Fantasy Reflections: Evaluating Young Talent

One of the biggest keys to sustained success in a keeper or dynasty league is the ability to identify young players who will develop into long-term assets. Even in redraft formats, correctly evaluating a player with a limited track record - and doing so just a bit faster and better than your opponents - can be the difference between winning and losing your league.

You won't always guess right, of course. People pay me actual money for advice, and I have plenty of misfires on my resume. For instance, back in 2015 I had the choice to roster Byron Buxton or Carlos Correa in one of my keeper leagues. Guess which one I went with?

As usual, however, if you establish a sound decision-making process, over the long haul your results should be more good than bad. Take the following information into account when trying to accurately value players with small MLB samples.

Are the Kids All Right?

Scouting Reports

You don't need to know all the jargon or be able to dissect the finer points of swing or pitch mechanics with your own eyes, but knowing how to parse scouting reports (or at least reading the work of people who do) can provide a huge advantage over your rivals. Be on alert for any major incongruities and determine if there's a logical reason behind them. Did this guy who's suddenly hitting a home run every other night boast a plus power grade as a prospect? If not, it's time to look for any tangible changes in approach or profile that can provide an explanation beyond random variance or flukiness. Is this inflated strikeout or walk rate part of a larger pattern, or perhaps just a product of a young player adjusting to the highest level of competition?

Minor League Performance

While you should be careful about "scouting the stat line," at a certain point it behooves us to pay attention to a player whose results jump off the page even if they don't have a sexy pedigree. Scouts, after all, get it wrong sometimes. Like any person, they have biases and blind spots that can cause them to miss things. Players with unorthodox skill sets or physical builds may be overlooked, if not outright dismissed. On the flip side, prospects with more traditional attributes may have minor league struggles hand-waved away based on their (real or perceived) raw talent. Lastly, be aware of factors such as the run environment - both in terms of the player's home park and the league as a whole - and age relative to competition. A 19-year-old tearing up Double-A in a pitcher-friendly park is much more notable than a 25-year-old doing the same in a launching pad.

StatCast Data

Like any data resource, StatCast has its limitations. It is, however, an excellent tool for separating signal from noise. If a player is outperforming his peripherals by a significant margin, odds are that isn't likely to persist without a corresponding improvement in skills. Conversely, a rookie who appears overmatched based on the surface stats might simply be suffering from poor fortune. StatCast metrics offer plenty of aid in figuring out what the real story might be.

Context

Finally, you'll want to pay close attention to each player's specific situation. Are they only playing regularly until another guy returns from injury? If so, how likely is it that they'll remain in a prominent role, or in the major leagues at all? Young pitchers typically have their workloads managed and many are shut down once they've hit a certain number of innings. This is particularly important to monitor in head-to-head formats, where September games take on added weight.

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