Risers and Fallers: Volume 22

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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.

RISINGSOMEWHAT SNEAKILY

Pitchers vs. the Oakland A’s

This one has been a thing for a few weeks now, and I’ve mentioned it during shows and podcasts, but I realized that I’ve never written about it here or really laid out the numbers anywhere. Despite the struggles of Yu Darvish this weekend, the A’s have become an excellent team to target with your starting pitchers, given the right lineup and venue.

As a team, the A’s hold the fourth-lowest strikeout rate in baseball this season. On the surface, this would make throwing pitchers against them a poor play. Strikeouts are too important to mess around with teams that don’t swing and miss… but this figure is very misleading. A big part of this is the home park they play in; O.co Coliseum suppresses strikeouts by 3.5% overall and 4.3% for right-handed batters, which the A’s are heavy on. Additionally, the composition of the A’s lineup has changed dramatically since the start of the season, and while the overall low run-scoring quality hasn’t changed much, the strikeout potential absolutely has.

Below is a side-by-side chart of a typical early-season A’s lineup along with a typical lineup from the past few days. Listed next to each player is the true talent strikeout rate estimate from THE BAT, which neutralizes for O.co, incorporates minor league data for all of the young players, and does a bunch of other things to estimate how likely a player is to strike out in a neutral environment.

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Early in the year, the A’s had just three players with an above-average strikeout rate and a team rate 2% below average. Nowadays, it’s unlikely for them to have more than two below-average hitters with a team rate 2% above average. And that’s without weighing by lineup position, as the guys higher in the order obviously get more at-bats and contribute more to the team rate. All of the high-K holdovers—Valencia, Davis, and Semien—have moved up in the order. And with a bench full of strikeout bats, on certain days the A’s will have even more strikeouts slipped into the lineup:

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The A’s lineup can change a lot from day-to-day, so it’s always important to evaluate the exact composition of it, but the general points holds: The A’s are a team that have gone from being unfavorable for strikeouts to being very favorable, especially when you get them away from O.co.

Oakland is home all this week, but a guy like Yu Darvish (yes, again) or Joe Musgrove could still be enticing. And for the final week they go on the road to Anaheim and Seattle, which are two parks that boost strikeouts and should lead to some great matchups.

Los Angeles Dodgers Pitching

A few weeks ago I put my misery into written form following the Dodgers trade of A.J. Ellis for Carlos Ruiz, making it impossible to nail down an LA pitcher projection within more than three or four DK points before lineups are released. As I’ve mentioned many times before, Yasmani Grandal is the best pitch-framing catcher in baseball, and Ruiz is one of the worst. The difference can turn a great pitching play into a shaky one.

But with rosters expanding, the Dodgers have called up Austin Barnes as their third catcher. He may only draw a start once a week, but with Yasmani Grandal nursing an elbow injury, it could wind up being more than that. Barnes is not quite Grandal, but he is among the top three pitch-framers in baseball, so the drop-off isn’t particularly severe. I won’t spend more anymore time than is necessary on my LA pitching love (you’ve heard enough of it over the past six months), but it should be known that Barnes catching is almost as favorable as Grandal. Just as long as it’s not Ruiz. Shiiiiiver.

RISINGAND UNDERPRICED

Joey Wendle, 2B, Oakland A’s

While Wendle is a part of this new high-strikeout Athletics look, he has also become one of my favorite plays on days when the second base position is thin. He has led off against every righty over the last week and a half, and his .317 wOBA in that span should be productive enough to keep him there through the end of the season.

Wendle is 26 years old and past the point of really being a prospect, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a solid contributor. He’s a bit below-average overall, but a below-average leadoff hitter with an above-average platoon split is certainly capable of holding value. Wendle doesn’t do any one thing particularly well but rather does a little bit of everything. He has okay power, mostly of the gap variety. He has solid bat speed and solid foot speed with okay plate discipline.

Essentially, Wendle is Scooter Gennett. Not flashy, but useful. And while Scooter typically costs in the mid-$3,000s on DraftKings, you can get Wendle in the mid $2,000s. He’s not useful enough for FanDuel unless the matchup is great, but he’s a perfect way to punt against a weak righty and save some salary on DK. This week he’ll get to face Brad Peacock and Colby Lewis, so it’s likely you’ll hear me mention his name. If DraftKings were to suddenly price Scooter at $2,500 against Colby Lewis, he’d be at the top of everyone’s value list and have an ownership rate over 30%. Wendle doesn’t have as cool of a name, but he profiles very similarly.

Alex Reyes, SP, St. Louis Cardinals

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With Jaime Garcia’s recent struggles and St. Louis’s bid for a Wild Card spot, the team has decided to demote the southpaw to the bullpen. This opens up a spot in the rotation for young phenom Alex Reyes, who is arguably the top pitching prospect in baseball and is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. He has severe control issues, which always leaves open the possibility of a blowup outing, but riskiness has never been something to deter me from great value. Reyes’s stuff is incredible, and he has the strikeout rate to match. He has one of the fastest four-seamers among all major league starters at 98 mph and a plus (maybe plus-plus) curveball to play off it. The curve is a hammer of a pitch with 12-to-6 break, falling off the table and leaving hitters flailing. His change-up is average, but that’s more than good enough to give hitters a different look and keep them off balance for his two wipeout offerings.

Despite a BB/9 that should be expected to be around 5.0, Reyes is still a well above-average pitcher right now, bordering on good. That’s how crazy his strikeout ability is. It’s not completely outlandish to say that it’s among the best of any pitcher in baseball right now. The walks will generally prevent him from getting too deep into games, limiting his DFS upside a bit, but you can’t beat him for the price. He cost just $6,900 on DraftKings and $5,100 on Sunday in a dominating outing against the Giants, which is in line with his salary in his previous two starts. At that price, Reyes makes for an excellent SP2 on DK and GPP choice on FanDuel.

This week he’ll be going into Chicago to face the Cubs, which means the blow-up risk will be real. If he can avoid a game with blowing out, though, or even get some wind blowing in, he’ll likely have too much upside to pass up.

RISINGBUT I’M WARY

Roman Quinn, OF, Philadelphia Phillies

I wrote up Quinn last week as a very interesting guy to watch, and what we saw was a hot start and soaring ownership rates among sharp players on DraftKings (he was only just added to the FanDuel player pool on Sunday). This seems a bit aggressive to me, though. Yes, Quinn is a toolsy prospect that costs very little and has been installed as the number-two hitter, so I certainly understand the appeal. But to make him a cash game staple while he’s hitting second for perhaps the league’s worst offense… I don’t know.

It’s tough to project Quinn as much better than a .250 hitter with a .300 OBP right now, given his strikeout tendencies and lack of experience at the upper levels. His minor league BABIPs were elite, thanks in part to the lesser competition but also to his elite speed, and if he can come anywhere remotely close to the .360 BABIP he posted at Double-A (the highest level he reached in the minors), he’d be able to make up enough for his other shortcomings. That’s a lot to ask of a rookie, even one with 80-grade speed, and a lot more to actually expect. More likely, he’s a well below-average hitter right now without much power to speak of. He does have that blazing speed, but he’ll have to get on base to use it. He’s done so thus far as a result of a .350 BABIP, but a regression to .310 or so is mathematically more likely. Additionally, he’s a switch-hitter with a rather pronounced platoon split, performing much better against lefties than righties in the minors, which of course is a minority matchup. And as a member of the Phillies, his projected RBI and runs scored totals will be lower than most two-spot hitters.

This all isn’t to say that I don’t like Quinn, but I would just pick and choose my spots with him carefully, especially since he’s only actually attempted one steal in the majors despite reaching first base eight times. He remains an excellent GPP play most days, in my mind, but I’m not ready to start being matchup agnostic about him in cash games and plugging him in every day, as many seem to be.

About the Author

DerekCarty
Derek Carty (DerekCarty)

Derek Carty is the creator of THE BAT X (for MLB) and THE BLITZ (for NFL) projection systems, widely considered the gold standard for projections and the driving force behind multiple Milly Maker winners. You may also know him from ESPN.com, from his time on Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter, or from his early career managing the fantasy sections for Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times. While perhaps best known for DFS, he also has an elite track record in both sports betting (career ~13% ROI on thousands of publicly-tracked bets as of the end of the 2023-24 NFL season) and season-long fantasy expert leagues (11 titles while placing in the top 3 in roughly half of all leagues). On the sports betting side, you may recognize his work from EV Analytics, ScoresAndOdds, Covers, and Unabated. For season-long fantasy, THE BAT X is prominently featured at FanGraphs. While known mostly for his analytical skills, he’s also proud to be the only active fantasy or betting analyst to have graduated from MLB’s exclusive Scout School. Follow Carty on Twitter – @DerekCarty