Early Season: Future Treasure Pt. 2

In the last episode of Early Season: Future Treasure on April 18th, I brought three guys to your attention. One of them having immediate value and two others that offer near-future value: Michael Saunders, Trea Turner, and Sean Manaea.

Michael Saunders was the immediate value. At the time, he was 5% owned and if you were to have picked him up you wouldn't have been disappointed. Since April 18th, Saunders has gone 11/28 with 5 XBH and a 252 wRC+ in the leadoff spot (he was in the 6 hole one game but was back to leading off the next day). Grab him if you still can. Another one of my April 18th Future Treasures was Sean Manaea. As you have found out yesterday, he will be making his big league debut on Friday and boy are we all excited to see it. Hopefully you listened to me back then and snagged him before your league-mates. If not, you may still have time. Myself and many others think he has sleeper AL ROY written all over him if he can create some buzz off of a hot start and continue the groove.

Here are three more fellas that I think have some "quiet" near-future value:

Manuel Margot/Hunter Renfroe (both less than 1.0% owned ESPN)

According to Offensive WAR metrics; the Padres OF has accumulated a -1.8 WAR to start the season. That isn't bad and it could really be worse (Phillies OF: -14.3), but it absolutely is not good. Jon Jay has really flailed out of the gates with his new team. He has started all 20 games leading off and in CF. He owns a .262/.326/.310 to go along with a BABIP of .350. The BABIP is .010 more than his career average, hence this might just be who Jon Jay is: not good.

Manual Margot might be the first in line since he has been the higher touted prospect his whole career but A.J. Preller can't really ignore what Renfroe has been doing since being promoted to AAA last year. Stretching from his 2015 season until now, twenty-four year old Hunter Renfroe has played 38 AAA games and has done nothing but obliterate baseballs. He rocks a .338/.371/.656 slash line that includes 53 hits, 10 HRs, 14 2Bs, and 36 RBIs. He has almost averaged an RBI per game over his short stint with El Paso dating back to mid August of last year.

It would make plenty of sense for the Padres to have Jabari Blash move on back to Seattle (Rule 5 pick) and let either Manuel Margot step into the CF role (sending Jay to the bench or sharing time) or have Melvin Upton Jr. slide over to CF and allow Renfroe to play in LF. If the Padres record keeps moving south (which we can fully expect) it shouldn't be too long until we get to see one of these two young talents hitting in San Diego. If it were my decision, I'd have Renfroe up first to see what he can do in the 5 hole. The Padres seem to ALWAYS need run production.

Dioner Navarro (0.9% owned ESPN)

Since the injury to Alex Avila on April 23rd, Dioner has taken full responsibility of the catching duties for the Chi Sox. He has played in every game since the DL move. The organization brought up catcher Kevan Smith once Avila hit the DL but he has yet to play a game. In fact, Kevan Smith himself was also placed on the DL yesterday with a bad back.

Dioner has done a nice job of relishing his opportunity as the go-to catcher for his big league club. Since the 23rd, Dioner has gone 6/14 with 2 HR, 1 2B, and 7 RBI to go along with a 3:1 BB:K ratio. He is hitting in the 8 hole and it has fit him well. After getting off to a tortoise-paced start the catcher looks to have turned a corner. He looks more comfortable at the plate now. Looking forward over the next couple of weeks, the White Sox will face off against some terrible pitching inside some great hitter-friendly ballparks. His toughest matchup will be against Cole Hamels over a 14 game stretch starting tomorrow.

Navarro dons the almighty C next to his name in fantasy and we know how tough it can be to get production there sometimes, if not all of the time. He is on a good streak right now and I believe it will continue into the near future. Enjoy the ride he has to offer.