Fantasy Baseball Friday: Week Eight Preview

Fantasy Baseball
fantasy baseball friday

Every hitter stinks, a no-hitter happens every other night, and everyone is hurt. Onward and upward.

Let’s dive in.

Waiver Wire Adds

Hitters

Jorge Polanco SS, 2B Min

I think the Twins in general are due for a bit of a positive turnaround and Polanco has been a consistently solid fantasy contributor for a few years. His hard-hit rate is up to 40% and in the last two weeks, he’s averaging about three fantasy points per game. If you need middle infield I’d add him now before he’s more owned.

Robbie Grossman OF Det

It might be safe to say Grossman should be owned in all formats, but especially all categories leagues. With outfield under-performing as a position like it has this year, Grossman’s four home runs and seven stolen bases with a .370 xwOBA look pretty attractive right now.

Andrew Vaughn 1B, OF ChW

The White Sox rookie has shown glimpses of greatness so far this year. The White Sox lineup is still pretty solid even without Robert and Jimenez, so I love the upside here.

Gavin Lux 2B, SS LAD

In the month of May, Lux is hitting .328 with a .874 OPS. The plate discipline looks really solid as well.

Justin Upton OF LAA

While the plate discipline isn’t great, Upton can still hit the long ball, and last I checked, chicks still dig the long ball. Add him for a power source in categories leagues.

Starting Pitchers

Formerly mentioned players who you should still look to add:

The three aforementioned names are still, in my opinion, under-owned and you should look to add them where you need starting pitching help.

Rich Hill TB

Richard Hill was drafted to the MLB in 2002. He is still a high-performing professional athlete almost 20 years later. If you look just at the surface you’d see through eight starts Hill has a 4.26 ERA with just over a strikeout per inning, you think okay that’s decent. But, if you look under the hood you’ll see that his xERA, xFIP, and SIERA are all a bit lower, hanging in the mid to high-threes suggesting his ERA should be and could go lower going forward. His called-strike-plus-whiff rate of 32.7% is a whole head above the league average of 28.3%. He doesn’t throw as hard as a young spry Rich Hill once did, but his fastball velocity is up on average from 2020 by about 1.5 miles per hour. He’s consolidated his pitch mix to be just four pitches instead of five pitches that he’s toted in years past, and it appears throwing his slider and cutter more and cutting out his change-up and split-finger might be working for him. He’s still widely available so I’d look to add him in all formats, 12 teams or deeper. His next start comes against the Royals, who are a solid matchup for him.

Closers

Tyler Rogers SF

It appears he might have over-taken the role in San Francisco. The Giants, somehow, keep winning so this might end up being a solid job to have.

Hansel Robles Min

If you need to speculate on saves in a deeper Roto league, look at Robles. Taylor Rogers has been shaky as the closer and Robles got the most recent save for the Twins. He was the closer in his past life with the Angels, so he might be in line to get more save opportunities.

Kendall Graveman Sea

Sticking with the speculation theme, I think Graveman will overtake Rafael Montero as the go-to no doubt closer in Seattle. Granted, they have to stop getting no-hit to put him in save positions.

Two-Start Pitchers

Need to stream some starting pitchers for the upcoming week? Take a look at the below guys who are currently lined up to get two starts and are owned in less than 70% of ESPN leagues.

*Miley is currently listed as DTD plus would have two tough matchups

**Also currently listed as DTD

Drops

Sometimes we have to let go and move on. If there are higher upside guys available on waivers I’m fine moving on from the below.

Jed Lowrie

Lowrie got out to a hot start this year but it’s safe to say he’s crashing back down to earth.

Ryan Mountcastle

Mountcastle might be going through a sophomore slump this season. The most alarming thing in his profile is his strikeout rate is up to almost 31%, compared to 21% last year.

David Fletcher

Fletcher has the single lowest hard-hit rate amongst qualified hitters, with a whopping 13%.

Lorenzo Cain and Victor Robles

Unless you’re in a categories league and are struggling to get stolen bases, I’d look for better outfielders.

Buy Low, Sell High

Buy low hitters

fantasy baseball friday

I think the buy-low window is closing on Goldschmidt and Bell. If they’re going to breakout it’s going to be soon and be big, so might as well go after the upside and try to get them now. Goldschmidt is my favorite of the group.

Buy low pitchers

fantasy baseball friday

Basically, the entire Angels pitching staff.

Sell high hitters

fantasy baseball friday

Generally, I’m looking to sell late-career breakouts. This isn’t technically a breakout for Crawford since he’s been good for a long time, but it’s not crazy to say he’s past his peak and he currently has the best OPS of his career while out-performing his expected stats and with a below-average hard-hit rate. I’ll sell that profile any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Sell high pitchers

fantasy baseball friday

I also added in some closers that you could try to sell high on in shallow leagues. In deep categories leagues, it’s so hard to get rid of closers. I also know I’ve now contradicted myself with Tyler Rogers but he could be an add in deep categories leagues while simultaneously being a sell in shallower leagues.

Photo by Julio Aguilar

Fantasy expert, Adam Gruttadaro, is a guest contributor for Bat Flips and Nerds. Check out his website for more fantasy tips and follow him on Twitter.

While you’re here, check out the latest MLB Weekly Review from the Bat Flips & Nerds crew. Mr Tony (I can’t remember how to wear a face mask) La Russa gets a mention. Click on the photo below

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