Draft Day Hits: Triston Casas and Nolan Gorman

Last week I took a look at a couple guys who wound up being draft day misses for me. This week it's #humblebrag time.

The players below found their way onto a number of my teams and, in some cases, helped lead me to some fantasy titles. How did they do it, and will I still be in on them in 2024? Let's dive in.

Triston Casas, 1B, Red Sox

It became a running joke between myself and my buddy Chris Crawford on the RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Podcast that we had to discuss Casas on every show. Admittedly, that was probably due in part to me being so heavily invested in him in my leagues, but the 23-year-old did give us plenty to talk about.

Casas offered some promising signs when he first dipped his toe into the major-league waters in 2022. Yes, he finished with a sub-.200 average over his 95 plate appearances, but he also slugged five home runs while walking nearly as often as he struck out. Not bad for a then-22-year-old.

Fantasy leaguers weren't totally buying in yet this spring, with Casas regularly being picked outside the top-200 and often outside the top-30 among first baseman. You could understand it to a certain degree given the depth at the position. I was all too happy to take advantage, though, often slotting Casas into my corner infield spot and sometimes drafting him as my starting first baseman.

Admittedly, Casas tested my patience early. Not only did he finish April with a sickly .133/.283/.293 batting line with just three home runs, but he usually was batting sixth or lower for the Red Sox and sat against six of the 11 lefties the team faced that month. I did drop Casas in a couple shallower leagues at that point, but I did so with the knowledge that he probably wouldn't be picked up by anyone else and I could add him back to my roster once he started turning it around. 

And turn it around he did. Casas began percolating in May with a solid .257/.338/.429 batting line, but he really started to take off in mid-June. In his final 73 games (284 plate appearances), Casas slashed a robust .313/.405/.581, clubbed 17 home runs, drove in 46 runs and scored 41 times. That's a .986 OPS to go along with a 162-game pace of 38 bombs, 102 RBI and 91 runs. Only a shoulder injury could slow Casas down, prematurely ending his season in mid-September. (It seems like the injury should heal with rest).

It took longer than it probably should have, but Casas eventually found himself in a more opportune spot in Boston's batting order with regularity. From Aug. 6 on, Casas batted either fourth or fifth against right-handers in 20 of 24 contests. All 12 of his starts versus righties in September came from the cleanup spot. Casas also turned into an everyday player down the stretch, starting nine of 10 games against southpaws before going on the injured list.

Casas' plate discipline section on Baseball Savant really is a beauty to look at:

As you can see in the image above, Casas' swing rate is well below average, which isn't a big surprise for a guy who is known for drawing a boatload of walks. However, his zone swing rate is right at the league average. Put those two things together and you discover that Casas rarely goes after a ball out of the zone, with a chase rate ranking in the 86th percentile. 

Sure, his whiff rate (33rd percentile) and strikeout rate (29th percentile) are both a tad higher than you'd like, but when you don't chase and you hit the ball hard (80th percentile), good things are going to happen. Casas' wxOBA ranked in the 92nd percentile.

We'll have to wait and see what Casas' ADP looks like next spring, but my hope is that his good-not-great numbers from a fantasy perspective will keep his cost reasonable. Perhaps that's wishful thinking, but I'll be buying back in on an emerging force who will turn just 24 in January.

Nolan Gorman, 2B/3B, Cardinals

Gorman was well off the radar of most drafters this spring. His ADP across the major fantasy sites was well outside the top-300 on average, which means he was going unselected in most 12-teamers.

You could understand some level of trepidation. Gorman struck out in a third of his plate appearances during his rookie season, posted just a .661 OPS in the second half and didn't play against lefties. He was even sent back to the minors late in the year. We also weren't sure how much playing time he'd receive in 2023, especially after Jordan Walker cracked the Cardinals' Opening Day roster.

I chose a sunnier outlook, pointing to Gorman's robust 14.4 percent barrel rate in 2022 as a 22-year-old and a combined 30 home runs over just 501 plate appearances between Triple-A and the majors. But perhaps what I liked more than anything was the cost, or lack thereof. It's not often you can find a former top prospect with 30-homer potential at the tail end of your draft.

My investments in Gorman did wind up paying off, even as it was a bit of a winding road to get there. He came out of the gates on fire, slashing .272/.360/.555 with 13 homers and 41 RBI over 51 games through the end of May. Perhaps even more encouraging was that he cut his strikeout rate to 26 percent and upped his walk rate to 12 percent while maintaining a robust 50 percent hard-hit rate.

It was a bumpy ride the rest of the way. Gorman's OPS month-by-month from June through September went like this: .439, .944, .628, .900. He was limited to only 98 plate appearances across the final two months of the season due to a nagging back injury and later a strained hamstring. More worrisome, though, is that the strides Gorman took with his strikeouts completely evaporated, as he fanned at a 36.4 percent rate over the final four months.

That Gorman was still able to maintain a nice walk rate from June on was a positive, and his 27.7 percent chase rate on the season was above average. His 31.9 percent strikeout rate wound up in the sixth percentile, though, and his 35.5 percent whiff rate was a touch worse, finishing in the fifth percentile. There's still room for Gorman to be a very productive hitter even if he isn't able to cut down on the swinging and missing over the long haul. He just has to keep drawing walks at a high clip and keep hitting the ball very hard when he does make contact. Kyle Schwarber should be his North Star.

Another couple positives to take away from Gorman's 2023 season were his improvements against lefties and against fastballs. It was just 86 plate appearances, but he hit .260/.361/.480 with four long balls against left-handers. I maintain some skepticism that the strides here were sustainable, both because of the small sample and also the fact that Gorman has just never before done much versus southpaws, even in the minors. I could see improvement against righties, though, after he hit a good-not-great .231/.320/.478 off them this season, so that could offset any regression versus lefties.

As for the improvement versus fastballs…

Gorman was given a directive over the offseason and during spring training about altering his mechanics so that he could catch up to the heater, specifically the high heater. It worked, and frankly, it had to.

Gorman is locked into a regular role for the Cardinals in 2024, although whether that's at second base or designated hitter or a combination of the two remains to be seen. It's also unclear how often he'll wind up playing against left-handers. As previously stated, I'm skeptical that his improvement versus southpaws holds, and I don't see St. Louis being patient with him in that regard as they seek to bounce back as a team next season. That said, while there might be platoon concerns, I do see improvement versus righties for Gorman and he was batting third against them at the end of the season, between Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. The batting average drain and lack of steals are a given, but the power with Gorman still has the potential to be special and the runs and especially RBI could be solid if his late-season placement in the batting order carries over into 2024.