In the last 30 days Aaron Judge sits up top at 1.340 but CJ Abrams in second at 1.127 is a surprise. He came up as a light hitter with big speed and now he’s hurting baseballs and getting caught stealing way too often. A few other surprises sitting over 1.000 are Ketel Marte (more on Ketel below), Jarren Duran, Brandon Nimmo, Jonathan India, Steven Kwan and Jackson Merrill.
Ketel Marte has always been an excellent player and at 30 years old he is pacing to have his best season yet. What’s really interesting is that at an age many players begin to see skill erosion Marte is actually hitting the ball harder than ever and is finding the barrel more than at any point of his career. His hard hit rates and average EV are both elite in the 95th+ percentiles and to top it off Marte remains an excellent defender at 2B. If you have him on your fantasy team ride the great production. If you can afford to acquire him, particularly in redraft, do so.
Ketel Marte courtesy of Baseball Savant
The biggest MLB matchup this week is the Baltimore Orioles cruising into Seattle for a 3 game series against the Mariners. Both teams are in first place in their divisions and both teams have a losing record over their last 10 games. I believe the Orioles are the better team by a pretty wide margin but their pitching injuries and overall pitching issues are worrisome. Meanwhile the Mariners get it done with great pitching and have an amazingly weak offense.
It’s going to be a fun series to watch and each team will be determined to win at least 2 of 3. What is even more interesting to me is how each team will address their needs. Both farm systems are loaded so they have plenty of trade capital to work with and I expect they will both be very busy between now and the trade deadline.
Prospect spotlight:
Kristian Campbell isn’t a name I have been keeping much of an eye on. At this point of the season though it’s impossible not to notice what he is doing. So I decided to dig in and take a look.
Campbell just turned 22 and was a late 4th rd pick last year out of Georgia Tech. A 2B/OF Campbell is built at 6’3 210lbs. He only had 84 pro plate appearances last year so not a lot was learned before this season. For 2024 the Red Sox started him at High A and he cruised through his 40 games there. The only standout concern being a high K rate at almost 27%. Since his promotion to AA Campbell has raked at an unsustainable .420 BA over 22 games. This is driven, in part, by an insanely high .508 BABIP. That’s not to take away from a great showing, just pointing out he’s a bit over his ski’s (sneaking a Colorado reference in) atm. Very encouraging though is that Campbell has dropped his K rate to just under 19% at AA.
I went back and looked at Campbell’s swing before he was drafted. His setup was a bit unusual with his hands away from his body and the bat laid back towards the catcher. You could see how fast his hands were and the swing itself was short, but I wondered what impact this stance had on his power. And then I switched to recent video and I saw a very different set up. His hands and bat were in a more traditional set and those lightening hands still fired through the zone. These changes help me understand the significant increase in his ISO last year to this year. Campbell is in a much better position to impact the baseball now.
My takeaway is that I’m definitely interested in Campbell from a fantasy standpoint and will likely look to acquire him on some of my deeper dynasty type teams. For the Red Sox having Campbell in the mix with prospects Mathew Lugo and Nick Yorke really puts them in a great position. They already have Ceddanne Rafaela, Emmanuel Valdez and David Hamilton up the middle at the big league level. Lugo and Yorke are close to the majors now at AAA and now Campbell is coming up behind them. It’s likely one or two of these players join Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu in the OF barring future trades - which is also certainly possible.
That’s it for today. Keep an eye out for a mid-season fantasy update later this week. I’ll take a look at whether we want to acquire, hold, or move targeted players at each position.
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