Raise your hand if you predicted Yonder Alonso, Justin Smoak, Avisail Garcia, and Ryan Zimmerman would be competing for spots in the All-Star Game. If you did, there’s probably no need to consider someone else’s fantasy advice. For everyone else, here is this week’s risers and fallers update. We’ll be looking specifically at some plate discipline and Statcast data in the context of recent performance.

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Rising in Value

Jacob Faria (SP – TB)
Far from the most highly regarded Rays prospect, Faria has been one of the first to reach the majors this year and excel. Through his first four starts, Faria has a 28.2% strikeout rate and 4.9% walk rate. It’s unlikely he sustains a lower walk rate than he did at any point in the minor leagues over the past three years, but he has a history of striking batters out and a 13.0% swinging strike rate.

Zack Godley (SP – ARI)
After a brief demotion to the minor leagues, Godley has pitched 19.1 innings with 20 strikeouts and five walks over three starts since his return. He also carries a 59.9% groundball rate on the season, which helps mitigate playing half his games in the hitter-friendly Chase Field. He’s also above 40% of pitches in the strike zone (41.1%) for the first time in his career.

Alex Bregman (3B – HOU)
Bregman is starting to heat up after a quiet first half of the season with a .280/.400/.560 line over the past week. Among hitters with at least 200 ABs, he has the 27th highest differential between xwOBA (.334) and wOBA (.319), so his batted ball stats show that he should be closer to 2016 form than what he’s done so far.

J.A. Happ (SP – TOR)
Over the past three years, Happ has the 23rd best ERA among qualified starting pitchers at 3.43. He looks even better than usual this year, yet he’s still owned in just 61% of leagues. Happ’s 26.1% strikeout rate and 3.7% walk rate both represent career bests, as does a 10.6% swinging strike rate. He’s one of the few consistent pitching options this year.

Jorge Bonifacio (OF – KC)
Bonifacio’s stats don’t jump out at you aside from 11 HRs in 212 PAs, and he’s only owned in 3% of leagues. He strikes out at a 25.9% clip, but he’s one of the better hitters in baseball when he makes contact with a .349 xwOBA. He’s a candidate to quietly hit for power and a respectable batting average over the second half.

Falling in Value

Johnny Cueto (SP – SF)
Cueto’s 21.8% strikeout rate and 6.6% walk rate aren’t far from his career rates of 20.4% and 6.7%, though he’s running a 4.20 ERA that’s well above his average of 3.28. That seemingly makes him a candidate to improve, though he’s allowing too much hard contact with an xwOBA of .349. He has a history of inducing weak contact, but don’t expect positive regression until he starts to do that again.

Chris Owings (2B/SS/OF – ARI)
Owings is enjoying the best offensive rates of his career, but that production has slowed recently. Over the past week, he’s slashing .250/.273/.450, so are the improvements legitimate? With a .285 xwOBA, his .332 wOBA appears to be inflated. Playing for the Diamondbacks will boost his numbers, but he has still over-performed so far.

Aledmys Diaz (SS – STL)
Diaz came out of nowhere to provide well above-average offensive value at SS last season, but he’s been nowhere near the same player in 2017. He’s making 7.8% less hard contact, and there’s not much in his profile that indicates he’s been unlucky. Diaz should retain a serviceable batting average but won’t help out much elsewhere.

Dustin Pedroia (2B – BOS)
He delivered one of the better roasts of David Ortiz, but Pedroia carries a .362 SLG into late June. He’s making plenty of contact, but without much authority with a .311 xwOBA. Since he doesn’t steal bases anymore, Pedroia is largely a one category contributor in batting average. He’s not much more useful than someone like Adam Frazier.

Ian Kennedy (SP – KC)
Decreases in swinging strike rate and increases in hard contact rate can be death knells for veteran pitchers, and both have happened to Kennedy in 2017. His walk rate has also spiked to 11.4%, leaving him with an ugly 5.62 FIP. The $70 million pitcher should be left alone until he can reverse these trends.

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Alex Isherwood is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Alex, check out his archive.