Hello and welcome to the Dynasty Baseball Pickups written series! With fantasy trade deadlines mostly come and gone, a few of my leagues have now started playoffs, and I’ve earned a playoff spot in each of those leagues, including a couple of leagues where I earned a bye. I should have plenty more teams cruising into the playoffs, but my fingers are crossed for a couple of my teams that need to finish out the last week or two of the season on a strong note. Hopefully, you are all having plenty of success with your fantasy seasons and preparing for the playoffs as well. However, shifting focus to a playoff run doesn’t mean we can’t also continue restocking our farm system to build for sustained success. This week, I’ve got five names flying under the radar as not a single one of them was ranked in our July update to the Top Prospects list. While they’re mostly deep league names, I do think you could see a few of them on the next update of that list. Now let’s get into those names so you can decide whether or not they deserve a spot on your fantasy teams.

*Note: all stats current through Friday, August 22/25 and all minor league Statcast figures are sourced from TJ Stats unless otherwise stated.

Dynasty Baseball Pickups - Prospects Live
Taylor Corso and Kyle Sonntag
Prospects LiveTaylor Corso

Weekend Pickups

Yorman Gomez - 22/P/CLE/AA

Height/weight: 5’11”/200

Throws: R

Fantrax roster%: 0%

PLive-: 100

PLive Prospect ranking (July ‘25): Unranked

PLive Tools (‘25): N/A

2024 stats (A/A+): 122 IP, 3.98 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 21.5% K%/8.6% BB%

2025 stats (A+/AA): 104.2 IP, 2.58 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 28.1% K%/9.5% BB%

Why To Pick Up

After posting an ERA around 4.00 and a K% around just 20% each of the last two years, Gomez has taken a big step forward this season. Coming into the year, his fastball sat in the lower 90s and had topped out around 95, but it now sits in the low to mid-90s and has reached as high as 97 mph. There’s some debate as to whether his big 12-6 curveball or sharper slider is his best secondary, but both have improved this year, and that gives him a trio of viable offerings to go along with a fourth, developing changeup.

From a statistical standpoint, his bat-missing ability has made a big difference in his numbers across the board. His opponent’s contact rate has dropped a modest 2 points to 71.3% according to Fangraphs but that has helped drop his opponent’s batting average more than 30 points to .194, it’s aided in the 6.5% increase in K%, and likely has something to do with the greater than 10% improvement in his ability to strand baserunners as his left-on-base% has risen from 65.3% to 76.8%. While his command numbers haven’t wavered much from 2024, he is doing a better job attacking hitters to start ABs as his first-pitch strike rate has improved from 46.4% last year to 54.6% in 2025. He could still stand to get more ground balls (38.8% GB%) but he’s doing a much better job eliciting softer contact in the air as opponents are now popping up on the infield on 25.7% of their fly balls (up from 18.3% last year) and he’s nearly slashed his HR/FB rate in half from 7.9% to just 4%.

According to Logan Potosky (@LoganPotosky on X), as of August 16th, Gomez was one of only two minor league pitchers to have at least 10 wins (he’s now 12-0 on the year), 100 strikeouts (119), and an opposing average below .200 this season. The other was fellow Guardians farmhand Josh Hartle. He also just crossed the 100 IP mark for the third season in a row, proving he should be able to handle a starter's workload going forward despite being relatively undersized.

Why To Think Twice

The main red flag in Gomez’s profile is his inconsistent command, and it really isn’t that big of an issue. He has more games this year walking four batters (3) than he has walking none (2), but he limits it to just one or two walks more often than not, he’s throwing strikes at a solid enough rate (64.6% in fact) and his walk rate is just toeing that 10% line rather than being dramatically over it. From what I can gather, it sounds like his fastball command is better than that of his secondary pitches, which isn’t uncommon but I believe part of the reason for his inconsistencies is the fact that he appears to drive through his delivery better/more consistently on his fastball than his secondaries - in the video below, watch how his back leg swings through after release and pay attention to how it changes from his fastball to his offspeed stuff, almost appearing to fall down the mound sometimes in his follow through on his offspeed stuff rather than driving down the mound like he does more often on his fastballs.

It is worth noting that this video comes from arguably his best outing of the year, so he is clearly still effective, even with these inconsistencies in his mechanics. However, it is something that may need to be ironed out before a potential big league debut in the next year or two.

Final Thoughts

The uptick in Gomez’s stuff proved to be too much for High-A hitters, and so far, Double-A bats aren’t faring any better; in fact, they’ve been even worse, with just a .176 batting average. His stock is quietly rising, but in a pitching development system as well-regarded as the Guardians, the rise might not stay quiet for much longer. If he can finish out the season as strong as he’s looked to this point, and carry that over into 2026, he could earn a quick promotion to Triple-A and might even earn himself a big league cup of coffee by the end of next year, if not very early in 2027. That proximity might push him a little higher in leagues that value pitching more, but in general, I think Gomez is worth a look in leagues with 350+ prospects rostered, and at 0% ownership on Fantrax, you should be able to get your hands on him all over the place.

Where to pick up: Leagues with 350+ prospects rostered

FAAB bid: Minimal (0-5%)