Jake McCarthy

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.