Fantasy Baseball Analysis: Nate Pearson, Vlad Guerrero, Hyun-Jin Ryu
The Blue Jays are loaded with potential fantasy baseball studs according to Sports Illustrated’s fantasy baseball analyst Shawn Childs. Childs calls Toronto’s third baseman Vlad Guerrero a breakout candidate in 2020. Childs had this to say about drafting Guerrero: “Bet on the come here as high-average power is always an excellent starting place to build a winning fantasy team. A future first-round fantasy player with a fifth-round price point in the 2020 draft season..”
Childs also spoke highly about starting pitcher Nate Pearson but had a negative outlook on Hyune-Jin Ryu.
Childs joined fellow SI fantasy baseball analyst Jaime Eisner and Corey Parson to discuss the players fantasy baseball players should draft from the Blue Jays.
Read the full transcript from the interview below.
Corey Parson: Fantasy baseball owners could soon be on the clock again as Major League Baseball debates whether they will return or not. I'm Corey Parson, the fantasy executive here with SI.com. Joining me to talk to fantasy baseball is our SI Fantasy and Gambling analyst Shawn Childs and Jamie Eisner. Fellas, let's hop into it. Let's talk some Toronto Blue Jays. Shawn, I'll start with you. Give me a breakout player an a sleeper for the upcoming season.
Shawn Childs: Nate Pearson is a very attractive sleeper for me. He's a guy that throws, you know, triple digits, his curveball and his change up a little trailing but he missed a couple of years of development with our back and got hit by a batted ball. So he started off slow. But last year he clearly came on at high-A and Double-A with a 2.15 ERA, had well over 100 strikeouts in 80 innings. He's getting respected in the high stakes market, probably inside of 300, I would guess. But he's a guy that will probably a mover, especially if the Blue Jays willing to put him in the starting rotation this year. A guy that really could come fast. And he's got an outside chance he could outperform Ryu, who's coming, you know, getting a big contract. As far as Breakout, Vlad's a guy that kind of goes in the fifth round. He didn't really, you know, play as well as anybody expected last year. He's kind of a free swinger and makes good contact, he'll take some walks and his strikeout rates, you know, reasonable. He just didn't show the really the homerun power their everybody expected last year and his contact batting average, which is an important key, I'd like to see him hit over .400 last year was .338. But he think he can do that. If he does, he'll get well over .300. And if he gets his average hit rate over 1.75, he's definitely going to hit .300. So he's a guy that could pop this year and he kind of he's kind of discounting cause the sexiness is, you know, push back a little bit because he didn't come on last year.
Corey Parson: Jamie, give me a guy north of the border that you want that you're willing to stay away from this season.
Jamie Eisner: Yeah, I think Shawn and I are on the same page. And that's Hyun-Jin Ryu, who we mentioned getting that big contract is last 45 starts for the Dodgers have been absolutely sensational. But he's now leaving the NL West for the AL East, he's a heavy ground ball pitcher that's gonna be pitching on that fast turf in Toronto with some questionable defense on the corners. The middle infield is fine, but corner defense is a little concerning for me. I think his ERA is going to be a little bit closer to 4. I had him projected at 3.92. And then it's been closer to three like it's been the last couple of years. So you never want to pay full price for a pitcher coming off the best year of his career, but you definitely don't want to do it in this case with all the other indicators say that his numbers are going to go in the opposite direction.
Corey Parson: All right. Thanks a lot. Good stuff, fellas. For all the latest on the world of Major League Baseball and fancy baseball. Stay tuned right here at SI.com.
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