Every year, I conduct an exercise using a handy and oft-ignored feature of Statcast, the Player Similarity, or “Affiinity” feature. This just takes the overall makeup of a player’s batted ball types, such as barrels, flares,and grounders, and combines them with walk and strikeout rates and uses an algorithm to determine the most similar overall players by the rates alone. This feature is context-blind, meaning it cares not about playing time, platoons, injuries, speed/defense, or sample size, as long as the sample is big enough for the player to be added. So while I look for comps much better than the actual player, I flag it if the player had a small sample, vastly inferior foot speed to his comps, platoon & injury risk.
My system for finding these players is pretty messy and essentially just finds the top comps for the top hitters (using Judge and Soto seem to be ideal) and then works backward until I find a player who feels like he doesn’t belong as a comp.
Michael Toglia (1B, Colorado Rockies) – ADP: 167
Top Comps: Brent Rooker, Teoscar Hernández, Austin Riley, Kyle Schwarber, Pete Alonso
Yeah I know this one is before 200 and kind of cheating, but I think I need to put it here because all of the projection systems are quite bearish on him, whereas I think he could be a warthoglia. Wait, that sounds bad. Well, he undeniably has warts, primarily his strikeout rate. But he hits the snot out of the ball, and Brent Rooker is a similar example of someone who succeeded despite a near-30% strikeout rate just through quality of contact.
In addition, his expected stats were better, which is especially notable since usually Rockies hitters’ expected stats are usually worse than actual stats by a good margin (.017 of batting average), and his expected batting average plus that would have him hitting a solid .250, and of course more hits would lead to more homers. Add in the fact that he has above-average stolen base ability for the position, and I think he’s a potential top-100 pick next year, with his power/speed goodness making up for the relative lack of RBI/R and AVG.
Note that there may be some selection bias, as most other players sporting a 34% strikeout rate likely didn’t stay in the majors long enough to be viable for being a comp. Also, he does definitely have an exploitable issue hitting non-fastballs, and I still remember this after it brought down the brief meteoric rise of Daniel Vogelbach many moons ago. But Toglia doesn’t need a perfect world outcome to roughly match or even outperform Josh Naylor (ADP 85), at least from the power/speed angle, so take a walk on the wild swinging side.
Jorge Soler (OF, Los Angeles Angels) – ADP: 217
Top Comps: Matt Olson, Ian Happ, Christian Walker, Matt Chapman
I love Soler as a bounce-back candidate, which is kind of weird to say because he wasn’t even that bad. Everyone projected he’d do worse on the Giants, and he did, but even though his 2024 draft stock was close to Marcell Ozuna, suddenly, no one is similarly optimistic now that he’s moved to a much better park and gained outfield eligibility. His hot spring has awakened some to his sleeper appeal, as he rose from a February ADP of 217 to 206.
Olson is another hitter who had a down year (not because of park), yet his ADP hardly dropped as a consistent early third-round pick. Happ and Chapman may seem like less exciting comps since stolen bases were key to their value, but don’t forget that Chapman crushed the ball with excellent barrel rates and OBP, and Happ, as the weakest hitter of the four, is still being drafted over 60 picks ahead of Soler. I’m planning to build a draft strategy around getting him since it’s easy to miss him otherwise going when most are targeting mid-round glob pitchers.
Michael Conforto (OF, New York Mets) – ADP: 272
Top Comps: Rafael Devers, Bryce Harper, Matt Olson, Brandon Lowe, Jake Burger
Conforto has already been “discovered as a sleeper” after getting some Dodgers love, but I’m still buying despite his rising price. When I laid out the outline for this article, his ADP was 308, and it is now up to 272. But if you get trigger-shy, look at the ADP of his comps. Health will always be a major question for him as he’s dealt with some injury basically every year, but at least now he has returned to hitting the ball with the kind of authority we dreamed of back in his rookie year.
It seems that the Dodgers Hype Train made a stop for Conforto, perhaps due to people pointing out his playing time security and his superior numbers away from San Francisco’s pitcher haven. He’s still a fine target at this point in drafts if you need to boost power, though if the ADP continues to rise, he may not be a must-add if you need to focus instead on a late-game closer spec, second catcher, or late stolen base play (McCarthy and Friedl).
Tyler Soderstrom (1B, Athletics) – ADP: 275
Top Comps: Teoscar Hernández, Mark Vientos, Oneil Cruz, Rafael Devers, Elly De La Cruz
This makes me hungry for some Soderstromboli. Soderstrom lost some prospect luster, perhaps by struggling in his rookie debut at a young age, and this better sophomore campaign comes with the warning that small samples are less reliable, and his MLB sample is still small. And YET! I think we need to pay attention because he’s still only 23 and still growing, stolen bases aren’t a major factor in most of his great comps, and last of all…the park change!
Even if he was playing in Oakland, the players in his comps do quite well hitting the ball out of pitcher’s parks, and his massive improvement in Z-Contact% significantly improves his projection, even if it does regress a bit. Most projection systems have him hitting 25 homers, and another year off catcher might help him further focus on his hitting skills. And about that… he may still qualify as a catcher in your league, and he might gain that eligibility mid-season with buzz about him being the team’s emergency catcher. Based on what I expect of his stats, if he were a catcher, I’d have him above Will Smith and just below Sal, Cal, and Willson. And as a first baseman, I expect him to outproduce just about every first baseman after pick 225 or so, though the discount has lessened from his juicy February ADP of 294 to a more fair 275 March ADP.
Trevor Larnach (OF, Minnesota Twins) – ADP: 348
Top Comps: Bryan Reynolds, Bryce Harper, Dominic Smith, Wyatt Langford
His comps are stud, stud, WHAT IN THE WORLD IS FRIGGIN DOM SMITH DOING HERE?!, stud. Larnach was one of my favorite sleepers in the second half last year, as his mediocre surface stats hid the fact that he was hitting the ball harder than ever while succeeding at cutting his strikeout rate from the 30% to the 20% range. Usually, when a power hitter tries to make that big of a contact shift, it’s at the expense of the power (or vice versa), so this seems like true improvement. I think he’s a dark horse for .250-.260 with 25-30 home runs, and hitting in the cleanup spot against righties will give him strong run production.
It’s true that the Twins are platoon-happy (I call them the Minnesota Platoowins) but I think that the injury-prone core of the Twins plus the fact that his platoon splits are less extreme than others (looking at you, Wallner) means he could be a discount Kerry Carpenter and get more at-bats than the projections expect. He was a better sleeper in early drafts with a depressed February ADP of 348, but he’s still a great value at his current ADP of 328.
Ben Rice (1B/C, New York Yankees) – ADP: 412
Top Comps: J.D. Martinez, Langeliers, Alonso, Walker, Ward, Schwarber, Rooker
Rice I could have counted out as he had a very small sample, and I’m still feeling the burn from buying into Nelson Velázquez’s huge second half of 2023 to find it was a small-sample mirage. That being said, his early ADP of 554 was free and about double the ADP Velazquez had. Of course, then Stanton’s elbows decided to turn into Flubber (RIP Weebo the flying robot), and LeMahieu got hurt (well, more hurt), and Rice got penciled in for the lion’s share of playing time against righties. Still, his current ADP of 412 makes him still quite cheap.
Rice had a roller-coaster debut, but it’s important to note that despite the late season swoon, he still had an elite 15% barrel rate and had bad BABIP luck. In spring, he’s hit several balls 113+ mph, including a homer, which gives me faith that, unlike Velazquez, Rice’s power is for real, and he certainly will have a favorable ballpark for that power. In leagues where he has catcher eligibility based on minor league games, he is infinitely more valuable, and there’s still a chance he could play a handful of games as an emergency backup to at least qualify in Yahoo leagues or those with a 5-game minimum.
Jerar Encarnación (OF, San Francisco Giants) – ADP: 377
Top Comps: Jonathan Aranda, Mark Vientos, Heliot Ramos, Jesus Sanchez
It’s a shame I didn’t publish this when I started it a few weeks ago, as back then Jerar was a MUCH deeper sleeper, clocking in at 559 ADP. I suppose a lot of that price depression was predicated on not expecting him to land a starting role, and the hype has driven his ADP over 180 ranks to a 377 ADP…yet it’s still cheap enough to try.
Encarnacion is massive, and so are his flaws in his swing decisions, but he does have the time-honored skill of hitting the ball hard and far. The playing time is perhaps the biggest risk. Given that Jerar is entering his physical prime after being plucked out of the Mexican league, the power-starved Giants will probably turn to him sooner rather than later, and he can be a sneaky late-round source of 25 homers even in a platoon.
Honorable Mentions: Jonathan Aranda, Iván Herrera, Jesus Sanchez, J.D. Martinez
