Tired: the fantasy baseball season is too long.
Wired: the longer season minimizes randomness and lets the best teams rise to the top.
As we approach week 11 now, if you’re not above .500 there is still plenty of time for your team to make a regular-season comeback for a playoff push.
Let’s dive in.
Waiver Wire Adds
Hitters
Patrick Wisdom 1B, 3B ChC
I think it would be wise for you to take a look at adding Wisdom to your team. He’s a 29-year-old minor league journeyman, so I don’t have much faith in him being a must-start fantasy player for the rest of the season. But, sometimes in fantasy when it comes to hitting especially, you just have to ride the hot hand. Injuries are way up this year, so dual-eligibility allows Wisdom to be useful to a lot of teams now. The Cubs obviously have faith in him as they’ve had Kris Bryant slide to mostly playing outfield now to allow for Wisdom to play at third base. In 16 games this year, Wisdom is batting .364 with 8 home runs. His .562 wOBA is insane and unsustainable, but his xwOBA of .466 is well above-average. This is all small sample size noise, but again I think you can ride the hot hand here.
Jonathan India 2B, 3B, Cin
On a similar, yet different note, Jonathan India has been playing much better recently. If you bifurcate his season to April and since 1 May, his stats go from:
.239 avg .674 OPS .292 wOBA
to
.272 avg .867 OPS .385 wOBA
Some guys just get off to slow starts, and being his first year in the majors I also think the fact there were no minor league games for him to play in might have had a part in his poor start as well. Taking an entire year off will definitely cause some rust, so it might have just taken India an extra month to get his feet under him in the majors. He bats atop a scary Reds offense so the volume will be there to accumulate runs. He’s still widely available and I think I’d prefer him over Wisdom if I had to add and hold for rest-of-season.
Starting Pitchers
I wrote about them last week, but I still see that both Framber Valdez and Luis Garcia are less than 80% owned. These guys should be owned in any and all leagues.
Dylan Bundy LAA
Bundy is someone who was probably drafted in almost all leagues. His ownership now sits down around 50% or so, but if you take a look under the hood things might not be as bad as they seem. In terms of ERA, 6.16 is awful, sure, but his xERA and SIERA are both around two runs lower, at 4.19 and 4.03, respectively. If Bundy pitches to a 4.00 ERA for rest-of-season I think that could be valuable in points leagues. Another promising underlying stat is his called-strike-plus-whiff rate is 31.8%, which is notably above the league average of 28%. This tells me his stuff is working, but when he’s getting hit, he’s getting hit hard.
The second part is evidenced by his home-run-to-fly-ball rate of 19.7%. He’s not allowing much harder contact than he ever has in his career, but this HR/FB% is the highest of his career, and he pitched in Baltimore for five seasons, which is one of the smaller ballparks. Per Statcast, his xHR allowed is almost two home runs less than what he’s actually given up. He’s coming off a three-game stretch where he gave up seven home runs. If I’m in need of some pitching, I’d be looking at Bundy. There’s a good chance he’s been dropped in your league and there’s a good chance he turns things around and his numbers start to normalize back to his career averages, and hopefully what he did last year.
And, as outlined again below, he’s lined up to get two starts next week.
Two-Start Pitchers
Getting two starts in one matchup week from a pitcher can be a big advantage, especially in points leagues. Here’s who is currently lined up to get two turns next week, skipping the must-start guys. It’s a pretty solid week for stream-able two-start pitchers.
Shane McClanahan (@ ChW, @ Sea) **
Jordan Montgomery (@ Tor, Oak) **
Nathan Eovaldi (Tor, @ KC) **
Austin Gomber (SD, Mil) *
Dylan Bundy (@ Oak, Det)
David Peterson (ChC, @ Was)
Adam Wainwright (Mia, @ Atl)
Jean Carlos Mejia (Bal, @ Pit)
Tyler Anderson (@ Was, Cle)
Anthony DeSclafani (Ari, Phi)
Luis Castillo (@ Mil, @ SD)
Alek Manoah (@ Bos, @ Bal)
Jake Odorizzi (Tex, ChW) **
Casey Mize (@ KC, @ LAA)
Tucker Davidson (Bos, StL)
Patrick Corbin (Pit, NYM)
Marco Gonzales (Min, TB)
Tony Gonsolin (Phi, @ Ari)
Dallas Keuchel (TB, @ Hou) **
Brad Keller (Det, Bos)
Ryan Weathers (@ Col, Cin) * ** (desperation ONLY)
*at least one start in Coors Field
**at least one start against a top-five wOBA team
Closers
Lucas Sims Cin
If you look at Roster Resource, Sims and Antone are still considered co-closers. However, I think the Reds like Antone’s stuff in more of a long-relief, high-leverage situation, and Sims has gotten the two most recent saves. If you need to speculate on saves give Sims a look, because I think there’s a strong chance he ends up taking over the traditional closer role.
Drops
It might be time to move on from these guys for a higher upside waiver wire add.
Jarred Kelenic OF Sea
Kelenic got demoted to the minors after a pretty abysmal start to his major league career. This is just the way it goes with prospects, especially those who didn’t play last year. Sometimes they work out, but most times they don’t. This is not to say that Kelenic is a bust, because he still has a bright future, but in redraft leagues, if you added him I’d be looking elsewhere. There will probably be less hype around him when he gets called back up later this year so drop him and keep an eye on him.
David Peralta OF Ari
I was pretty shocked when I saw Peralta’s ESPN ownership at 72%. I know there aren’t that many five outfielder leagues out there. Peralta is older, with very little upside, and is a JAG. There are higher upside outfielders out there like Miguel Andujar.
Richard Rodriguez RP Pit
Unless you’re in a deep categories league where saves are unavailable on waivers, I’d look to move on from Rodriguez. You’ve probably captured the majority of his value thus far getting seven saves from the Pirates closer. Not only are save opportunities going to be scarce in Pittsburgh, but his CSW% and K-BB% are pretty below average especially for closers. His near-four SIERA is scary for his sub-two ERA.
Buy and Sell
Buy low hitters
Throwing in some heavy-hitters to this week’s buy low hitters. Owners of Mookie and Yelich might be hesitant to let go, but it’s worth a shot.
Buy low pitchers
I’m really just making the case for Bundy today.
Sell high hitters
Schoop has been a popular add and I said you could ride the hot hand last week, but why not try to take advantage of his hype and sell him. Marcus Semien has been on an absolute tear this year, but I’m not so sure it’s sustainable at the elite level he’s been at.
Sell high pitchers
John Gant remains a sell-high candidate. Similar to Schoop above, Kaprielian was an add last week due to his two starts and hot start, but the underlying numbers are separating from the actuals in a bad way and Jesus Luzardo‘s return to the rotation is impending.
Photo by Dilip Vishwanat
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.