I hope you had a good weekend and enjoyed my last edition of My Fantasy Baseball Experience. This week I will be talking about how to treat young players.
This week we will take a look at how to treat young players and specifically rookies. I will start with rookie hitters, I would say that you should expect rookies to perform for the first month or so after they get called up because pitchers don’t know how to get them out yet but after a month or so you should expect the rookies to start to slump because at that point there is enough data where pitchers should be able to learn that hitters weaknesses. But some hitters don’t have this slump and are good enough to adjust with the pitchers and fix their flaws that pitchers may have previously been targeting. For pitchers it is much easier to break out in their rookie year than hitters, just look at Paul Skenes who was one of the most entertaining players of the 2024 season and he was a rookie pitcher. Usually pitchers that break out right away have already cemented themselves as at least above average players. Overall I think if a player breaks out that did not have a good prospect ranking or track record then you should not risk it and you should look for players who have a good track record to try and find a young breakout player. Now I will give you my waiver pickups of the week.Pitchers:
Cam Schittler
Janson Junk
Luis Gil
Cam Schittler has insane stuff with a fastball touching 100+ with a low nineties slider and put up a quality debut on the 9th of July so look out for Schittler on the wire he could be very good. Janson Junk was called up for his debut on May 24th and had a mix of bad and really good starts to kick off his career, recently though he has put up 13 straight scoreless innings and has the potential to be a great starter so look out for Junk on the wire. Luis Gil had an incredible rookie season in 2024 posting a 3.50 ERA and in 151.2 innings he struck out 171 batters, he is coming back from an injury and should make his first start soon so watch out.
Hitters:
Ceddanne Rafaela(OF)
Andrew Vaughn(1B)
Romy Gonzalez(2B)
Ceddanne Rafaela was a very highly respected and highly ranked prospect for the red sox who didn’t perform very well offensively in his rookie season in 2024 but he has been on a ridiculous run lately and this could be his time to breakout. Andrew Vaughn was also a very respected and highly ranked prospect who was disappointing but instead of being disappointing for one year like Rafaela he was disappointing for 4 years. Vaughn wasn’t terrible for those 4 years but he was also not very good, he was kind of like a Spencer Torkelson type of a player. But after joining a new team he has been on a tear and should be a top player available on this week's wire. Romy Gonzalez has been switching between a bench player and a starter his whole career but after the Triston Casas injury Romy has found a starting role and has been on a tear lately. Romy has the talent to be really good and this could be his chance to breakout as an everyday starter so look out for Romy.
I hope these waiver adds help you and I hope to see you next week for my sixth edition of My Fantasy Baseball Experience.