When your girlfriend’s Twitter handle is @craycray_tayy, it is no wonder that Single-A pitching has been no problem for Chase Vallot to handle this season 😉 The 19-year-old Vallot, Kansas City Royals, is triple-slashing .291/.394/.539, with 8 homers, and a 60/20 K/BB in 41 games, and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite fantasy baseball prospect sleepers. Here is what I wrote about Vallot a few weeks ago in my Week 6 Fantasy Baseball Prospect Rundown:
Bat speed, power, and strikeouts make for some of my favorite prospect sleepers (remember my 30th ranked prospect Trevor Story?), and the 19-year-old Vallot checks all of those boxes. The 40th overall pick of the 2014 draft, Vallot crushed 13 homers in 80 games at Single-A last season, and he is off to a strong start this season, slashing .279/.391/.529, with 6 homers, and a 43/16 K/BB in 31 games. Here is a scouting video of him in high school displaying that super quick bat speed, and here is a video of him absolutely crushing a homer earlier this year. He is built like a brick shit house, and even if he doesn’t stick at catcher, I feel pretty confident in saying Vallot is going to continue to hit the ball very hard when he isn’t striking out. He is a great deep league sleeper.
Power has always been Vallot’s calling card. He won the home run derby in the Perfect Game National while in high school, and hit 13 homers in 99 at-bats his senior year as the second youngest player in his draft class. The Royals fell in love with him after he crushed the longest home run of all the players they worked out for the draft, and judging by that above linked “Chase Vallot KILLS this baseball” Youtube video, he is still impressing with his insane power. He is still raw defensively behind the plate, but the fact that this kind of power bat even has a chance of sticking at catcher is only a positive. He will be an impact fantasy hitter regardless of position.
Vallot will definitely move into my mid-season top 100 fantasy prospects update, and he should be on the radar of fantasy owners in Dynasty Leagues of all formats and sizes. You can follow him on Twitter @Chase_Vallot, and I wish him and his girlfriend all the best 🙂
By Michael Halpern
Email: michaelhalpern@imaginarybrickwall.com
Twitter: Imaginary Brick Wall (@ImaginaryBrickW)