Last week, I highlighted some players who had unsustainably good or bad first-half performances. Since there have only been four days’ worth of games since then, I decided to do the same here. Listed are buy-low and sell-high candidates based on their first half numbers that will undoubtedly regress back to the mean.
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Buy Lows
Drafted with high expectations, Schwarber hasn’t just not lived up to them—he’s come nowhere close. The owner of a .301 wOBA, it’s difficult to argue that Schwarber didn’t deserve his demotion earlier this season. He’s back in the majors now, though, and he looks fine.
That being said, Schwarber’s clearly gotten unlucky all season long. His .342 xwOBA is proof enough of that, as it’s more than 40 points higher than his actual number. His .199 BABIP hasn’t helped with that, leading to his extremely low batting average of .177.
His walk and strikeout numbers look the same as they did in 2015 when he had a .364 wOBA, so it’s hard to fault Schwarber too much. In addition to that, he’s making contact significantly more than he had in the past, an encouraging sign for a young player.
It looks like I’m going down with the ship with Samardzija, as his ERA has yet to improve despite his outstanding peripherals. He has a 4.86 ERA, but also has a 3.52 FIP and 3.07 xFIP (which actually still went down after Sunday’s seven-run performance). I’m a believer in those numbers, as I’m sure many people are, although at this point his owner may just be tired enough of him to give him away.
That would be a mistake for them and a huge potential reward for you, as Samardzija’s luck has to turn around at some point. His .329 BABIP is more than 30 points higher than his career rate, and his HR/FB rate of 17.4 percent is ridiculously high before even accounting for the fact that he plays at AT&T Park. His strand rate of 65.6 percent is also low, and when all of those numbers bounce back, Samardzija will be capable of posting ERA numbers in the low threes the rest of the way.
Samardzija is the bigger (and longer) name, but Wacha’s experienced luck that’s been nearly as bad as Samardzija’s. His FIP is 60 points lower than his ERA, with the numbers sitting at 3.50 and 4.10, respectively.
Like Samardzija, Wacha’s experienced some bad luck on his batted balls. He’s allowed a BABIP of .347 which explains most of his lack of success this year. That’s led to a batting average against of .273, while StatCast expects it to actually be .241.
Furthermore, Wacha’s striking out batters more frequently than he has in any season since his rookie year, which is backed up by a three-year high in swinging strike rate and a four-year low in contact rate. His luck should turn around soon, and he’ll be a solid pitcher with decent strikeout potential when it does.
Sell Highs
Everyone remembers Gennett for his four-home run game, and deservedly so—not many can say they’ve accomplished that feat. But those home runs are in the past and don’t count for your team anymore, so there’s no reason to keep Gennett around.
Yes, he has 16 home runs on the year, but those are fluky—his HR/FB rate this season is 25.8 percent, two and a half times greater than anything he’s posted before in his career. If that rate was at his career number, he’d have seven home runs, not 16.
StatCast affirms this luck, as his xwOBA is just .324, compared to his actual mark of .398. Much of that is due to his inflated home run per fly ball rate, but some of it can also be credited to a .342 BABIP.
While his batted ball numbers scream regression, so too do his other stats. Both his walk and strikeout rate have worsened since last season, as he’s now walking just 0.28 times for every strikeout. Put all of that together, and you can see why he won’t keep his .358 on-base percentage.
While Gonzalez has offered a flashback of what he once was this season, the truth is this season is a lot more similar to his 2016—when he had a 4.57 ERA—than it is to his prime. His 2.66 ERA doesn’t show it, but that number hides a 4.06 FIP and 4.22 xFIP that show Gonzalez’s true talent this season.
He’s striking out just 23.3 percent of batters, right around average for his career, but his walk rate has jumped to the highest it’s been since 2011 at 10.2 percent. He’s striking out just 2.27 batters for every walk he issues, not a recipe for a sub-three ERA.
He’s been able to keep his ERA low thus far mainly by luck—his .254 BABIP is 40 points below his career average, and he’s stranding 85.7 percent of batters, second-most among qualified starters. The only player who strands more batters is Clayton Kershaw, who strikes out a lot more batters than Gonzalez.
The other leaderboard that Gonzalez sits near the top of is the lowest first-strike percentages, as he has the second-lowest at just 53.5 percent. If he can’t get ahead in the count, it’ll be tough for him to sustain the success he’s had so far.
Hamels has had somewhat of a resurgence recently, with 15 1/3 innings of shutout baseball in his last two starts that also included 11 strikeouts and just two walks. While that could be viewed in a good light, me being the cynic that I am just sees it as a great sell-high opportunity.
Even in those two starts, Hamels experienced much of the luck that he’s had for the entire season. His ERA in the two games was (obviously) 0.00, but his FIP was 2.09 and his xFIP was 3.73. Now, of course, anyone who allows zero runs is going to have an FIP higher than his ERA, but it’s the way in which Hamels did it that concerns me. He allowed a BABIP of just .179 during the two games while also not allowing a home run on any of the 14 fly balls he induced.
Much of that mirrors his season-long stats, as his BABIP is just .218 despite a .285 career average over his storied career. His HR/FB rate is also slightly low at just 8.8 percent, leading to an FIP of 4.29 and xFIP of 4.91.
His strikeout rate is also down significantly this year, as it’s at 14.3 percent despite never having been below 20 percent previously in his career.
The low strikeout rate is completely deserved as well, as Hamels is currently sporting a career-low swinging strike rate and a career high contact rate. Until he can turn that around, Hamels can’t be counted on to keep up his performance.
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Brian Reiff is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Brian, check out his archive and follow him @briansreiff.
