Hey everyone, it’s time for another installment of Burning Questions. In this edition, we’ll explore what lies ahead for a couple big name players, sort through some hot-hitting outfielders, evaluate a talented young arm returning from the DL, and discuss whether a certain shortstop in Texas is joining the elite at his position.
As always, if you have questions that aren’t answered here, I’m all ears. Just shoot me a message on Twitter.
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How high should Gary Sanchez go in drafts next year?
Sanchez just keeps on hitting. He’s on an absolute tear in June, slashing a ridiculous .329/.414/.724 with nine home runs and 25 RBIs. For the season, he’s slightly behind last year’s pace in the power department, but that’s hardly something to be ashamed of. This is still a guy on track to hit .290 with 40 home runs in a full season and he plays catcher. Not surprisingly, his per game fantasy value is far and away the highest among backstops for the second year in a row, according to Baseball Monster.
Sanchez does have the highest home run per fly ball ratio in all of baseball since the start of the 2016 season, which indicates some regression can be expected in both home runs and batting average. But even if Sanchez is a .270 hitter with 35 home runs over a full season, he’s probably the No. 1 catcher in most fantasy leagues. And he’s only 24 years old, so he could get even better.
Where you draft a top catcher generally comes down to your view of position scarcity — but also risk tolerance. Catchers are all-but-guaranteed to pick up nicks and bruises behind the plate and face greater injury risk than other positions, even with recent rule changes (Sanchez missed almost a month earlier this year because of a strained biceps). But when he’s on the field Sanchez has been producing like a top-10 hitter overall, so if he keeps this up the rest of the season it would be very tough to let him slip beyond the second round in next year’s drafts.
Should we be worried about Cole Hamels?
Hamels is back from a strained oblique that cost him almost two months of action, but that doesn’t mean he is going to be a savior for his fantasy owners. In his first start back, Hamels was shellacked by the Indians to the tune of seven earned runs in 4⅓ innings.
Cleveland has been one of the most dangerous lineups in June, so Hamels isn’t the first pitcher to have a bad start against the Tribe. What should really have Hamels owners concerned, though, is that he walked four batters while striking out just one, and he now has as many walks as strikeouts on the season. Hamels’ 3.89 BB/9 would be among the ten worst walk rates in baseball if he had thrown enough innings to qualify and comes on the heels of a 2016 season in which Hamels’ walk rate shot up to 3.45 walks per nine innings. Meanwhile, his 3.89 K/9 rate is worse than the softest of soft tossers and not even close to the strikeout rate he’ll need to have success against Major League hitters. Hamels’ velocity in down on all five of his pitches this year, according to Brooks Baseball, which could explain why he’s having so much trouble missing bats.
If Hamels hadn’t benefited from a fortunate BABIP before his injury, his current 4.38 ERA and 1.32 WHIP would look even worse. Yes, he’s only pitched 37 innings so far and perhaps the oblique injury is to blame for his early season struggles. But if I was a Hamels owner, I’d be worried enough to be looking to trade him for another starter with a high ERA but more promising peripherals, such as Jeff Samardzija, Marco Estrada, Jake Arrieta, or maybe even Masahiro Tanaka.
Pick an OF: Michael A. Taylor, Carlos Gomez, or Randal Grichuk?
All three of these guys have been putting up big numbers of late, so I wouldn’t be afraid to insert any of them into my lineup in standard leagues while they’re hot. But if I had to choose one for the rest of the season, I’d take Gomez.
It remains unlikely that Gomez will return to the form he showed in 2013-2014 with the Brewers when he was an elite fantasy asset, but that ceiling does deserve to be factored into his value. Taylor and Grichuk are younger but have never proven they can perform at that level in the Major Leagues.
All three of these guys probably strike out too much to hit for a high batting average, but Gomez is the only one of them that has shown the ability in years past to make more frequent contact. He could easily hit .250-.260 whereas Taylor and Grichuk look more like .240 hitters. Like Gomez, Taylor has an exciting mix of power and speed, but his .372 BABIP is completely unsustainable and his 33.3 percent strikeout rate suggests his .277 average could plummet at any time. Grichuk doesn’t offer the stolen base potential of Gomez or Taylor, hits in a weaker lineup, and isn’t necessarily a bigger power threat than the other two, so he’d be last among this group for me.
What can we expect from Carlos Rodon?
Rodon is set to make his season debut on Wednesday after missing the first half of the season with left biceps bursitis. This is a highly-regarded young pitcher with great stuff, so he’s worth a pickup in most leagues. His owners should just be careful to keep their expectations in check because Rodon has not yet proven that he can be a fantasy asset in standard mixed leagues.
Through his first two big league seasons, Rodon has struck out over a batter per inning, but those strikeouts came with a 3.90 ERA and 1.42 WHIP that were not helpful to his fantasy owners. In 2015, Rodon walked 4.59 batters per nine innings, which was the worst walk rate of any pitcher who threw at least 100 innings. Last year, he cut his walk rate to a more manageable 2.95 BB/9 but gave up more hits and home runs. This year, he’s had four very shaky starts between High-A and Triple-A, where he again struggled mightily with his control.
One bright spot for Rodon is his split stats; he was significantly better in the second half in both 2015 and 2016. This is a very talented pitcher who is still learning his craft, and the out-of-contention White Sox have every incentive to allow him to learn on the job. But fantasy owners who are competing for a title can’t be so lax. So, for now, I would own him but keep him on the bench until he proves he’s ready to produce at a high level.
Is it time to consider Elvis Andrus a top-five shortstop?
Coming into the season, there were five young superstar shortstops going near the top of fantasy drafts: Trea Turner, Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Francisco Lindor, and Xander Bogaerts (not counting Manny Machado, who is really a third baseman). Elvis Andrus, meanwhile, was the 16th shortstop in drafts, getting selected outside the top-150 overall picks on average.
Among the big-five shortstops, only Lindor has been moderately disappointing. Yet Andrus leads all shortstops in fantasy value as we approach July.
Now in his ninth MLB season, Andrus seemed to be settling in as a speed specialist who offered little else to fantasy owners. And he hadn’t even surpassed 30 steals since 2013. But last year he hit .300 for the first time in his career, and this season he’s maintained that high batting average while also already topping last season’s career-high eight home runs. And he’s on pace to steal 35-40 bases this year.
Andrus’s hard hit rate currently stands at 30.1 percent, a career high, but his batted ball profile has not changed dramatically otherwise. He has been a bit fortunate in the batted ball department, so he might not be able to maintain a .300 batting average, but power growth at age 28 is hardly unprecedented and there’s no reason he can’t continue to steal bases at this rate. A .285-15-35 season could be in store, which would give Andrus a rightful place among the big-five shortstops in fantasy drafts next year.
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Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.
