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7 Players To Buy Low/Sell High

7 Players To Buy Low/Sell High

With the calendar flipped to June, now comes the time of year where trades are hardest to make. People go to camp, travel, or even just stop caring, resulting in rosters that don’t get checked for weeks at a time. While this is an unavoidable part of the fantasy baseball season, that doesn’t mean you should stop trying to make trades, as pulling the right one off is still the best way to improve your team.

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Buy Lows

Yonder Alonso (1B – OAK)

Much has already been made about Alonso’s transition to more of a fly-ball hitter this year. His average launch angle this year of 21.9 degrees is nearly triple his 2015 mark of 7.6 and more than double last year’s 10.3. It’s also the third-highest average launch angle of all hitters with at least 100 results recorded by StatCast. That’s not to say hitting the ball higher leads to a guarantee of success (see Schimpf, Ryan), but there’s little doubt it’s aided Alonso, who’s already hit a career-best 16 home runs.

The other key to Alonso’s success has been his improved exit velocity, without which his fly balls would instead be caught 30 feet in front of the fence. After hovering in the high eighties the past two years, Alonso’s averaging 91.1 mph this year, tied for 14th highest among players with at least 100 recorded balls in play. That combination of launch angle and exit velocity has made him one of the most dangerous power hitters this season.

Despite everything he’s accomplished, he’s still only owned in 62 percent of Yahoo! leagues and 57 percent of ESPN leagues. Perhaps people think the power’s not for real, or perhaps they simply don’t realize how good he’s been. Pick him up if you can, but if he’s owned by someone in your league, see if you can get him for cheap. They might think they’re selling high, but this level of production isn’t going away. He’s only gotten better as the season has progressed.

Kevin Pillar (OF – TOR)

Through May 24, Pillar was having a breakout season. Among the 169 players with at least 150 PA in that timespan, Pillar was tied for 42nd in wRC+ with a 126 mark, which would have been significantly better than any other season in his career. Since then, among the 133 players with at least 40 PA, his 8 wRC+ ranks third-to-last, ahead of only Matt Carpenter’s 3 and Alcides Escobar’s -13 (can we please talk about how ridiculous it is that Alcides Escobar has led off the past 25 games for the Kansas City Royals?).

Back to Pillar, though. That stat probably doesn’t make him seem like a player you want to be targeting in trades. Fortunately for him, nearly all of that dismal performance can be explained. His .135 BABIP over that stretch is certainly doing him no favors, especially considering he’s lowered his fly ball rate and is instead hitting line drives.

Batted Ball Rate May 24 and earlier Since May 26
FB % 35.8% 29.7%
LD % 20.1% 24.3%

 
His xwOBA of .310 since May 26 isn’t all that much lower than the .337 it was before then — it’s really just been a matter of luck. Owners, though, are likely ready to jump ship after how badly he’s played.

Even with his recent stretch of play, Pillar is still on pace for a 20/20 season, something that only nine other qualified hitters can claim. Four of those were first-round picks (Trout, Goldschmidt, Altuve, and Betts), so he’s in some pretty nice company.

Jacob deGrom (SP – NYM)

In deGrom’s last start, he allowed seven runs at home to the Ryan Braun-less Milwaukee Brewers and watched his ERA balloon 74 points to 3.97. Of course, that just makes him a more attractive target, since no matter how much his owner will want to pass off that outing as a fluke, the human brain doesn’t work that way.

Even after that performance, though, deGrom still ranks near the top of the pitching leaderboards in a multitude of categories. Among qualified pitchers, he’s third in strikeout rate (31.5 percent), second in contact rate allowed (68.5 percent), third in swinging strike rate (15.2 percent), and eighth in xFIP (3.07).

The problems arise because of his inflated BABIP (.338, 10th highest), HR/FB rate (18.2 percent, 13th highest), and strand rate (80.0 percent, 15th highest). When those numbers regress to league/career averages, expect to see deGrom near the top of the leaderboard in ERA as well.

Chris Archer (SP – TB)

Archer is another pitcher who has struggled of late. He’s allowed three or more runs in four of his last six starts and six of his last nine, good for an ERA of 4.27 since April 19. Since the calendar turned to May, though, he’s actually been pitching much better despite his earned run total, as his 2.34 xFIP and 2.10 FIP show.

In fact, since May 1, no qualified pitcher has a higher K/9 than Archer, and only six have a better FIP. Archer’s improved his strikeout rate 59 percent since the calendar turned and decreased his walk rate 19 percent, resulting in a 58:12 strikeout to walk ratio over his last 40 innings.

Archer was an early pick in most drafts, so it may be difficult to get him after only a few bad performances, but now’s the time to buy before he rights the ship, as he will inevitably do.

Sell Highs

Marcell Ozuna (OF – MIA)

Looking at the numbers, Ozuna’s been great this year. He’s 14th among qualified players in wRC+ and just two home runs off the NL lead, more than earning his draft day value. Unfortunately for Ozuna, the warning signs are plentiful.

For one thing, Ozuna is currently sporting what would be a career-high BABIP while hitting fewer line drives than either of the past two seasons. His current .373 mark suggests negative regression, even though it’s actually gone up over the past couple of weeks. That increase occurred despite Ozuna hitting the ball more softly than he has all season, with his hard-hit rate falling back to career norms after starting off the year way above them.

His average exit velocity is down nearly four mph over the past two weeks as his xwOBA has also dropped from .399 to .301. His .439 BABIP over that stretch has helped hide this decline, but it’s there nevertheless. The luck won’t last forever though, and his average will all but certainly come crashing down toward his career mark of .272.

Justin Bour (1B – MIA)

Bour’s injury hurts for a lot of reasons. For one thing, you just always hate to see a player get injured, unless it’s Tom Brady. Secondly, though, if Bour ends up being out a while, it takes away what would have been a prime sell-high opportunity.

He hit 12 home runs over 21 games between May 10 and June 2, propelling him into the upper tier of power hitters. But how much of it was luck? Well, those 12 home runs came on just 24 fly balls, good for exactly a 50.0 percent HR/FB rate. His career rate before this year was 19.4 percent, meaning that he should have expected to hit between four and five home runs during that stretch, leaving him at eight or nine for the season.

Maybe, though, it wasn’t all luck — maybe Bour just started hitting the ball harder and farther. While his average fly ball distance did increase from 328 feet before May 10 to 347 feet during the 21-game stretch, that latter number is still nothing spectacular, as 18 other players with at least 10 fly balls beat it (including noted sluggers Dexter Fowler and Shin-Soo Choo). His average exit velocity was nothing special either, indicating that, yes, that stretch was more fluke than not.

With Bour now sitting at 16 home runs, he’s likely to fetch a decent value (assuming he doesn’t go on the DL). He’s a 20-homer player, not a 40-homer one, and if you can get him at that value, by all means take it.

Lance Lynn (SP – STL)

Any reasoning that you’ve heard for why Ervin Santana will regress can pretty much be applied to Lynn as well. While no one can match Santana’s level of luck this year, Lynn comes the closest, as the difference between his ERA and FIP is the second-lowest among qualified starters. It’s not really that hard to analyze — his .204 BABIP is nearly 100 points below his career average, while his strand rate sits at an unsustainable 83.3 percent.

Other than that, Lynn’s numbers actually look remarkably similar to 2015s. He’s throwing fewer first-pitch strikes, but other than that, the underlying skills haven’t changed much.

Now, that could be considered a good or bad thing. Lynn had an xFIP of 3.90 in 2015, which would represent a significant step back from the numbers he’s putting up right now (as would his 4.34 xFIP this year). On the other hand, Lynn’s also proven over the last couple of seasons to be capable of beating his peripherals, so maybe he can do it once again this year. I’m not counting on it though, and I expect regression to hit him hard.


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Brian Reiff is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Brian, check out his archive and follow him @briansreiff.

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