Edmundo Sosa

If the Phillies expected a notable step forward from Sosa last season in his first full year with the team, they would have been disappointed, though that's not to say he had a bad year. At this point, there's little reason to believe he'll suddenly become anything more than a utility infielder, but even good teams need bench players, and he clears that bar comfortably enough. His .251/.293/.427 slash line was good for a below-average 92 wRC+, but that's a perfectly palatable mark for a player who can defend competently at second, third or shortstop. Sosa's 10 homers and four steals suggest he has the potential for 20 and 10 if he ever earns full-time work, but that's unlikely to happen while he remains in Philadelphia. Even if injuries were to open up unexpected playing time, Sosa has never demonstrated the power (career 31.4 percent hard hit rate) or patience (career 3.9 percent walk rate) that hint at his bat taking a leap forward.

Sosa looked at least moderately interesting heading into last season, as he'd posted a 104 wRC+ in 326 plate appearances in 2021 while playing strong defense. He wasn't able to secure regular playing time in St. Louis, however, and his .189/.244/.270 slash line in 53 games of sporadic playing time hardly made the case for a larger role. The defensively-challenged Phillies still saw value in him as a bench option, acquiring him in late July. Sosa went on to hit .315/.345/.593 for his new team, but that came in just 59 plate appearances. Altogether, he finished the season with an 82 wRC+ while filling a bench role, and little in his underlying numbers suggests he deserved much more. His combination of a 26.3 K% and 2.6 BB% represents very poor plate discipline, and a 5.5% barrel rate means his contact quality wasn't good, either. Sosa should remain a capable role player going forward thanks to his defense, but that role brings minimal fantasy relevance.

Sosa's .268/.347/.383 slash line in 339 major-league plate appearances does not make much of an impression on fantasy managers. A .283/.331/.449 slash line in Triple-A is a little better until you see he struck out nearly seven times for every walk. Then you jump into his Statcast data and see 93rd percentile maxEV and 98th percentile sprint speed and now you see why someone who has otherwise boring numbers is inside the top 400 by ADP. The addition of the universal DH allows St. Louis to move Paul DeJong and his re-worked swing to DH and the superior defender Sosa into the shortstop role while he hits at the back end of the lineup. Sosa had a 25% or worse whiff rate against all pitch groupings last season, and we should expect the league to continue to work to exploit Sosa's impatience at the plate in 2022 around bursts of potential.

This player will receive an outlook for the 2021 fantasy baseball season.

Sosa got his second major-league cup of coffee in 2019, collecting two singles and a walk in 10 plate appearances. The Panamanian has blossomed in the minors over the past two campaigns; after hitting only 12 home runs through his first 1,016 minor-league at-bats, Sosa matched that total in 452 at-bats in 2018. He continued to grow in the power department last season, slugging 17 long balls while slashing .291/.335/.466 and sporting a .339 wOBA. Of course, some of his power surge may be due to the homer-happy environment of Triple-A ball, but Sosa's age (he'll turn 24 in March) and recent addition of a leg kick at the plate suggest that the transformation is legit. 2020 will be Sosa's final option year, so the Cardinals may decide to give him a longer look in the big leagues. He won't start, but with the ability to play above-average defense at multiple positions, Sosa could fill an important utility role.

The 20-year-old Sosa remains mostly projection at this point, as he was unable to build off a breakout 2015 campaign. In the 2016 season, his first year in full-season ball, Sosa slashed .270/.307/.343 in 97 games, mostly at Low-A. Sosa should stick at shortstop, but he did not show quite the power potential he flashed in 2015 and he swiped just five bases. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sosa's plate discipline and contact rate slipped against higher-level competition. Sosa did spend the last month of the season on the disabled list, cutting short any chance at a strong finish. He'll start at High-A to begin the 2017 campaign, hoping to tap into his significant upside.

The one thing the Cardinals have never had in their great farm systems of recent memory is a shortstop prospect hounds could get excited about. Sosa changes that, thanks to an advanced hit tool and a plus glove that will allow him to stick at the position. He slashed .300/.369/.485 with seven home runs and six steals (on eight attempts) in 49 games after being assigned to rookie level Johnson City in late June. At 5-foot-11, his .185 ISO as a 19-year-old is pretty impressive, and gives prospective owners a little to dream on in the power department. However, this is more of a batting average oriented profile with the hope that he can hit high enough in the order for his solid approach to allow him to score a ton of runs. The Panamanian shortstop appears ready for his first full-season assignment sometime in 2016, and he should be squarely on the radar in leagues where 200-plus prospects are rostered.