June is quickly fading away and with it the ability to make excuses for your team’s performance. Before now, if your team was struggling, you could tell yourself that it’s just been bad luck and that it’ll bounce back. Now, though, it’s time to face facts—your team just isn’t good.
That’s ok, though. That’s what trades are for. Player value is constantly changing, in addition to owners’ evaluations of those players. Finding the right trade can bring your team out of the basement and into contention, and especially in roto leagues, the time to make an impactful trade is running out.
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Buy Lows
Belt’s been heating up recently, with three home runs in his past seven games. With 14 already on the year, he’s on pace to shatter his career-best of 18 that he set in 2015.
One of the keys for Belt has been his hard-hit rate, which, after spending the first two months of the year near 30 percent, has been over 40 percent for his past 30 games.
Despite this, he’s hitting just .210 in June, down from .250 in April and .225 in May. His other stats are down as well, including his wOBA, which is at .335 in June. However, his xwOBA in June is at .411, near the top of the league during that time.
BABIP is partly to blame, as his is just .241 so far this month. But when you’re hitting the ball hard consistently, as long as you’re not Nick Castellanos, you’re going to get results. He may not reach 30 home runs, but he doesn’t have to in order to be productive for your team.
Like Belt, Mazara has also been hitting the ball harder recently, although for him, the problem was worse to begin with. His 30-game average had gotten as low as 20 percent in May before climbing back up to the 40-percent mark recently.
Also like Belt, Mazara hasn’t had much success with his batted balls recently, despite hitting them well. His wOBA in June is just .308 despite him having an xwOBA of .346 during that time. His BABIP for the month is .255, although over the past two weeks it’s just .143 as his batted balls have struggled to find grass.
With his power potential and spot in the heart of Texas’ still-intimidating lineup, Mazara is a prime buy-low candidate.
Buxton was once a top prospect. Now, he’s known more for his Michael Jordan-esque strikeout rate that he carried through the first month of the year. If you haven’t been paying attention, though, Buxton has actually brought the rate down, even if only from Joey Gallo territory to Khris Davis territory. Much of that has to do with his increased contact rate, which recently is near the highest it’s ever been in his short career.
However, a low BABIP over that stretch has hidden much of the gains he’s made. When the luck shifts back in his favor, he should be able to carry an OBP at least close to league average. If he can do that, he’ll get plenty of stolen base opportunities, making him a potential 30-steal threat with the ability to also hit 15 home runs. There are not too many guys who can do that, so make sure he’s on your roster before his improvements become widely known.
Sell Highs
While the buy low candidates all experienced bad luck in their batted balls falling for hits, this group, and Ramirez in particular, trended in the opposite direction. A .394 BABIP in June—and .521 since June 15—has made Ramirez one of the hottest hitters in MLB. With 11 multi-hit performances in his past 14 games, you’d probably be ecstatic if you own him right now.
StatCast, as usual, has some interesting things to say. Despite his .388 batting average since June 1, StatCast says his expected batting average is just .322 during that time—nothing to laugh at, but not something that would lead to his stretch of multi-hit games.
Furthermore, Ramirez has already hit 14 home runs this season, a career best. Much of this, however, comes from his 12.6 HR/FB percentage, double his previous career best. While he’s made gains in his exit velocity, no one would mistake him for a power hitter. He’ll end the season with around 20 home runs and a .310 average, which while good numbers on their own, means he’d face a drop-off in production the rest of the way.
Since returning from the Disabled List, Reddick has had quite the stretch of games—he has eight runs, four RBI, two home runs and a stolen base over five games, and that’s while only starting four of them. If he wasn’t owned before this past week, he likely is now.
If you were the one to pick him up, or if you stuck with him through his injury, now is the time to sell. During this recent hot streak, he has a .538 BABIP, nearly double his .280 career rate. The power’s unsustainable as well, as he’s homered on two of his eight fly balls despite carrying a career 9.9 HR/FB percentage. If he had only hit one home run instead of two, his line wouldn’t look nearly as impressive.
But the fact is that he did hit two of them, which means it is impressive. Impressive enough, perhaps, that someone might be willing to make an offer for him. Reddick’s still a platoon player who’s never exceeded a .338 wOBA in a season, so it’s unlikely he’ll keep up his current .358 pace.
Another player who recently returned from injury, Gomez has perhaps made even more of an impression than Reddick. While you can probably just reread the above section and change the name, I’ll highlight the specific reason for Gomez’s recent success.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the home runs—he has six in 10 games since returning. However, those six home runs have come on just eight fly balls, good for a 75 HR/FB percentage. That’s nearly double Aaron Judge’s season-rate (which speaks to just how amazing Judge has been this season).
His average during the stretch is actually a reasonable .270, despite striking out in 46.3 percent of his plate appearances. Owners probably aren’t complaining about that now, but when the home runs stop and the strikeouts continue, it will have serious repercussions on Gomez’s value.
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Brian Reiff is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Brian, check out his archive and follow him @briansreiff.
