Apologies for not having an update for a few weeks. Between work and my summer vacation – I went to Denver; it was delightful – I just haven’t been able to write much. That changes now and everything is back to normal, which is nice.

Over the past few weeks we’ve finally gotten our first glimpses of Alcantara and Betts – two exciting prospects, especially for fantasy purposes. We all know a great deal about Betts. It’s hard not to, considering his meteoric rise this season. He’s showcased everything that got him to the majors, except for his power. It’ll show up in due time. Nearly every rookie has to get acclimated before they begin putting everything together. It took George Springer a little while to get rolling, too.

Alcantara, unlike Betts, has been overshadowed due to the Cubs’ loaded system. It’s not hard to be blinded by Javier Baez and Kris Bryant. The newly acquired Addison Russell only mucks things up a little further. Well, I love Alcantara. I have for a little while, mostly because of the strategy I use in deeper leagues. Basically it’s this: blue chip prospects cost too much. Instead of targeting the Baez’s of the world, I go after the next tier; so Alcantara ended up on a couple of my teams this year, and it thrills me. Alcantara looks to have 15/30 potential as early as next season; ZiPS pegged him at 12 and 25 in 529 plate appearances before he slashed .307/.353/.537 in 366 Triple-A plate appearances. The Cubs’ offense is going to be fun in short order, and Alcantara should play a big role.

In my opinion, Alcantara has a much higher upside than Kolten Wong, but they’re sort of in the same realm. Wong’s five homer outburst over the past week now has him projected to finish with 10 home runs and 20 steals, according to ZiPS. Perhaps more impressive, Wong’s only been caught stealing once this season in 13 tries. It’s taken a little while, but Wong looks as if he’s turning a corner, and it couldn’t have came at a better time for the Cardinals, who will be without Yadier Molina for quite some time.

As we all know, not every rookie follows a linear path to good performance. Ask Xander Bogaerts, he’ll tell you. After being very good to start the season, Bogaerts has struggled over the past month and a half, posting a 1 (!) wRC+; league average is 100. It hasn’t been pretty. His patience has been nonexistent; only 3.5% of his plate appearances have ended in walks over that time frame, compared to the 11.2% in the games before then. His strikeout percentage has went up nearly 9 points as well. As they say, baseball is a game of adjustments. Pitchers have clearly adjusted to Bogaerts. He has to adjust back.

Hopefully Tanaka is alright. Otherwise, what the hell are we even doing here? Onto positives!

Jesse Hahn and Jacob deGrom have been pretty damn good. Hahn, in particular, can thank one pitch: his curveball. The offering features a 18.6% swinging strike rate; _% is league average. Hahn throws the pitch a ton, using it 32.6% of the time, according to Fangraphs. Luckily for him, his curveball hasn’t shown platoon splits, yet, because his change-up is used sparingly, at best. Perhaps his curveball is good enough for him to survive on two pitches. Time will tell, but it’s hard to argue with his results so far.

deGrom has been a little different than Hahn. He’s utilized four pitches – five, if you differentiate between fastballs – in order to generate his stat line. Of those five pitches, three are above average, using swinging strike percentage. His change-up induces empty swings roughly 20% of the time it’s offered at. Not too shabby. And best of all, his BB% – which is huge, in my opinion, for young pitchers – has gone down each month he’s been in the majors. So, to recap: he generates empty swings and is getting better at not hurting himself. It’s hard to ask for much more than that. He’s likely facing an innings cap, but utilize him until that day comes.

I don’t have much to say about Kevin Gausman, except that I still have no idea what in the hell Baltimore is doing or trying to accomplish by treating him as an organizational yo-yo.

Until next time!