We’re quickly approaching that point in the season where you can start to make some serious evaluations of your team. What categories are you strong in? Where do you need help? Trading isn’t necessarily the easiest way to help your team, but if you make the right moves, the returns are more than anything you can find in the free agent pool.
Of course, trading for help or trading away surplus in one category is a strategy, but I prefer to trade for overall value. By the end of the season, I’m confident that if I have the best players on my team, it’ll do well, rather than trying to micro-manage and finish first in this category but third in that one. Listed below are some players whose market value doesn’t necessarily reflect their actual value and who could play crucial roles in helping you prepare your team for the summer months ahead.
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Things haven’t exactly played out the way Schwarber owners had hoped this year. He’s batting just .179, although a 15 percent walk rate does help to soften that blow. Last week was even worse, as he recorded just one hit in 18 at-bats.
However, last week’s results do actually provide some optimism for a resurgence from Schwarber. Of those 18 at-bats, only two ended in a strikeout, meaning he made contact the other 16 times. That .0625 BABIP is obviously an effect of the small sample size, as StatCast had his expected batting average at .329 instead.
His xwOBA for the week was .461, meaning that when he was making contact, he was making good contact. His average exit velocity for the week of 93.3 mph ranked 22nd among the 266 players who saw at least 50 pitches, so Schwarber can expect to start seeing balls drop his way sooner rather than later.
Staying in Chicago, Frazier is another batter who can expect to see some more positive result in the near future. He’s never been a high-average guy, but his current .173 mark is low for even him. A .182 BABIP provides an easy explanation and also a reassurance that he’ll be able to bring it back up.
In another regard at the plate, Frazier has seen a significant improvement this season. He’s swinging at a career-low rate of pitches out of the zone, allowing him to maintain a 12.2 percent walk rate, which would also be the highest of his career, and a 17.4 percent strikeout rate, which would be the lowest.
The other regard in which Frazier is supposed to help is power. He’s on pace for just 17 home runs, which would be the lowest since his rookie season when he played just 41 games. Fortunately, there’s an explanation for that too — his HR/FB rate sits at just 7.9 percent, nearly 50 percent below his career average rate. However, that seems mostly to be a fluke, as his average distance on fly balls is right in line with what he’s done in the past.
| Season | Average Fly Ball Distance (feet) |
| 2015 | 323 |
| 2016 | 316 |
| 2017 | 322 |
If you remember, I had Khris Davis as a sell-high after his first game of the season when he hit two home runs. Well, he’s hit just nine since then, and zero in the month of May before last night (after I started writing this of course). Davis goes through hot and cold stretches, and that means a hot one is right around the corner.
Despite going over two weeks since his last home run, he’s still on pace to hit 50 on the year, and that’s with an HR/FB rate that’s only slightly above his career average. The power’s for real, as he has the third-highest exit velocity out of all players with at least 50 balls in play at 94.3 mph.
While his power production has remained consistent, his plate discipline has improved. He’s also swinging at a career-low percentage of pitches outside of the zone (and inside the zone), leading to a walk rate that’s 62 percent higher than last season. He is striking out more too, but his walk to strikeout ratio is still higher, and he has the potential to post his highest on-base percentage since his rookie season after his BABIP regresses from its current .234 mark.
Sell Highs
I’m not denying that Bellinger is a quality player with a bright future. However, he’s currently running a 168 wRC+, and I don’t expect that to continue.
His .349 BABIP isn’t actually outlandish, so expecting regression there isn’t necessarily money in the bank. However, it does seem high given his fly ball rate of 52.1 percent. ZiPS and Steamer both project him to hit .240, so perhaps his .301 average is due for some regression.
Moreover, it’s hard to get on base when you’re unable to hit the ball — Bellinger’s making contact on just 68.3 percent of his swings, 20th worst among the 256 players with at least 80 plate appearances. While his walk rate is nice, maintaining an OBP higher than .350 with a strikeout rate of 28 percent is something only a few players are capable of, and all of them have walk rates higher than Bellinger’s.
He’s not killing the ball either, as his average exit velocity of 89.1 mph ranks 75th out of the 270 players with at least 50 at-bats. All of that leads to a xwOBA of just .335 — compared to his actual .429 — and the second-worst difference between the two in that same group of players according to StatCast.
After throwing a complete-game shutout one week ago today, Griffin was sure to attract a lot of attention. However, he followed that up with a five-inning, four-run performance. While that may have dampened expectations for him, I still think his stock is high enough at the moment that you’ll be able to trade him for some value.
The first thing to note is that Griffin’s peripherals indicate that regression is on the horizon. His 3.15 ERA is backed up by a 4.79 FIP and a nearly identical xFIP. His strikeout rate is barely a career high, just above the league average for starters, while his walk rate is nothing special. Meanwhile, his BABIP sits at .209 and his strand rate at 87.8 percent, with those numbers even more extreme during the shutout (he had a 5.07 xFIP that game).
It’s tough to see Griffin staying at the level he’s at now, and with his value never having been higher (except before his most recent game), now’s the time to trade him.
Odorizzi is another player who has a pretty good stat line for the season, although he was more expected to after having ERAs in the mid-3s each of the past two seasons. However, his estimators also indicate that something is amiss.
Odorizzi’s ERA is 2.61, which would the lowest of his career. Odorizzi’s FIP is 4.66, which would the highest since his rookie season. I think he’s actually somewhere in the middle.
The rest of his numbers don’t look all that different from last year, leading me to believe that it’s just a small sample size that has led to this disparity in results. He’s generating slightly less contact this year than in past seasons, but when batters do make contact, they’re hitting more line drives than ever. His BABIP of .160 doesn’t reflect that, and his strand rate of 90.9 percent is also unsustainable.
He’s been a little unlucky with the home runs, sure, but not enough to counteract the luck he’s been afforded elsewhere. Odorizzi is not a sub-3 ERA guy, so if someone thinks he is, take advantage and enjoy the benefits.
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Brian Reiff is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Brian, check out his archive and follow him @briansreiff.
