2017 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Cardinals await verdict on 2016 breakouts Aledmys Diaz, Seung-hwan Oh, Stephen Piscotty

The team known for their self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball has found its fair share of enemies recently.

I don’t post that poll (solely) to troll Cardinals fans. No, it’s more about reminding you that your heart has no place in the draft room. The Cardinals and Yankees have given you plenty of reasons to cheer against them, but both teams are chock-full of young players who could be stars and huge values on Draft Day.

Save your trolling for Twitter and pick good players. The Cardinals have a bunch of them.

You know about Matt Carpenter and Yadier Molina, but we’re going to talk about some of the guys you probably didn’t know at all heading into 2016 like Aledmys Diaz. They were ridiculously good last year, but can they repeat or even improve?

Alex Reyes isn’t coming out of nowhere -- he’s arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball, but his spot in the rotation isn’t guaranteed (or even likely) at the start of the year. It will depend on whether Lance Lynn and Michael Wacha can return to form.

While all of those pitchers are interesting none of them have the upside of Carlos Martinez, who could take leap into the top 12 Fantasy starters.

2017 projected lineup

1	Dexter Fowler St. Louis Cardinals CF
2	Aledmys Diaz St. Louis Cardinals SS
3	Matt Carpenter St. Louis Cardinals 3B
4	Stephen Piscotty St. Louis Cardinals RF
5	Yadier Molina St. Louis Cardinals C
6	Randal Grichuk St. Louis Cardinals CF
7	Kolten Wong St. Louis Cardinals 2B
8	Jedd Gyorko St. Louis Cardinals 2B
Bench	Matt Adams St. Louis Cardinals 1B
Bench	Jhonny Peralta St. Louis Cardinals 3B
Bench	Tommy Pham St. Louis Cardinals CF

2017 projected pitching staff

1	Carlos Martinez St. Louis Cardinals SP
2	Lance Lynn St. Louis Cardinals SP
3	Adam Wainwright St. Louis Cardinals SP
4	Mike Leake St. Louis Cardinals SP
5	Michael Wacha St. Louis Cardinals SP
Alt SP	Luke Weaver St. Louis Cardinals SP
Closer	Seung Hwan Oh St. Louis Cardinals RP
Setup	Kevin Siegrist St. Louis Cardinals RP
Relief	Trevor Rosenthal St. Louis Cardinals RP
Relief	Brett Cecil St. Louis Cardinals RP
Relief	Jonathan Broxton St. Louis Cardinals RP

What should we expect from the 2016 breakouts?

Once you get past the jokes about #CardinalsDevilMagic, it’s quite remarkable to think what Stephen Piscotty, Diaz and Seung-hwan Oh did in 2016. What’s more remarkable is that it all looked rather sustainable.

Piscotty looks like a cog in the middle of the Cardinals order that should have no trouble maintaining an OPS near .800 and he still has room for growth. In the minor leagues Piscotty pretty consistently kept his strikeout rate closer to 10 percent than the 20 percent it was in 2016. He has great contact skills so it shouldn’t surprise anyone if he cuts that rate in 2017 and flirts with .300. As long as he hits in the middle of the order as expected he should be a near lock for 100 RBI.

Diaz was a much bigger surprise when you look at the jump he made from his minor-league numbers to his 2016 stats. That and his limited minor league resume would generally make him an excellent regression candidate. The batted ball data (31 percent hard contact rate, 15 percent line drive rate) doesn’t look great for Diaz. Still, it’s hard to crash too hard when your K rate is 13 percent. Diaz should be a top-10 shortstop, but I would expect an average near .300 or an ISO over .200 again.

Oh may be 33 years old, but his first year in the major leagues was impressive and the most believable of all the Cardinals breakouts. After all, he’s been doing this for a decade in Korea and Japan. Oh’s swing-and-miss stuff (11.6 K/9) combined with his control (2 BB/9) is about all you need to know. In his 19 saves he was actually better than he was in middle relief with a 0.71 WHIP and 9.67 K/BB ratio.

Oh won’t be drafted with the elite closers, but he has an excellent chance of finishing in the top five at the end of the season.

Can Lance Lynn return to form?

I don’t generally get too excited about players coming back from Tommy John, but Lynn’s situation lines up well enough to where I feel good calling him a sleeper. Lynn will be nearly 18 months removed from his surgery by the start of the season and has just one season left on his contract. In other words, he has something to prove and the Cardinals have nothing to protect. My concern over pitchers returning from injuries are mostly related to innings limits, but it doesn’t sound like Lynn wants any part of that.

With that much time to recover, yes I would expect Lynn to be close to his 2012-15 self. That’s 12-15 wins with an ERA just south of 3.50 and a WHIP around 1.30. The 200-inning version of that is Cole Hamels from 2016. Maybe you lower Lynn’s innings and strikeouts a little from those numbers, but it’s still a spectacular value at the end of the draft.

Is playing time on the infield set?

This is the hardest question to answer because it requires some supposition that our opinions on the Cardinals infielders are equal to Mike Matheny’s. That is highly unlikely.

Carpenter and Diaz, barring injury, should be set at first base and shortstop. Kolten Wong is still just 26 years old. I would expect he’ll get every opportunity to play second base, at least against RHP. Jedd Gyork0 hit 30 home runs last year , and I would expect he’ll get a shot at third base regularly, but regression is going to hit him hard. Jhonny Peralta had a miserable, injury-riddled 2016, but he will at least get a chance to play in the infield against lefties and I would be surprised if the team has totally given up on Matt Adams’ power. Both Peralta and Adams are decent deep sleepers in NL only leagues.

The only Cardinals infielders I’m drafting in a standard mixed league are Carpenter and Diaz, but I’ll keep an eye on all of them in April.