2024 Player Adds/Drops

[Kevin]

Here is the first version of the list of players who will be added to, and removed from, the league roster for 2024. Notably, there is a bit less turnover than usual this year. At the moment, we have 108 players who were not part of the league a year ago slated to be added for '24. This is down from 121 newcomers a year ago. The primary culprit for this decrease is relief pitching, which is usually a carousel of players. I'm not really sure what the reason is for the decrease in turnover among relievers this year. Still plenty of new talent across the board though.

This is far from a final version of this list. So please reply with any comments you may have, if you want to stump for a player I may have missed or if you think someone I'm dropping should stay. I will probably finalize the league roster about a week from today, March 2nd. The draft is tentatively scheduled to start on Tuesday, March 5. I will be sending an email soon to explain the reasoning behind picking that date and the plans leading up to the start of the season.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I decided to make a tiny change in terms of positional distribution on the league roster. Last year, I decided to take two 1B slots away and added an extra 3B and OF, due to the recent trend of teams regularly putting more versatile players at 1B, hurting the overall depth of the position from a fantasy perspective. However, this year 3B is rather shallow, so I decided to shift that extra slot back to 1B. There will be 32 1B in the league this year, up from 31 a year ago. And 3B will drop from 28 back to 27, which matches the count for 2B and SS as well.

Here are the player roster changes for the 2024 season:

Catchers
Added:
Patrick Bailey, Yanier Diaz, Freddy Fermin, Ryan Jeffers, Rene Pinto, Jake Rogers, Tyler Soderstrom, Austin Wells, Connor Wong
Dropped:
Joey Bart, Nick Fortes, Yasmani Grandal, Eric Haase, Carson Kelly, Austin Nola, Jose Trevino, Mike Zunino

First Basemen
Added:
Christian Encarnacion-Strand, Ryan O'Hearn, Nolan Schanuel, Spencer Steer, LaMonte Wade
Dropped:
Brandon Belt, Garrett Cooper, C.J. Cron, Hunter Dozier, Eric Hosmer, Trey Mancini, Jose Miranda, Joey Votto, Jared Walsh

Second Basemen
Added:
Zack Gelof, Edouard Julien, Gavin Lux, Brice Turang, Jordan Westburg
Dropped:
Jon Berti, Rodolfo Castro, Tony Kemp, Jonathan Schoop, Jean Segura, Kolten Wong

Third Basemen
Added:
Brett Baty, Jake Burger, Michael Busch, Junior Caminero, J.D. Davis, Maikel Garcia, Royce Lewis, Noelvi Marte
Dropped:
Josh Donaldson, Eduardo Escobar, Josh Rojas, Luis Urias, Gio Urshela, Patrick Wisdom

Shortstops
Added:
Orlando Arcia, Elly De La Cruz, Ezequiel Duran, Jordan Lawlar, Matt McLain, Zach Neto, Anthony Volpe, Masyn Winn
Dropped:
Elvis Andrus, Wander Franco, Luis Garcia, Jorge Mateo, Adalberto Mondesi

Outfielders
Added:
Will Benson, Evan Carter, Willi Castro, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Henry Davis, Jarren Druan, Sal Frelick, Nolan Jones, Josh Lowe, Parker Meadows, James Outman, Luke Raley, Johan Rojas, Brent Rooker, Jack Suwinski, Alek Thomas, Nelson Velazquez, Jordan Walker, Matt Wallner, Masataka Yoshida
Dropped:
Harrison Bader, Michael Brantley, Oswaldo Cabrera, Dylan Carlson, Joey Gallo, Avisail Garcia, Oscar Gonzalez, Nick Gordon, Randal Grichuk, Trent Grisham, Enrique Hernandez, Ramon Laureano, Manuel Margot, Andrew McCutchen, Austin Meadows, Garrett Mitchell, Wil Myers, Myles Straw, Miguel Vargas, Jesse Winker, Juan Yepez

Starting Pitchers
Added:
Andrew Abbott, Brayan Bello, Tanner Bibee, Kyle Bradish, Taj Bradley, Griffin Canning, Aaron Civale, Kutter Crawford, Zach Eflin, Braxton Garrett, MacKenzie Gore, Kyle Harrison, Mitch Keller, Yusei Kikuchi, Seth Lugo, Kenta Maeda, Bobby Miller, Bryce Miller, Bailey Ober, Reese Olson, Ryan Pepiot, Eury Perez, Brandon Pfaadt, Nick Pivetta, Cole Ragans, Grayson Rodriguez, Christopher Sanchez, Kodai Senga, Emmet Sheehan, Tarik Skubal, Michael Wacha, Gavin Williams, Bryan Woo
Dropped:
Tyler Anderson, Carlos Carrasco, Alex Cobb, Roansy Contreras, Jack Flaherty, Luis Garcia, Lucas Giolito, Tony Gonsolin, Andrew Heaney, Michael Kopech, Eric Lauer, Tyler Mahle, Sean Manaea, Alek Manoah, Dustin May, Lance McCullers, Miles Mikolas, Frankie Montas, Martin Perez, Cal Quantrill, Jose Quintana, Drew Rasmussen, Robbie Ray, Trevor Rogers, Patrick Sandoval, Brady Singer, Jeffrey Springs, Jameson Taillon, Julio Urias, Jose Urquidy, Adam Wainwright, Taijuan Walker, Brandon Woodruff, Kyle Wright

Relief Pitchers
Added:
John Brebbia, Yennier Cano, Hunter Harvey, Jordan Hicks, Jeff Hoffman, Griffin Jax, Pierce Johnson, Orion Kerkering, Tyler Kinley, Justin Lawrence, James McArthur, Julien Merryweather, Mason Miller, Joel Payamps, Brooks Raley, Gregory Santos, Josh Sborz, Will Smith, Robert Stephenson, Abner Uribe
Dropped:
Aaron Ashby, Daniel Bard, Matt Barnes, Brock Burke, Diego Castillo, Kendall Graveman, Liam Hendriks, Jimmy Herget, Tanner Houck, Daniel Hudson, Brandon Hughes, Dany Jimenez, Joe Jimenez, James Karinchak, Joe Mantiply, Trevor May, Mark Melancon, Rafael Montero, John Schreiber

[Kevin]

I hate to do this on such short notice before the draft begins, and without an official injury treatment plan being put in place. But in light of Lucas Giolito being diagnosed with a partial UCL tear that will likely cost him the season, I think I'm going to go ahead and replace him in the draft pool. We already have a whole bunch of pitchers with questionable health statuses right now and could really use any healthy pitchers we can get. So I'm going to drop Giolito and put Ranger Suarez back in the league. Suarez was my last SP cut when compiling this list a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make this change to the draft pool until just before the draft begins this evening.