The Offseason Monitor: Snell and Signings and Stuff
We talk about the Dodgers slow start to 2026 and revisit the Rockies roster
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Health Updates Season
It’s BEST SHAPE OF HIS LIFE time. A lot of teams had their fan conventions in the last couple of weeks, so we got a lot of that classic offseason thing where a fan or reporter asks a player how he’s recovering from that injury, and they say they’re feeling great and that they’re way ahead of schedule. You shouldn’t believe any of it, but baseball season legally can’t start until 25 players tell us they’re feeling great. So it’s good to see that again.
The one guy who isn’t offering good news is Blake Snell. It’s pretty hilarious. The Dodgers are just out there admitting that they’re resting on their laurels after winning their second straight World Series.
And the Dodgers aren’t worried about Blake Snell at all. It’s stated like this:
But the dude just wants to play video games. And the Dodgers probably don’t even want him to pitch in the first half of the year. There are no questions whatsoever about the Dodgers being in the playoffs next year, so we’ll see them again focusing on having a healthy roster in October rather than in the first half of the season. You’ll see these pitchers babied, for sure. And Snell, Glasnow, Yamamoto, Sasaki, Ohtani… those are pitchers you kinda want to baby.
I had Snell ranked aggressively, and that was clearly a dumb mistake, and I’m sorry about it. Please forgive me. I’ve moved him down to SP26. Maybe he doesn’t start the year on the IL, but it looks like it will be one of those situations where they go on a six-man rotation and don’t even need more than 4-5 guys in the first couple of weeks because of the extra off days.
Imagine Snell being your ace and then not even seeing him on the hill until late in the second week of the season. And then you know he’ll go out there and throw four bad innings. By the time July and August hit, he’ll probably be mowing dudes down in Snell fashion, but for me, it’s not a guy you really want as your SP1 on a fantasy team.
I might even move him down more, man. I don’t know. But the names behind him aren’t very confidence-inspiring either.
I’m probably too high on Chandler as well. My rank is way above the ADP. But I don’t know, man, I like the guy.
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Rockies Update
It’s becoming an offseason tradition for me to write the Rockies preview first.
I start at the bottom of the standings and work my way up, and I start EARLY. So that bad boy was published on October 27th! They have added on, though. They’ve basically just been visiting some scrap piles from around the league and adding on. But we have Willi Castro, Jake McCarthy, and Edouard Julien on the roster now, and they’ll probably all be starers.
You might remember McCarthy’s hot finish to the 2022 season for the Snakes. He hit .299 with five bombs and 21 steals in the second half. A fantasy baseball darling. That put his 2023 price almost in the top 100.
In these last four seasons:
He played just 62 games in the Majors last year (49 in the minors). This move can be nothing but good for his fantasy value. He should get the chance to play in Colorado, and that will get him some steals. But everything else is likely to be bad. His 56% GB% last year doesn’t work. It was a 10% Air Pull% and a 31% Sweet Spot. The hope would be that he can turn a handful of those ground ball points into line drives and hit .260 again (.230 xBA last year). That plus 140 starts could have him being a 30-steal guy. Drafters like him inside the top 450 now, but he’s not a guy you need to know for your standard league drafts.
How about Willi Castro! His playing time isn’t in question. He’s one of the Rockies better players after signing on as a free agent.
The projections say:
Once again, my model is popping off. Castro had a 6.5% Brl% last year with a 24.5% K%. He had a decent air pull rate (17%), but his highest EVs were always into the ground.
The reason we’ve used Castro in fantasy in the past is the position flexibility and steals. He had a 36% attempt rate on the bags in 2023, stealing 33 bags. But since then, he’s gone for a 13% attempt rate and just 24 steals in 278 games.
It doesn’t seem like he’s very good at anything now. He’s been bad the last two years:
But you could have already known that just by seeing the fact that he signed with the Rockies. That’s a general rule these days. If you sign with the Rockies, you are probably terrible. And that’s too bad. But I guess every door needs its doormat.
One more - EDOUARD JULIEN. One of baseball’s best players at having a hard first name to spell. He’s been with the Twins, and he has not been able to make it work in the Major Leagues.
He can hit homers around a league-average rate, but the high strikeout rate turns into a .230 batting average (.220 last year), and he doesn’t do much base stealing either.
Julien is one of these dudes who hates to swing the bat. So he takes a bunch of pitches, strikes included. That turns into some walks, but it turns into a bunch of strikeouts for him because he’s not great at making contact. The Twins have a few dudes like that. And I’m not sure I get it. If you are Juan Soto and you’re swinging 35% of the time, great - keep doing that. It’s working well. But when you’re Julien and swinging 37% of the time and doing nothing, why wouldn’t you decide to try being a bit more aggressive?
The minor league fScores:
That’s not a good profile. A 103 grade isn’t what you want, and the only scores getting him above 100 are the discipline and the durability. And we don’t care much about those things.
He might hit in the top three for the Rockies against righties, though, so he’ll be an interesting deep league target, and I’ll probably be using him a ton in DFS early on.
Not that Coors will really help him much! Because he gets so few balls into play. A 29% K% and an 11% BB% last year! Do the math on that - it’s a ball in play just 60% of the time. And when you’re in Coors, the goal should be to get the ball in play and in the air. Add on his 50% GB% from last year and we can do MORE math.
30% K%
10% BB%
50% GB%
So 50% of the 60% are balls in the air. That’s a ball hit in the air in 30% of his trips to the plate.
Switching orgs can, and should, change the guy. He should go up there swinging much more aggressively and hunting pitches from righties that he can hit into the air. And maybe that will happen. But with his history, and with the Rockies’ inability to get anything out of these players, I have my doubts.
That said, if he maintains an ADP in the 500s, I’d take some shares.
The one positive thing you can say for the Rockies is that they do have a new analytics dude. They hired the guy from the 2002 A’s, the Moneyball guy. Not Jonah Hill, but the real life dude he represented. That was 23 years ago, and a ton has changed, but it’s a move in the right direction. And to see the Rockies trading pitching for some younger hitting prospects that other teams are done with does make sense.