2023 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Bobby Witt headlines list of risky picks in Busts 1.0
Chris Towers breaks down players you should avoid at their current ADP
Every year, seemingly, there's some young, hot shot player who jumps way up the Fantasy Baseball draft rankings before they've really proved they're worth it.
In 2022, Luis Robert ended up with an Average Draft Position of 16.2 in National Fantasy Championship drafts on the strength of 68 really good games the prior year; in 2021, Bo Bichette went off the board at 24.47 on average coming off a 29-game sample; in 2020, it was Fernando Tatis who got pushed up to 17.4 based on his pretty remarkable 84-game debut in 2019. Those players all cost quite a bit, and two of the three worked out well, but none of them cost you as much as Bobby Witt Jr. is going to in 2023.
As of Jan. 19, there have been 241 drafts on the NFC platform, and Witt is the seventh player off the board on average, with an ADP of 7.76. And, in fairness, the sample size for Witt is quite a bit bigger to justify it – he played 150 games as a 22-year-old rookie in 2022, almost as many as the three prior examples had played combined in their collective seasons leading up to their early-round price jump.
But there's one other key difference between Witt in 2023 and Robert, Bichette, and Tatis the previous three seasons: They were all much, much better than him in their prior seasons. There was some justified skepticism because of the small samples involved, but all three of them had been legitimately great hitters leading up to their ascension of the rankings, especially when compared to what Witt managed as a rookie. Let's just compare their triple slash lines:
- 2021 Robert: .338/.378/.567
- 2019/2020 Bichette: .307/.347/.549
- 2019 Tatis: .317/.379/.590
- 2022 Witt: .254/.294/.428
That doesn't tell the whole story, of course. There were reasons to be skeptical about each of Robert, Bichette, and Tatis' production in those seasons, and the triple-slash line can't tell you that Witt was one of just two players in baseball last season with 20 homers and 30 steals. It also can't tell you that Witt is third base eligible, giving you speed at one of the shallowest positions in the game, one where steals are almost never found.
But still, it's an awful lot to ask of Witt to be worth this kind of price. According to Razzball.com's player rater, Witt was the No. 26 player in Roto leagues last season. He wasn't a bad player, by any means, but he put up pretty similar numbers to guys like Randy Arozarena (40.3 ADP) and Cedric Mullins (49.7) who are much cheaper.
You're paying a premium for a blue-chip young player, obviously, and you're paying a premium for the potential that he'll take a step forward. But it's gotta be a pretty massive one to justify taking him ahead of, among others, Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, and Mookie Betts. It's not unreasonable to expect Witt to take a step forward, but he's got to be much better than he was in year one to justify it.
The most obvious place Witt can take a step forward is with power. There were definite flashes as a rookie, most notably with his 92nd percentile max exit velocity. There's no question Witt has the raw power to hit for 25-plus homers, but consistency was an issue – he was 43rd percentile in hard-hit rate. That probably comes down to just picking better pitches to swing at – Witt was an aggressive swinger overall, but ranked 16th in out-of-zone swing rate, compared to 46th on pitches in the zone. Trade a few chases for a few more swings at pitches in the zone, and it's not hard to see Witt taking a big step forward.
But it's no sure thing, and your first-round pick probably needs to be a sure thing. I don't mind taking a flier on Witt in the second round, once I've secured an elite anchor for my team. But pushing Witt as high as he's going right now just doesn't make much sense to me. It's paying a premium for speed, which may not matter as much in 2023, given the rule changes that figure to lead to a boost in stolen base attempts around the league.
Which is all to say … yeah, I'm calling Witt a bust candidate for 2023. That doesn't mean he's definitely going to disappoint – betting on an elite young player who has already established a pretty high baseline of performance has been a pretty good idea over the past few seasons. But at the price he's carrying right now, I just can't justify it. There's just too much volatility without enough payoff potential.
Here are some other bust candidates for 2023, with ADP data from NFC drafts through Jan. 20:
Projections powered by Sportsline
