as someone who could win a batting title someday<\/a>, and that\u2019s good enough for me. Wetherholt didn\u2019t have a pretty average this spring, but like McGonigle, he posted more walks than strikeouts. You love a precocious approach at the plate.<\/p>\nMaybe you want to talk about some rookies who might be available in your league. Benge is a good target, trading at 34% as we go to press. The New York outfielder showed a power-speed profile in the minors, and did a bunch of fun things in Thursday\u2019s win over Pittsburgh: homer, steal, two walks, two runs scored.<\/p>\n
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The Mets have the luxury of batting Benge in the bottom third of the order, and it\u2019s possible he might sit against some left-handed pitching. But there\u2019s enough plausible upside for us to kick the tires in medium mixed leagues.<\/p>\n
DeLauter is the wild-card of the rookie group. A first-round pick from the 2022 draft, he\u2019s been hurt for much of his pro career. But when he\u2019s been on the field, the bat has played: .302\/.384\/.504, with 20 homers over 504 at-bats. The Guardians believe, too, giving DeLauter the right field job and slotting him second in Thursday\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n
DeLauter\u2019s first homer came against Seattle ace Logan Gilbert, and he added a second homer in the ninth. Anytime you can reach the seats through the Seattle marine layer, you have my attention. DeLauter is another lefty swinger who might lose some platoon at-bats, but we need to be mindful of the pedigree, too. He\u2019s rostered in just under half of Yahoo leagues.<\/p>\n
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I suspect the White Sox can be much improved this year, and although they were crushed at Milwaukee \u2014 Jacob Misiorowski (11 strikeouts) was outstanding and his teammates hit all day \u2014 Murakami was a clear Chicago highlight. He drew a couple of walks and added a homer in the ninth. This tracks the profile he showed in NPB play, a power hitter with a discerning eye. Yahoo managers were hip to Murakami all spring, pushing him to 86% rostered,\u00a0mindful that he covers both corner\u00a0spots.<\/p>\n
Justin Crawford could be a fun player in Philadelphia. The son of former MLB star Carl Crawford, the Philly rookie is already a dynamite defender in center field \u2014 a welcome addition for a team that hasn\u2019t had great outfield defense in recent years. Crawford\u2019s minor-league profile was much like his dad\u2019s; a decent average and lots of steals, mixed with the odd home run. Crawford spent 112 games at Triple-A last year and had a .334\/.411\/.452 slash, with seven homers and 46 steals, the type of stuff you dream about from a first-round pick.<\/p>\n
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The Phillies don\u2019t want to overwhelm the rookie for 2026. He batted ninth Thursday and the team is merely asking for good defense and acceptable offense. He collected two hits and a run scored in his debut. Crawford didn\u2019t steal a base, but you have to think those are coming. If you see the upside here, consider Crawford is rostered in a modest 23% of Yahoo leagues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rookies were the unmistakable lead story in both fantasy baseball and reality on Thursday\u2019s heavy-slate Opening Day. Carson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,14364,5805,22912,138,147,3652,11714,18050,5159,4140,466,101,843,73,2517,144,40,776,137,619,382,396,3716],"class_list":["post-646720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-carl-crawford","tag-carson-benge","tag-chase-delauter","tag-chicago","tag-detroit","tag-homer","tag-jacob-misiorowski","tag-jj-wetherholt","tag-justin-crawford","tag-kevin-mcgonigle","tag-logan-gilbert","tag-mets","tag-milwaukee","tag-munetaka-murakami","tag-nolan-mclean","tag-philadelphia","tag-phillies","tag-pittsburgh","tag-san-diego","tag-seattle","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-white-sox","tag-yahoo"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116301748355207532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}