Right here’s how this JJ Bleday sleeper got here into being: I noticed he made good contact, then I spent about an hour making an attempt to determine the best way to not write this put up. Sadly, at every factor I checked out, I nonetheless favored him. Why did I not need to write about JJ Bleday? Properly, it’s just a little sophisticated. “A’s are transferring to SacTown however can they sack up?” requested my Internal Monologue. Properly, I’m extra of a DM man, but when I’m gonna reply an IM, I like the thought of the A’s, normally. Quite a bit. I hate that they left Oaktown, due to what it meant for his or her followers, however that ship ran ashore on the coast of We-Can’t-Do-Nothing-About-It-Now-istan. I don’t hate that they’re enjoying in SacTown. Any park might be higher than the Coliseum in Oakland for offense-slash-fantasy hitters. It ranked twenty sixth for offense, twenty ninth for homers, and twenty fifth for hits on the 3-year rolling common. It ranked thirty first for homers final yr and there’s solely 30 groups. I’m not kidding; they ranked Rickwood Area in there, the place they performed the particular Playing cards/Giants sport. Truthfully, simply stunned the Coliseum didn’t rank under London Stadium and different commemorative stadiums. (There have been 35 parks in complete final yr; Giants’ Oracle Park was truly worse than Oakland in your customary staff parks.) Lengthy story quick, SacTown can’t be worse than Oaktown. Sutter Well being Park, the place the A’s will play, dimensions are 330 ft. down the left area line, 403 to straightaway, and 325 to proper. It’s mainly the identical because the Coliseum (5 toes in proper shorter for SacTown). They’re the A’s now, no extra Oakland, and the lack of the silly foul territory in Oakland alone will assist. I’m going with: It’s mainly a push, however higher BABIPs due to much less foul territory, till I see it play in a different way. Everybody I talked to stated it’s mainly samesies. That is getting lengthy, let’s segue out to subsequent paragraph: So, what can we count on from JJ Bleday fro 2025 fantasy baseball and what makes him a sleeper?
PSYCHE! My 2025 fantasy baseball rankings are all on Patreon. Don’t watch for the rankings to come back out subsequent month. Anyway II, the JJ Bleday sleeper:
Again to what I used to be saying within the intro, I didn’t need to write a JJ Bleday sleeper as a result of it feels bizarre to love so a lot of their hitters. I just like the A’s much less about SacTown and extra as a result of their lineup appears to be like nice: Lawrence Butler, Brent Rooker, JJ Bleday. Dot dot dot. I practically wrote a sleeper about Tyler Soderstrom, I believe Langeliers is fascinating and I wrote a Seth Brown sleeper just a few years in the past. That was dead-wrong, however he nonetheless has some surprisingly first rate attributes. In all? It’s stable. A’s hitting will not be their problem; their starters are. So, I believed, “How can this many A’s hitters be good? I like 5 of them and JJ Bleday? That simply feels improper.” That was my IM. (Once more, Internal Monologue, except you’re nonetheless on AOL.) It’s improper to consider it like that. They are often good. Nothing says they will’t, besides earlier unrelated gamers. Until Bleday married Jed Lowrie’s sister and they’re associated. Is without doubt one of the J’s for Jed?
Final yr, JJ Bleday went 74/20/60/.243/2 in 572 ABs. He did it with a ten.4 BB% and 19.5 Ok%. These numbers alone don’t add up, totally. In case you have a fantastic stroll charge, a stable Ok charge and hit .243, properly, why? In his case, it’s due to a 47.8 FB%. He additionally had a .279 BABIP. That’s not extraordinarily low for him, however, as talked about above, A’s may have a park with a probable higher BABIP. In 2023, he had a 42.9 FB%, however the next Ok%. If he can get again to just a little little bit of a flatter swing and proceed to mature as a hitter — he simply turned 27 in November — it’s straightforward to see how JJ Bleday is the reply for: Who is that this yr’s Brent Rooker? Bleday has nice energy and plate self-discipline and might even chip in a handful of steals. The one factor he must do to faucet into his potential is just cut up the distinction on his 2023 swing and 2024. He is among the best sleepers to see when you’ve stopped being blinded by your hatred of A’s hitters. Oh, it additionally doesn’t damage that he’s additionally barely being drafted within the prime 250 general. For 2025, I’ll give JJ Bleday projections of 76/27/82/.252/5 in 551 ABs with an opportunity for extra.