Jake McCarthy

McCarthy entered the 2023 season with plenty of fantasy buzz after finishing the previous year with a flourish. Unfortunately, he found himself back in the minors before the end of April following a slow start. He returned after a month on the farm and hit .311 with 15 stolen bases during a 31-game stretch, but that surge in production wound up being short-lived. McCarthy hardly played in the final two months of the season and was removed from the Diamondbacks' Wild Card Series roster due to an oblique injury. The 26-year-old has been an elite base stealer with 49 swipes since 2022 as a semi-regular. His quality of contact (23.7 percent hard-hit rate in 2023) has been woeful, though, and he hasn't graded out well defensively, so getting enough consistent playing time to take advantage of those wheels is a legitimate question. Arizona re-signed Lourdes Gurriel, which could push McCarthy to a reserve role.

McCarthy began the 2023 season on the big-league roster as a reserve and was up and down a couple times before ultimately settling into a regular role in the second half. A supplemental first-round pick by Arizona in 2018, McCarthy showed a great deal of improvement with his bat-to-ball skills during his time at Triple-A last season and those improvements carried over, fueling his .300/.360/..426 line after the break. Best of all for fantasy players, McCarthy racked up 23 steals in total across 99 games (354 plate appearances) while only getting caught stealing three times. His sprint speed ranked in the 98th percentile, though the Statcast numbers throw cold water on his plate production. Regardless the Diamondbacks will want to see what they have in McCarthy, who should continue to have the green light given his success rate. The 25-year-old showed that he can hold his own against lefty pitching (.764 OPS).

The younger brother of Joe McCarthy, an OF/1B prospect in the upper levels of the Rays' system, Jake entered the year with a chance to go in the middle of the first round, but a broken wrist cost him most of his junior year at Virginia. He didn't fall far in the draft, going in the competitive balance round (39th overall) and netting a $1.65 million bonus. McCarthy spent most of his debut season in the Northwest League, where his 0.55 BB/K ranked eighth and his 132 wRC+ ranked 12th. He put his plus speed to work, stealing 20 bases on 28 attempts. McCarthy will stick in center field and may have a good enough approach to eventually hit atop a lineup. The recent history of high-pedigree Virginia hitters in pro ball isn't great, but McCarthy has better raw tools than most of those examples. He is not expected to hit for a ton of power (53.0 GB%), but at 6-foot-3, 195 pounds, he could unlock 15-to-20 homer pop with more professional instruction.