Speaker 1Ranking the 10 best September promotions up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome in to FBT Express on Thursday, September 3rd. I am Frank Stample, joined by Scott White and rosters recently expanded as we turned the calendars to September. And we did get some promotions here, Scott, so we'll count down the top 10. And at number 10, you have Cameron Cauley of the Rangers.
Speaker 2Yeah, these aren't necessarily the best prospects in the period that were promoted. It's more about how useful they could be in fantasy down the stretch. So Cameron Cauley, technically he doesn't prospect, qualify as a prospect anymore because he was up on the roster for too many days earlier this year and didn't do much with that time. But he performed well in the minors this year, 14 home runs and 35 steals and 346 at-bats. He is probably going, to be more of a defensive replacement in centerfield, a pinch runner type for the Rangers who are still very much fighting for a playoff spot. I don't know that Cameron Cauley has, like it doesn't look like he has good enough exit velocities or pitch recognition, but he hit the ball over the fence a decent amount at AAA. And with his speed, if he gets enough playing time, he could surprise.
Speaker 1Number nine on this list, we have a left-handed pitcher, Luis. De Leon of the Orioles.
Speaker 2Yeah, so as you could tell, the back of the list, guys who probably aren't going to be that useful in fantasy, Luis De Leon is an example because it seems like the Orioles are going to use him more as a reliever for now with a plan still to resume his development as a starting pitcher next year. The numbers at AAA won't blow you away. ERA approaching five, WIP approaching 1.5, but the stuff is very good. And... And over his minor league career, a near 60% ground ball rate. So it's really just, he needs to throw more strikes. That was once true for Christopher Sanchez, too. And I make that comparison on purpose because I think a lot of Luis De Leon's profile is similar. Obviously, that's a very high bar to meet, and he's unlikely to meet it, but there is talent here for Luis De Leon.
Speaker 1Number eight is a name that we have heard for a long time in the prospect community. That is Ricky Tiedemann of the Blue Jays.
Speaker 2Similar to Luis De Leon, Ricky Tiedemann is serving more as a reliever for the Blue Jays, left-handed reliever, but still with an eye on making him a starter eventually. A big reason why Tiedemann is being used in relief is because he only recently returned from Tommy John surgery, which he had in 2024, and is still building up to a starter workload. So they're just letting him do it in the majors. Got to be shorter outings. He has yet to throw even two innings between the majors and minors, this year, but he was on a similar trajectory to Andrew Painter a few years ago, in that he reached double-A as a 19-year-old, showed up really high on rank lists. Unlike Painter, Tiedemann still seems to have the effectiveness of his fastball, which pushes 98 miles per hour, gets a lot of extra movement because he has low delivery. A couple strong secondary offerings for Tiedemann, too. Don't give up on him in Dynasty Leagues. Probably not going to be terrible, but he's going to be terribly useful this year.
Speaker 1Number seven on the list, we have John Peck, infield prospect for the Tigers, and he is someone that you raved about quite a bit on our Full Lane podcast.
Speaker 2Yeah, I kind of think he's too low here, but we are getting into a range of players who I think could possibly matter in fantasy, though relative long shots. What has surprised me about Peck, a couple things so far, just in two games as a major leaguer, first of all, he started both. That's a surprise as a shortstop. The Tigers, of course, have Kevin McGonigal, but they had McGonigal play DH one day. They had him play third base the next day. Peck was a shortstop both times and brings a lot of defensive value, which makes it more plausible he's going to get playing time. And then you look at his number in the minors, we don't have a lot of stat cast data because he only played six games at AAA before his promotion, but combining all his stats, mostly at AA, 11-0, 22 homers, 22 steals in just 70 games. So let's double it. 22 homers, 44 steals. That was the kind of pace he was on. I was most curious to see how hard he hit the ball since we didn't have that stat cast data at AAA. Well, his second start in the majors on Wednesday, he hit a home run. I'm sorry, a double, 109.9 miles per hour, and then had a line out that was 105.9 miles per hour. Both of those, those were harder hit balls than Max Clark, the big prospect has ever hit in the majors so far. So I think Peck has real juice as a hitter and obviously a great defender, and I'm definitely curious to see what he does this September.
Speaker 1Number six on this list is Ben Ross of the Twins. I'll be honest, Scott, I don't know anything about this guy. What do we need to know?
Speaker 2So I'd probably flip him and Peck today because I'm less convinced of Ben Ross's playing time, but it's a similar profile. To Peck in that stands out most for his defense, but had a breakout season offensively this year in the minors 2020 guy in the minors this year OPS near 900 because he walks a lot and the exit velocities aren't very good, but he makes up for them with a 91st percent percentile pull air rate. It's it's it's pretty similar to what Luke Kieschel was doing in the minors. I wouldn't say Ben Ross's plate discipline is quite as good as Kieschel's, but it's good plate discipline. And maxing out power with a high polarity and unlike Luke Kieschel, Ben Ross brings a lot of defensive value. So I think I think there's some legitimacy here, but I suspect he'll just be a utility player down the stretch.
Speaker 1All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back FBT Express. We are counting down the top five September promotions and at number five, we have Leo Bernal, a catcher with the Cardinals.
Speaker 2So this is where we start getting into, to highly rated prospects. I would say Bernal was kind of overshadowed in the Cardinals organization, Jimmy Crooks. And of course, Yvonne Herrera was recently graduated to the majors, but Bernal, Bernal is the, probably the most well-rounded catcher prospect of all of them. He's a good defender, good receiver, a framer, all of that. And, and, and, and he hits well, like I wouldn't say the exit velocities, the plate discipline, none of, none of them are like superlative, but they're all pretty good. He's a switch hitter and he started both games since reaching the majors. So I think already Leonardo Bernal is worth using in two catcher leagues.
Speaker 1And Leo Bernal on Wednesday hit his first career home run. It came off of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who's one of the best pitchers in baseball. So pretty impressive stuff there from Leo Bernal. Number four on this list is Sean Keys with the Blue Jays.
Speaker 2Sean Keys was up a couple of times earlier this year. Didn't do much. Six for 36. I think he had a pinch hit here Wednesday. So now he's seven for 37, but you look at what he did in the minors this year, two 94 batting average, 28 home runs, a 10, 19 OPS, good exit velocities, good plate discipline readings, both 85th, uh, or high, like 80, 85th percentile average exit velocity and 91st percentile polarity. So the guy's swing is attuned to home, runs. He reached base at a four 17 clip with that good plate discipline. Seems like he had trouble hitting breaking balls in his first couple of stints in the majors. But Don John's Schneider, the, the, um, the Blue Jays manager pointed out that it's looked better in the last month at triple a. He can play third base. He can play first base. He played left field, played DH. And so I think we're going to see more of Sean Keys down the stretch than we saw in his first couple of stints.
Speaker 1Number three, we have Yohandi Morales of the nationals. And I actually heard one of the broadcasters in the minors call him yo, yo Morales. I kind of liked that. I think we should go with it. Yo, yo Morales,
Speaker 2yo, yo Morales. And, uh, he had a big 407 foot home run in his major league debut. Tuesday as a DH was in the lineup again, Wednesday as a first baseman can also play third base. So I think the nationals are going to give him an honest look down the stretch. Average exit velocity at triple a was 91.5 miles per hour. Max was one 13.1. Those are readings comparable to Luis Garcia or Drake Baldwin. Definitely power here for Morales difficult path as a right-handed corner man with defensive challenges and subpar plate discipline, and maybe strikeouts. We'll get the better of you on Yohandi Morales in the long run, but legit power. And he's going to get a look.
Speaker 1Number two, we have Ethan solace of the Padres and other name that we have heard about for a long time.
Speaker 2Yeah, he's probably the best pure prospect on this list. I wasn't willing to put them at the top of the list because I'm not convinced he's going to play a ton for the Padres down the stretch. A beat writer, AJ Casavel for MLB.com wrote for now, they envision him as a third catcher type and a useful left-handed bench bat. So it sounds more like it's going to be an apprenticeship chance to let the 20 year old get his, Thanks. Feet wet, by the way. Ethan Salas is the youngest catcher to debut since Yvonne Rodriguez in 1991. So that's part of the reason why they may not be ready to entrust him with the primary catcher role yet. But he was in the lineup Wednesday. Went over four with two strikeouts. So I don't know that he... I don't know that he earned himself more playing time with that performance. But there's at least got to be some starts for Salas. And there's enough offensive potential here to pay close attention down the stretch.
Speaker 1Number one promotion in September. That is Lazaro Montes of the Mariners who homered in his debut. Scott, how about this for a stat? 15 different prospects have homered in their debut in 2026. And that is a new major league record. How about that? Wow.
Speaker 2It seemed like a lot, but I hadn't been counting them up. That's impressive. Yeah, he homered in his debut. And he had three hits in all, right?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It was a very strong debut. And then he was out of the lineup Wednesday because the left-hander was on the mound. And that's going to be a difficult first hurdle for Lazaro Montes to overcome. Given that even in the minors this year, he hit 201 with a 692 OPS against lefties. So not sure how much he's going to play against them. And then, of course, strikeout concerns. 31%. Rate this year. Also just a 72% zone contact rate. He hits the ball very, very hard. 94.9 mile per hour. Average exit velocity, 116.3 max. The whole profile looks a lot like Munataka Murakami, except Murakami's been doing it against major leaguers while Montes was doing it against minor leaguers. And even Murakami, his batting average has slipped to about 215 for all the success he's had. So I would say it's a volatile profile here for Montes. A lot of... A lot of upside, particularly for home runs. But the contact hurdle is a major one. And time will tell if he can make enough contact to deliver on his potential.
Speaker 1All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express. And we will be back again this weekend. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2We'll be right back. Paramount Podcasts.
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