Risers and Fallers: Volume 20
I’m back for another week of reviewing the most interesting players from the past seven days, pairing advanced metrics and insights from my DFS projection system, THE BAT, with my scouting background to try to figure out what to make of some the week’s most active lot of ballplayers. Guys whose stock is going up, guys whose stock is going down, guys who are perpetually underpriced or overpriced, guys who are worth paying a premium for, or guys who are just interesting and warrant some analysis on.
RISING… AND UNDERPRICED
Jose de Leon, SP, Los Angeles Dodgers
With the onslaught of pitching injuries the Dodgers have endured this season, they’ve decided it’s time to bring up top prospect Jose de Leon. And seeing as how I’m Derek Carty, I love him immediately. Dodgers pitchers are pretty much like my favorite thing in the world after boobs and bourbon, and I’m impressed by de Leon after his debut on Sunday. He sits in the mid-90s with his fastball, complemented by a plus change-up, and his mechanics are fairly clean, allowing him to project for solid control. The strikeouts are where his value lies, though, as evidenced by 9 against the Padres over just 86 pitches. And, of course, he gets the National League, Dodger Stadium, and Yasmani Grandal, which is pretty much the perfect situation for any pitcher.
De Leon cost just $7,700 on Sunday on DraftKings, which is waaaaaay too cheap, which means I’ll be all over him this week if he draws a start against Miami and is price similarly. Apparently Clayton Kershaw and Scott Kazmir are set to return this week, though, so the Dodgers rotation is about to get very crowded, so de Leon isn’t guaranteed to get another start soon. Still, if he does, he’ll be a high upside SP2 or GPP play.
Jorge Polanco, SS/3B, Minnesota Twins
I’ve long been of the opinion that the Twins have more talent than most people give them credit for, especially once you consider their favorable home park, and so it’s unsurprising to see them with a top-10 team wOBA in the second-half of the season. One of my new favorites from this offense is Polanco. He’s a very different player than my other Twins crushes – Brian Dozier and Miguel Sano – in that he doesn’t have monster power. But he’s a firmly average hitter with good contact ability and a modicum of speed, which makes him very useful in the right situations.
For about a week in the middle of August, Polanco hit second for the Twins before being relegated to bottom-third status. Over the past three days, he’s been bumped back up to the two-spot, which makes me very happy. A guy with his skill set is entirely ignorable hitting sixth or seventh or eighth, but hitting second for a powerful offense—especially when he’s playing at home in a good park and when he qualifies at a scarce position like shortstop—he’s a quality punt. His FanDuel price tag has usually been a bit too high for me (usually around or over $3,000), but when his DraftKings tag is in the $3,000 range (occasionally it will stray closer to $4,000, which isn’t ideal), I absolutely love him as a cheap shortstop option.
The Twins are home this week against some weak (or overrated) pitchers in Ian Kennedy, Dillon Gee, and Mike Clevinger, which could put Polanco in play. He could also be very sneaky against Danny Duffy if his price goes low enough, since he’s a switch-hitter who hits lefties better and since Target benefits those hitting from the right side of the plate more.
FALLING FAST AND FURIOUSLY… (AND I’M NOT JUST TALKING ABOUT MY TEARS)
Los Angeles Dodgers Pitching
Nobody was more crushed by the Dodgers’ most recent (and largely ignored) trade than I was. One of the biggest reasons why I love Dodgers pitching so much (especially new Dodgers pitching like Jose de Leon) is that they have the best pitch-framing catcher in all of baseball in Yasmani Grandal. This is old news. Their previous backup catcher, A.J. Ellis, was roughly average but was a great-game caller, which meant that the drop-off wasn’t huge on off days for Grandal.
For whatever reason, though, LA decided to send Ellis to Philly in exchange for Carlos Ruiz. Ruiz has a better bat and could be more useful in a playoff run, but it’s a cruel joke to play any whatever Dodger pitcher has the misfortune of throwing to him on the day or two per week he starts. You see, while Grandal is the best in baseball at pitch-framing, Ruiz is one of the five worst in the majors. That is a huge swing in value for a Dodger pitcher on any given day, and could be the difference between a guy you want to play and a guy that falls out of favor.
RISING… BUT OVERPRICED
Yoan Moncada, 2B/3B, Boston Red Sox
By most opinions, Moncada is the top prospect in all of baseball. One of the biggest prizes to come out of the Cuba in recent memory, the Red Sox have decided to give him a look with rosters expanding this month. I’m not convinced he’s ready for the majors yet, though. While one of the other big Cuban imports, Yuli Gurriel, has made an immediate impact with the Astros and is bound to draw comparisons, this is a very different situation. Gurriel is much older and more polished. While Moncada has excellent tools and bigger upside, he lacks that polish. He has barely more than 200 plate appearances above Single-A and none at Triple-A; his Double-A strikeout rate this year was 31%, which portends issues. Still, those tools lead THE BAT to see him as only a little below-average at present.
The real issue is price. If Moncada came into the league priced like, say, Gurriel or teammate Andrew Benintendi, he could be viable play. Both were priced in the low-to-mid $2,000s on DraftKings for the first couple weeks of their major league tenure. Moncada, because of his pedigree, opened at $3,800 (outside of Fenway, mind you), and a $3,000 tag on FanDuel was no better. He will rise to $4,100 on DraftKings on Monday in PetCo. Seeing as how he’s buried at the bottom of Boston’s order and doesn’t have the same present abilities of a Gurriel or Benintendi, that’s just an absurdly high price. If you decide to play Moncada at that price ever this year, even once the team returns to Fenway, it would be a terrible decision. I like the long-term upside; he has the potential for a power/speed blend and is in a good situation with the Red Sox, but don’t be fooled by the name value this year.
RISING… BUT UNLIKELY TO BE RELEVANT
Jharel Cotton, SP, Oakland A’s
The A’s announced this weekend that one of their newest prospects, Jharel Cotton, who was acquired in the Rich Hill deal a month ago, will make his major league debut on Wednesday. Cotton is interesting if you look at his minor league numbers. He shows big strikeout numbers without the typically huge walk numbers, so he’s certainly interesting. He’s said to throw in the mid-90s with a plus change-up, which sounds a lot like Jose de Leon, but I’m less intrigued here.
Once you account for the context those minor league numbers were put up in, THE BAT sees him as a slightly-below average pitcher. That would be fine if we was in a situation like de Leon is, but the A’s are significantly worse. They play in the American League, they play home games in a strikeout-suppressing park in O.co, their primary catcher is a below-average pitch-framer, and their defense is horrible (particularly in the infield).
While Cotton could hold some upside if he comes in priced cheaply (say, $4,000-$5,000 on DraftKings or $5,000-$6,000 on FanDuel), I just can’t see myself being all that interested. He’ll face the low-strikeout Angels at home in his debut before going on the road to Kansas City and Texas for his next two starts, so I don’t see a good situation on the horizon for him. He won’t be a guy to pick on, but he also won’t be one to play for value either.
FALLING… AND THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE :|
Gary Sanchez, C, New York Yankees
You can’t actually see my face since this is a written medium, but I’m sure you can guess what it looks like (beautiful, yes, but that’s besides the point; more notably, it’s not shocked.) Sanchez has posted just a .289 wOBA since last week because, get this… hot streaks have been shown over decades and decades of baseball to not actually hold any predictive value. Sanchez’s streak lasted a bit longer than we would have expected, so the donkeys who played him those extra couple days at close to $5,000 on DraftKings made a little extra money and felt a little extra smug about themselves, but only dunces will bother to argue with math. This was coming, and it’s not surprising. THE BAT has Sanchez pegged for about a .335 true talent wOBA, which is very good by catcher standards, but it’s not a number you should be overpaying for. I’ll be curious to see where his salary settles in the next week or two.
RISING… AND I’M NOT BUYING
J.A. Happ, SP, Toronto Blue Jays
Each time Happ takes the mound, I always get at least a couple of “So Happ is the play today, right?” questions. Invariably, my response is some variation of “Hell no, why would you want to play him?” I’m usually (read: always, because my mother taught me better) more polite than that, but that’s pretty much the sentiment. Happ is the favorite to take home the AL Cy Young hardware this season, but that’s more due to his 17 Wins and 3.23 ERA. Some will point out that he’s been great for the last year now—essentially since being traded to the Pirates last summer and pitching under the tutelage of Ray Searage—with a 3.23 ERA, but his xFIP in that time is 3.75, and that’s with a sizeable chunk being pitched in the National League and PNC Park. His xFIP this year is 4.00, and that’s much closer to the pitcher that Happ actually is. He’s basically an average pitcher, and not the kind of average pitcher that can be useful, like a Robbie Ray. No, Happ is an average pitcher with an average strikeout rate.
Really, there’s very little different about the present-day version of J.A. Happ from the 2014 version. He’s an okay pitcher without a ton of upside who pitches most of his games in unfavorable situations. He was more of an option in June and July when his price tag was in the $6,000-to-$7,000 range on DraftKings and you could use him as an SP2, but at SP1 prices of around $10,000 lately, it’s just inexcusable to use this guy unless the match-up is perfect. He’s not that caliber of pitcher. He’ll face Boston at home in the Rogers Centre this week, and I’ll want absolutely no part of him.